Glossary / API integration / Commence time
A ParlayAPI glossary entry

Commence time

Commence time is the scheduled start timestamp of an event, expressed in ISO-8601 UTC. It is the canonical pre-game cutoff: the boundary between pre-match and in-play prices, and the conventional snapshot moment for closing lines.

In practice

# ISO-8601, always UTC
        "commence_time": "2026-09-09T00:20:00Z"
        # Convert to local kickoff at display time, never in storage

Storing everything in UTC and converting at the edge avoids the classic scheduling bugs (DST shifts, West Coast night games crossing the date line). Commence time also anchors grading conventions: “the close” usually means the last snapshot at or just before this timestamp - see closing-line snapshot conventions.

Where it shows up in ParlayAPI

Every event payload carries commence_time; the historical archive uses it as the closing-snapshot anchor, and time-window queries on the odds endpoints filter by it. Games past their commence time transition to in-play handling.

Related terms

Closing lineThe market's final pre-game price. Event IDA stable identifier for a game. Live betting (In-play)Betting after the game has started. Closing Line Value (CLV)The gap between your price and the close.