Question 1

What is SportsGameOdds?

Accepted Answer

SportsGameOdds is a REST API that delivers real-time betting odds, scores, stats, and settlement data from 80+ sportsbooks across 55+ leagues and 25+ sports. Instead of scraping bookmakers yourself, you get clean, structured data through simple API calls — updated every 30–60 seconds with moneylines, spreads, totals, player props, alternate lines, and more.

Question 2

What sports, leagues, and bookmakers do you cover?

Accepted Answer

We cover 55+ leagues across 25+ sports — including NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, UFC, EPL, La Liga, Champions League, and many more — with odds from 80+ bookmakers like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Pinnacle, Bet365, and PrizePicks. We're continuously adding coverage.

Question 3

What types of betting data do you provide?

Accepted Answer

We provide pre-match and live odds across all major bet types: moneylines, spreads, over/unders, 3-way moneylines, player props, team props, alternate lines, and more — for full game, halves, quarters, and other periods. We also provide live scores, box scores, team and player stats, market settlement/outcomes, consensus odds with vig removed, and deeplinks to bookmaker bet slips.

Question 4

How accurate and fast is your odds data?

Accepted Answer

Odds accuracy is 99.9%+ via direct bookmaker feeds, scores and stats are 99.5%+ verified against official sources, and event metadata is 99.9%+. Odds update every 30–60 seconds on average, with near-instant streaming updates available on the AllStar plan.

Question 5

How does your pricing compare to other odds APIs?

Accepted Answer

We charge per event, not per market or bookmaker. A single NBA game with 100 markets across 20 bookmakers costs 1 object — compared to potentially 2,000 units with per-market pricing from competitors. This makes SportsGameOdds 60–80% cheaper for most use cases, with fully predictable billing. We also offer an perpetually free tier.

Question 6

Is there a free tier I can start with?

Accepted Answer

Yes! Our free Amateur plan includes 10 requests per minute, 2,500 objects per month, and full access to all sports, leagues, and bookmakers. It's perfect for prototyping and evaluating the API.

Question 7

How quickly can I integrate the API?

Accepted Answer

Most developers are up and running within a few hours. We provide official SDKs for JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Go, and Java, plus a quickstart guide with code examples. Sign up, get your API key instantly, and make your first request in minutes.

Question 8

How do I get an API key?

Accepted Answer

Sign up, select a plan (free tier available), and your API key will be delivered to your email immediately.

Question 9

How do I authenticate my requests?

Accepted Answer

Include your API key in one of two ways: as a header (recommended) using x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY, or as a query parameter using ?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY. The header method is recommended because it keeps your API key out of URL logs.

Question 10

What's the fastest way to make my first API call?

Accepted Answer

Check out our quickstart guide for step-by-step instructions with code examples in JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, and more. You'll be up and running in minutes.

Question 11

Do you have SDKs?

Accepted Answer

Yes! Official SDKs are available for TypeScript/JavaScript (npm install sports-odds-api), Python (pip install sports-odds-api), Ruby (gem install sports-odds-api), Go, and Java. SDKs include auto-pagination, type safety, retry logic, and error handling.

Question 12

Do you have a Postman collection?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can download the Postman Collection JSON file from our Postman Collection page.

Question 13

Can I use the API in my frontend/browser?

Accepted Answer

Not recommended, as this exposes your API key publicly. Instead, create a backend proxy that makes API calls on behalf of your frontend, or set up a server-side process that syncs data to your database and have the frontend query that instead.

Question 14

Do you provide live/in-play odds?

Accepted Answer

Yes! We provide live odds for games currently in progress. Use the live=true parameter to filter for only live games, e.g., /events?leagueID=NBA&live=true.

Question 15

Do you support player props?

Accepted Answer

Yes! We provide extensive player prop coverage across all major sports — points, assists, rebounds, passing yards, strikeouts, and many more. Props include settlement data with actual player performance values so you can determine outcomes programmatically.

Question 16

Do you provide alternate lines?

Accepted Answer

Yes, we support alternate lines on both main markets and prop bets including player props. Add the includeAltLines=true parameter when making a request to the /events endpoint. In general, you're more likely to receive alt lines on larger and more popular markets and sportsbooks. Note that alt lines significantly increase response size, so only include them when needed.

Question 17

Does your API include scores, stats, and game results?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We provide live scores, box scores (scores by period), team stats, and player stats for virtually all supported leagues. We also provide settlement/outcome data for odds markets — every odds item includes a score field reflecting the actual result, so you can determine bet outcomes programmatically.

Question 18

Do you have deeplinks to bookmakers?

Accepted Answer

Yes we do. However, we don't guarantee that every market for every bookmaker will include a deeplink. Each event includes event-level deeplinks in links.bookmakers, and individual odds include bookmaker-specific deeplinks. We're continuously adding more deeplink coverage across bookmakers.

Question 19

Do you offer historical odds data?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but availability can vary. Depending on your plan, you may have access to up to 2 years of historical data. We're expanding historical data access in phases: first event metadata and final team scores, then team and player stats with main market opening/closing odds, then prop markets and bookmaker-specific odds. Use the startsAfter and startsBefore parameters to query historical events by date.

Question 20

How do I see what markets are available for a given league?

Accepted Answer

Use the /markets endpoint to get the most up-to-date list of supported markets by league and bookmaker. The endpoint defaults to isSupported=true, returning fully supported markets.

Question 21

What are "objects" and "requests"?

Accepted Answer

A single request is counted as 1 each time you make a call to our API regardless of how much data was returned. An object represents the top-level items returned in a request. So for example if you make a call to the /events endpoint and it returns 10 events, that counts as 10 objects. Unlike other APIs which charge you for each odds market + bookmaker returned, SportsGameOdds lets you get as many odds and bookmakers as you want and only charges you once per game.

Question 22

How many "objects" or "requests" do I need?

Accepted Answer

This depends heavily on your use case. Here are broad rules of thumb: A few hundred to a few thousand objects for local development. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands for small personal projects. Hundreds of thousands for production apps serving real customers. Millions for production apps that sync data frequently across many leagues. Check the /account/usage endpoint to track your current usage.

Question 23

Why is SportsGameOdds cheaper than competitors?

Accepted Answer

Our pricing model charges per event, not per market or bookmaker. A single NBA game with 100 markets across 20 bookmakers costs 1 object with SportsGameOdds vs. potentially 2,000 units with per-market-per-bookmaker pricing. This means 60-80% lower costs, predictable billing, and no need to optimize which data you fetch.

Question 24

What are the rate limits for each plan?

Accepted Answer

Rate limits vary by plan tier. The free Amateur plan includes 10 requests/min and 2,500 objects/month. Paid plans (Rookie, Pro, AllStar) offer progressively higher limits up to unlimited. Check your current usage with the /account/usage endpoint.

Question 25

What happens if I exceed my rate limit?

Accepted Answer

You'll receive a 429 Too Many Requests error. Rate limits reset at the start of each interval. To handle this: wait and retry, check which limit you hit using /account/usage, optimize requests using filters to reduce object count, or upgrade your plan if consistently hitting limits. The response includes a Retry-After header indicating when to retry.

Question 26

How do I check my current usage?

Accepted Answer

Call the /account/usage endpoint. It returns your current request counts and object counts across all rate limit intervals (per-minute, per-hour, per-month). This endpoint doesn't count against your rate limits.

Question 27

How do I upgrade, downgrade, cancel, or update my billing?

Accepted Answer

Visit our account page, enter the email you signed up with, and you'll receive a link to access your subscription portal. From there you can manage your subscription and billing information. We're also happy to make changes for you — fill out our subscription form.

Question 28

What is an oddID?

Accepted Answer

The oddID uniquely identifies a specific betting option using the format: {statID}-{statEntityID}-{periodID}-{betTypeID}-{sideID}. For example, points-home-game-ml-home is the moneyline on the home team (full game), points-all-game-ou-over is the total points over (full game), and assists-LEBRON_JAMES_NBA-game-ou-over is LeBron assists over (player prop).

Question 29

What's the difference between fairOdds and bookOdds?

Accepted Answer

fairOdds are consensus odds with juice/vig removed, representing true probability. bookOdds are consensus odds across bookmakers with juice included. Use fairOdds to calculate true implied probability and compare individual bookmaker odds (in the byBookmaker object) to find value bets.

Question 30

What are the different bet types (betTypeID)?

Accepted Answer

The main bet types are ml (moneyline), sp (spread), ou (over/under), ml3way (3-way moneyline for soccer), yn (yes/no), and eo (even/odd). Each bet type has associated sideIDs — for example, ml has home and away sides, ou has over and under sides.

Question 31

What does statEntityID mean?

Accepted Answer

statEntityID identifies who a stat applies to: home (home team), away (away team), all (combined/total), or a specific playerID for player props (e.g., LEBRON_JAMES_NBA).

Question 32

What are the different periodIDs?

Accepted Answer

periodID defines the time segment of a game: game (full game), reg (regulation only), 1h/2h (halves), 1q-4q (quarters), 1p-3p (hockey periods), 1i-9i (innings), 1s-5s (tennis sets), and ot (overtime). Available periods vary by sport.

Question 33

Why does "points" mean different things in different sports?

Accepted Answer

The statID of "points" represents the primary scoring stat used to determine the winner — actual points in basketball/football, runs in baseball, goals in hockey/soccer, and sets in tennis. This allows consistent querying across sports (e.g., points-home-game-ml-home works for any sport). Sport-specific stats like goals or runs are also available.

Question 34

How do I use pagination (cursor)?

Accepted Answer

Use cursor-based pagination for large result sets. The first request returns a nextCursor value. Pass that cursor to the next request: /v2/events?leagueID=NBA&limit=50&cursor={nextCursor}. Continue until nextCursor is null. Increase the limit parameter (default 10) to get more results per request. Cursors are opaque strings — don't parse or construct them.

Question 35

How do I optimize API response times?

Accepted Answer

Use specific filters for smaller responses — more parameters means faster requests. Specify oddID when you only need specific markets. Avoid includeAltLines=true unless needed as it dramatically increases response size. Use appropriate date ranges with startsAfter/startsBefore. Cache responses since pre-game odds don't change frequently.

Question 36

How often should I poll for odds updates?

Accepted Answer

Recommended polling intervals: 15-30 minutes for games 7+ days out, 5-15 minutes for games 24-48 hours out, 2-5 minutes on game day, 30-60 seconds for live in-game odds. For critical moments, use the streaming API (AllStar plan). Cache data longer for distant games — many markets aren't offered until 24-48 hours before gametime.

Question 37

How does the real-time streaming API work?

Accepted Answer

The Streaming API (AllStar plan) uses WebSockets via the Pusher protocol for instant updates. Three feeds are available: events:live (all live games), events:upcoming (upcoming by league), and events:byid (specific event updates). Get connection details from /v2/stream/events, connect via WebSocket, receive eventID notifications when data changes, then fetch updated data via /v2/events.

Question 38

Why am I getting a 401 error?

Accepted Answer

A 401 Unauthorized error means authentication failed. Common causes: missing the x-api-key header, whitespace in your API key (use trim()), wrong header name (must be exactly x-api-key in lowercase), or an old/revoked key. Make sure you're including the header correctly on every request.

Question 39

Why am I getting a 403 error?

Accepted Answer

A 403 Forbidden error means your key lacks permission. Causes include: cancelled subscription, failed payment, trying to access a feature not in your plan (e.g., streaming requires AllStar), or using the wrong API version. Check the error message field for specifics.

Question 40

Why am I getting a 429 error?

Accepted Answer

A 429 Too Many Requests error means you've exceeded rate limits. Wait for limits to reset (each minute/hour/month), check which limit you hit using /account/usage, optimize requests using filters to reduce objects returned, or upgrade your plan.

Question 41

How should I handle errors in my code?

Accepted Answer

Implement retry logic with exponential backoff. For 429 errors, wait and retry after the Retry-After period. For other 4xx errors, don't retry — fix the request. For 5xx errors, retry with increasing delays.

Question 42

What if I need a league or bookmaker you don't currently support?

Accepted Answer

We can add additional leagues, regional bookmakers, and exchange data through custom plans. Most additions can be completed within 1-2 weeks.

Question 43

Do you offer custom or enterprise plans?

Accepted Answer

Yes. If our standard plans don't fit your needs — whether you need higher rate limits, dedicated infrastructure, custom data feeds, additional leagues or bookmakers, or SLA guarantees — we'd love to talk.

Question 44

Can I get a bulk or annual discount?

Accepted Answer

Yes, we offer discounts for annual commitments and high-volume use cases.

Question 45

Do you offer real-time streaming or webhook-style updates?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Our AllStar plan includes a real-time streaming API using WebSockets that notifies you instantly when odds change, events start or finish, or scores update. Contact api@sportsgameodds.com to learn more or upgrade.

Question 46

How do I report a data issue or request a feature?

Accepted Answer

Use the contact form or email api@sportsgameodds.com. For data issues, include the eventID if possible. We typically respond within one business day and resolve data issues within 1–2 weeks.

Question 47

What level of support do you provide?

Accepted Answer

All plans include email support and access to our documentation. Paid plans receive priority response times. Enterprise customers get dedicated support with faster SLAs.

Question 48

How much can I earn as an affiliate?

Accepted Answer

You can earn up to 20% recurring commission on every subscription you refer. There are no limits on commission or earnings. Subscription plans range from $100 to $500+/month, so earnings compound quickly as you refer more customers.

Question 49

Is this recurring commission?

Accepted Answer

Yes! You earn commission every month for as long as your referrals remain subscribed. Our API is a sticky product with low churn, so your earnings compound over time.

Question 50

How do I get my unique referral link?

Accepted Answer

After signing up for the affiliate program, you'll receive a unique referral link in your affiliate dashboard. Share this link anywhere — your website, blog, social media, Discord, or email.

Question 51

How should I promote SportsGameOdds?

Accepted Answer

The best approach depends on your audience. Common methods include writing blog posts or tutorials about sports data APIs, sharing on developer forums and communities, mentioning us in YouTube videos or podcasts, and including your referral link on your website or in email newsletters.

Question 52

How do I get paid as an affiliate?

Accepted Answer

Affiliate payouts are processed through our affiliate platform. You can track your earnings and request payouts from your affiliate dashboard.

Question 53

Can I track my earnings and referrals?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Your affiliate dashboard provides real-time tracking of clicks, referrals, conversions, and earnings so you always know how your promotions are performing.

Question 54

What are the affiliate terms and conditions?

Accepted Answer

Full affiliate terms and conditions are available when you sign up for the program. In general, we require honest promotion, no misleading claims, and no spam. You may not bid on our brand terms in paid search ads without permission.

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