Live vs. Pre-Match Odds

SharpAPI collects odds from sportsbooks in two states: pre-match (before a game starts) and live (in-play, after the game begins). These are fundamentally different markets with different update patterns, depth, and reliability — especially across different book types.

What Is Pre-Match?

Pre-match odds are set before a game begins. This is where:

Market depth is greatest — books offer their full menu of lines, spreads, totals, and player props
Updates are measured — lines move hours or days before tip-off, usually in response to sharp action or news
All books participate fully — every book in the API has pre-match coverage for their supported sports

Pre-match is the backbone of most +EV and arbitrage workflows. The overwhelming majority of odds in the API at any given time are pre-match.

What Is Live (In-Play)?

Live odds are active during a game. They reflect real-time probabilities as the game state changes — a team scores, a player gets hurt, or time runs out. You can filter to live-only odds using the live=true query parameter.


# Live odds only
GET /api/v1/odds?live=true&sport=basketball&league=nba
 
# Pre-match odds only
GET /api/v1/odds?live=false&sport=basketball&league=nba

Each odds item carries an is_live boolean field indicating its state at the time of collection:


{
  "sportsbook": "pinnacle",
  "event_id": "nba_cavaliers_celtics_2026-04-18",
  "sport": "basketball",
  "league": "nba",
  "market_type": "moneyline",
  "odds_american": -140,
  "is_live": true
}

How Books Deliver Odds

The delivery mechanism is the root cause of the staleness differences between book types — not just polling interval.

Push vs. Poll

Book	Delivery mechanism	Source latency
Pinnacle	MQTT push — SharpAPI subscribes to Pinnacle’s WebSocket/MQTT feed; odds arrive as the book streams them	p50 ~0.8 s, p95 ~3.8–4.2 s (tail latency during high-reconnect windows)
DraftKings	HTTP poll — SharpAPI fetches the DK endpoint on a schedule	p50 ~8 s, p95 ~21 s
FanDuel	HTTP poll — SharpAPI fetches the FD endpoint on a schedule	p50 ~2.7 s, p95 ~5.9 s
Other sharp books	MQTT / WS push (Bookmaker, Circa) or fast poll (Bet365)	Similar to Pinnacle
US retail books	HTTP poll	Similar to DK/FD

Pinnacle’s MQTT push means SharpAPI receives a price the moment the book sends it — no polling delay sits in the path. For DraftKings and FanDuel, the p50/p95 numbers above reflect the full round-trip: time from when the book updates its line to when SharpAPI has the new price. These numbers come from April 2026 Prometheus measurements.

Pinnacle’s p95 tail latency (3.8–4.2 s) reflects reconnect overhead during high-volatility windows. Infrastructure work is ongoing to reduce this. The median (0.8 s) is a reliable guide for normal play — use the p95 to size your tolerance budget for live-sensitive strategies.

How Books Behave During Live Play

This is where expectations diverge significantly between sharp books and US retail books.

Sharp Books (Pinnacle, Circa, Bookmaker)

Sharp books treat live betting as a core product:

Rarely suspend — markets stay open during scoring plays, injuries, and timeouts. Pinnacle’s live suspension rate is a fraction of US books.
Deep market menus — Pinnacle offers 20–50+ live markets per event across major sports, including live spreads, totals, alternative lines, and team totals
Push delivery — Pinnacle MQTT feed typically delivers under 1 s median; prices reflect game state quickly
Continuous price discovery — the live line is the sharpest available read on current win probability

Pinnacle’s live odds are used as the sharp reference price in +EV calculations, just as they are for pre-match.

Pinnacle, Circa, Bookmaker, and other sharp books require Sharp tier or higher. Requesting sharp book data on Free, Hobby, or Pro tier returns a 403 tier_restricted error.

US Retail Books (DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars)

US regulated books have live betting, but with important limitations:

Behavior	Sharp Books	US Books (DK/FD)
Delivery mechanism	MQTT / WS push	HTTP poll
Staleness (p50)	~0.8 s (Pinnacle)	8 s (DK) / 2.7 s (FD)
Staleness (p95)	~3.8–4.2 s (Pinnacle)	21 s (DK) / 5.9 s (FD)
Market suspension during scoring plays	Rare	Very frequent
Market suspension during reviews/timeouts	Occasional	Standard practice
Live market menu depth	20–50+ markets	3–10 markets
Live props availability	Yes (Pinnacle)	Limited or none

Suspension is the key issue. When an NBA team scores, DraftKings and FanDuel typically pull their live moneylines, spreads, and totals off the board while they reprice. During peak action (4th quarter of a close game), these books may be suspended more often than they are open. This is a regulatory risk-management pattern, not an API limitation.

When a DK or FD market is suspended, it simply disappears from the API — there is no status: suspended field. If you call GET /api/v1/odds?live=true&sportsbook=draftkings during a scoring drive, you may get zero results for that event even though the game is in progress.

What This Means in Practice

If you are building a live odds dashboard that needs continuous coverage without gaps, you cannot rely on DraftKings or FanDuel alone. Plan for:

Frequent null windows — design your frontend to handle “no current price” gracefully
Data staleness — the last live price you saw from DK may be 30–90 seconds old before markets reopen

If you are building a live +EV scanner, the essential piece is Pinnacle as your sharp reference. Without a live Pinnacle price, you cannot calculate whether DK/FD are offering value. This requires Sharp tier.

If you are building a pre-match tool, DraftKings and FanDuel are fully viable on Free tier. Pre-match coverage is comprehensive, suspension is not a factor, and update frequency is more than sufficient.

Book Coverage Summary

Book	`has_live_odds`	Practical Live Quality	Tier Required
Pinnacle	Yes	Excellent — deep, fast, rarely suspends	Sharp
Bookmaker	Yes	Excellent — wide market menu, global	Sharp
Circa Sports	Yes	Good — sharp US book, focused menu	Sharp
Bet365	Yes	Good — large international menu	Pro
BetMGM	Yes	Moderate — regular suspensions	Hobby
Caesars	Yes	Moderate — regular suspensions	Hobby
DraftKings	Yes	Limited — frequent suspensions, thin menu	Free
FanDuel	Yes	Limited — frequent suspensions, thin menu	Free
Novig	No	Pre-match only	Free
Polymarket	No	Pre-match only (prediction market)	Free

has_live_odds: true means the sportsbook offers in-play betting and SharpAPI collects those prices when they are available. It does not guarantee continuous coverage — US books suspend frequently enough that live data has meaningful gaps.

Recommended Approaches by Use Case

Live +EV or Live Arbitrage

Required: Sharp tier (for Pinnacle as reference)
Pattern: Poll ?live=true&sportsbook=pinnacle as your reference price; poll US books for the soft price; compute EV when both are non-null
Handle: null soft prices gracefully — they occur constantly during live play

Live Odds Display (Dashboard)

Viable: Pro tier or higher
Pattern: Fetch ?live=true on a 5–10 second interval; display last-seen price with a “last updated” timestamp; show a “market suspended” state when no price is returned
Avoid: assuming a missing price means odds are unavailable forever — markets typically reopen within 30–90 seconds

Pre-Match Only (Most Common)

Viable: Free tier with DraftKings + FanDuel
Pattern: Use ?live=false if you want to explicitly exclude in-play lines from your results
Note: Omitting the live parameter returns both pre-match and live odds mixed together

Free tier is capped at 12 requests per 60 seconds. This limit alone rules out live polling regardless of book — at a 5-second interval you would hit the cap in under a minute. Live betting strategies require Pro tier or higher.

Odds Snapshot — live query parameter reference
Sportsbooks — Full book list with has_live_odds and tier requirements
+EV Opportunities — Pre-computed +EV using Pinnacle as the sharp reference