Match is Suspended, what about your bet?

Suspended Tennis

❓For what reason is a match suspended?
🔍What does the sportsbook do in this case?
🔍How to avoid losing my bet in a tournament?
📊How do suspended games impact my parlays?

Bettors have to deal with unpredictable situations. A match being suspended or postponed can leave you in gambling limbo. Given that these circumstances are not very common, bettors are not always familiar with the protocol in place. It’s often hidden away in the small print, and only becomes relevant when you are faced with such a situation.

You could be left hanging on a leg of a parlay. Your wager might have been minutes from landing. Perhaps you need to know how the sportsbook will treat the suspended match before you consider placing wagers on other games/events.

These are all things that sports bettors will have at the forefront of their mind. So, let’s look into what happens to your bet when a match is suspended.

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For what reason is a match suspended?

Sporting games and matches can be suspended for a variety of reasons. These can vary from a medical emergency to extreme weather. There’s a vast number of potential reasons for a match being suspended, and each of those has different real-world implications.

If betting on the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL or MLS, the reasons a game could be suspended are different. Of course, rain is a popular reason for suspension in baseball and many other summer sports. Rain isn’t going to halt an NFL game, but a drastic snowstorm could have an impact if the teams are playing at an outdoor venue.

Security concerns, a player being in a life-threatening condition or issues with the venue can all cause a sporting fixture to be suspended. Lighting or air conditioning problems have caused matches to be suspended in the past, and that’s bound to be an issue in years to come, too.

There’s always the possibility of a bizarre reason to cause a match to be suspended. That could be anything from referees getting injured to a swarm of insects. Each league will have different regulations in place when it comes to suspending games, and there will be a process for suspending and either restarting or replaying the fixture.

What does the sportsbook do when a game is suspended?

The process for resolving bets when a game is suspended is pretty uniform across sports and sportsbooks. If a game is suspended, all unsettled wagers will be voided. The fixture resuming at a later date will not see these bets reopened. Instead, your bets will be marked as voided and you will be able to bet on the rescheduled match.

If you have wagers that were settled before the game was suspended, sportsbooks will generally allow you to keep those winnings. This includes things like an anytime touchdown scorer.
Say you’d backed Tyreek Hill to score anytime and he got a touchdown in the first quarter. If the game was suspended at half-time, your wager on Hill should payout and you will not have to return the winnings.
In contrast, if you’d backed the Golden State Warriors -5.5 over the Sacramento Kings, and the game was suspended at the end of the third quarter, your wager would be marked as void, even if the Dubs were winning by 20. Of course, some books might make a good faith payout in such circumstances, but their terms and conditions would allow them to simply void all wagers on the game.

It's always worth looking through a sportsbook’s history with suspended games before wagering with them. These situations will be covered in their terms. A bit of research into sportsbook reviews can also give an indication of how they treat bettors when freak events take place.

How to avoid losing my bet in a tournament?

There is no surefire way to avoid losing bets in any tournament. Bettors can, however, improve their chances of winning bets by developing a tried and tested strategy. There are different ways to approach online gambling, from conducting hours of research to backing hunches.

The most successful gamblers will back up their picks through a combination of news and statistics. It’s a numbers game after all, so a thorough understanding of probabilities and projections is a must if you want to avoid losing bets.

When it comes to the risk of a game being suspended and seeing your bet voided, there isn’t much bettors can do. You could steer clear of games with a clear weather risk, but that’s not always feasible and how much can we really rely on weather forecasts?

Bettors should always be working on their betting strategy. There are tweaks to be made, whether that’s about the timing of your bets, the markets you wager on or even the statistics that you deem most significant. You are going to place losing bets, but it’s about projecting the probability of a wager to find the best possible value.

Why do bets sometimes say they are suspended?

Sportsbooks will suspend certain markets and cashouts when games are in action. The market could be removed or altered due to in-game events. Markets can also be suspended before a game if there is news that has caused a major change, such as an injury to a key player or drastically changing playing conditions.

If a game is being played, you could see the game total suspended when runners are in scoring position. You might not be able to bet on Patrick Mahomes’ passing yards when the Chiefs are driving down the field, because the action will be happening too quickly for bookies to keep up.

If you find a market you’re interested in is taken down, this will often only be temporary. In the case of live games, these markets are often available again within a few minutes so make sure to check back.

How do suspended games impact my parlays?

Suspended or postponed games will not wipe out your entire parlays (unless it’s a same-game parlay or bet builder). As explained above, unsettled wagers from suspended games will be voided.

Those legs of the parlay will then be voided. The result is your wager being downgraded, so if you initially had a fourfold, this will now become a standard treble if one leg has been voided due to the fixture getting suspended.

Of course, this isn’t ideal for bettors, and it means you will be getting shorter odds. Your bet is still alive, though, and the chance for winnings is still there if your remaining selections land.