As for what you posted in this article, how does support the idea that the market shares offering. Value Betting in Operation: Why the HDAFU Tables Work. Winning Doesn't Have to Be a Secret.
Ever since sports betting has existed, people have been looking for ways to beat the system and work around the variance, or rather, ensure they would win no matter what. While in most cases the best you can do is try to make good value bets and beat the bookies in the long run, arbitrage betting is the one betting method that pretty much ensures a win, as long as you do it right.
Arbitrage betting is the method of using more than one bookmaker in order to find the right odds to make an event profitable for you in either case. To make a very trivial example, let us imagine you were watching finals of a major football tournament. The odds at Bookmaker A on Team A to win the title are 2.10, while the odds at Bookmaker B on Team B to win the title are 2.10.
In this example, placing a $100 bet on Team A with Bookmaker A and $100 bet on Team B with Bookmaker B, will ensure you win $10, in the end, no matter what. With a $200 investment, this is a 5% return of investment, with absolutely no risk.
How To Use Arbitrage Betting
Is Arbitrage Betting Real?
Arbitrage betting is very much a real thing, but there are certain restraining factors. For starters, bookies are now more linked in than ever, and they use much of the same technology in determining their odds. This means you will seldom find opportunities for good arbitrage bets, but they do still happen. Another good way to arb bet is by placing one bet with a local live bookmaker and the other with one of the online bookmakers. Local shops tend to get the odds wrong more often than online ones.
Is Arbitrage Betting Safe and Legal?
When it comes to the legality, there is absolutely nothing illegal about arbitrage betting. In the end, you are simply placing two or three bets with various bookmakers at the odds that they set. However, many bookies don't like players who arb bet and if they decide you are doing this, they could lock your account, lower your betting limits or politely ask you not to bet with them anymore.
As long as you are doing it with safe bookmakers, arbitrage betting will never result in funds confiscation or any other such issues. Some bookmakers actually encourage arbitrage betting, so it is smart to bet with such bookies.
The Downfalls Of Arbitrage Betting?
While arbitrage betting is safe and real, there can be some issues with it. For starters, in order to make any kind of significant profits from it, you will need to have a pretty big bankroll floating around the internet. The edges you can have on arbitrage bets are usually only 2% to 3%, making you place big bets in order to make some real money.
Furthermore, a single mistake in placing the bets can cost you several bets, and the odds are changing so fast that it is possible to make a mistake of such type on occasion. If you are going to arb bet, make sure you are very careful and do so only when you are positive you have an edge.
If you're search for arbitrage betting tips then this post should quell your thirst. I'll especially be looking at the process for finding surebets manually, using software to do it for you, whilst also diving a little further into my thoughts on arbitrage betting as a whole.
But before we go any further, make sure you are clued up on the the fundamentals of arbitrage bets which generally exist in two forms: back and lay betting between a bookmaker and betting exchange, or ‘Dutching' bets across multiple bookmakers.
I have always had a preference for back and lay betting instead of dutching for the simple reason that these bets are easier to find and calculate.
As such, these kind of bets will be the focus of the arbitrage betting tips within this post.
Arbitrage Betting Opportunities
On a daily basis, between bookmakers and exchanges there are hundreds of surebets to profit from across a wide range of sports.
As we know from the earlier linked to article, an ‘arb' is formed when two or more sets of odds from different betting sites can be combined to create a profitable return no matter what the outcome of the event.
The best two sports for finding arbitrage surebets are undoubtedly football and horse racing. Just bare in mind with the latter, that odds can shift very quickly – especially close to race off time.
The window of opportunity for these kind of bets tends to be short-lived as traders at bookmakers race to adjust their odds in line with the live markets. It's important to move fast.
How to Find Surebets Manually
To find a back and lay surebet manually, the best thing you can do is head on over to an odds comparison website such as Oddschecker and look at the overall decimal odds market of a sport on a given day.
Next, in a new browser window, you should open your betting exchange of choice – for me that's Betfair or Smarkets – and load up the same market.
What you want to do now is compare these two windows side by side and look for matches where the best back odds at Oddschecker are GREATER than odds at your chosen betting exchange.
I cannot emphasise enough the importance of comparing windows side-by-side and strongly advise you position them so in order to easily cross-reference odds.
Tabbing through different windows is a time suck and since time can be very important when it comes to finding and setting up a surebet, you should be on top of this.
If you're on a Mac there is an amazing little tool I use called SizeUp which allows you to position windows exactly where you need them to be at the stroke of keyboard shortcut. I highly recommend it. There is likely to be something similar available out there for PCs (let me know in the comments if you know a good tool for this!).
Looking at the Oddschecker horse racing calendar I can see that the largest odds for Big Shoes at the 17:40 Wolverhampton race is 5.0. At Betfair the odds are 4.2. That's a great arb!
Clicking the odds on Oddschecker allow me to see which bookmaker is offering the odds of 5.0.
Once you found a potential surebet it's time to punch the data into a matched betting calculator. If you have not downloaded it already, you can click here to download the matched betting spreadsheet and tracker I created for readers of my blog.
Is Arbitrage Betting Profitable
As you can see – this is actually a pretty tasty surebet arb I've found here:
You can download this matched betting calculator by clicking here.
Off of a £50 back let, entering a lay stake of £60.24 would yield a profit of £7.23. Not bad at all!
Once you have found a good match at a staking level you are comfortable with to find yourself a nice little slice of pie in the middle of the two sets of odds, you can place your bets.
Place your bet at the bookmaker, then the stake as determined by your calculator to lock in your bet.
Once that's done – now we know whether Big Shoes wins the race or not – we're going to make £7.23.
Arbitrage Betting Software
Aside from finding bets manually there also services that will do all the heavy lifting for you.
Over under gambling. Such services work by crawling bookmaker websites non-stop, 24 hours – very much like Oddschecker does – but also comparing those odds to the applicable markets on the betting exchanges.
They perform thousands of calculations per minute and list all the best opportunities available at the moment you view in order of potential profitability. They also contain in-built calculators so there's no to-and-fro between web browser and spreadsheet.
Software obviously comes at a cost, but if you're serious about making money from this low/no-risk form of betting then it's a wise investment. Just think of the time you save by letting the software find the matches for you. That means you can focus on betting more!
With a system that revolves around not hunting for mega wins, but instead slicing small pieces of profit from a pair of matched bets, you need a few bets a day to make a decent return. Time is your most valuable asset. Thus – spending lots of times comparing odds is not really optimal.
But what about arbitrage betting on the whole? Is it a profitable venture? Let's discuss…
Is Arbitrage Betting Worth It?
As a model, arbs or surebets – whatever you want to call them – are essentially risk-free, although I have identified a number of arbitrage pitfalls you should be aware of here in a separate post.
So assuming you're not going to lose any money from this, what have you got to lose by giving this a go?
The thing is… My opinion is that if you are utilising your bookmaker accounts purely for the sake of arbing, you are missing a trick.
More and more people are beginning to realise this now, but it's caused many a point of discussion with readers who have emailed me over the past few years.
The fact of the matter is – when the only activity you have at a bookmaker is taking their very best lines (their out of line odds!) your account comes under scrutiny as somebody who is is not betting for fun or recreationally but more on a professional level.
Bookmakers don't like this.
They know that people arb, and whilst most gambling licenses prohibit bookmakers from unfairly cancelling bets unless the given odds are so drastically different to the rest of the market (known as a palpable error), what they do instead is just restrict your future betting limits or send off your last withdrawal and close your account.
How Does Sports Arbitrage Betting Work
I believe you will make far more money out of each of your betting accounts by utilising advantage play / bonus offers than you would off arbs alone.
Best Arbitrage Betting Tips and Strategy?
My number one arbitrage betting tip – as I write this in 2016 – is to not make use of surebets / arbs exclusively.
If you've been reading this post getting excited by the possibilities of arbitrage betting, then maybe those words sound like a bit of a let down. But they shouldn't. The alternative is better!
Now you have an understanding of how arbitrage betting works and how you could go about finding surebets, you should combine this skill with bookmaker free bets offerings.
This is called matched betting and is a subject I have written about extensively with explanations and examples elsewhere on this blog.
Everything written in this post is applicable to matched betting. It's the same process for finding bets to match your qualifying and bonus bets with. And you can use the same software to take care of this process at warp speed.
It's true that players who make use of bookmaker bonus offers are not immune to account loss. Of course they are.
But bonuses place extra value on each of your bets meaning you don't always have to take the absolute best odds all the time.
Your matched bet doesn't always have to be a surebet or arb because you will making a profit from the received bonus instead. As such, your betting patterns are less likely to be scrutinised.
If using bookmaker bonuses in this way is a new concept to you then I urge you to check out my matched betting guide post and eBook for more information on how it works and how to make the most of it.
How Does Arbitrage Betting Work
If you're already making money with matched betting but are looking to ramp things up then I highly recommend you check out the incredible Profit Maximiser matched betting community which comes bundled with a free version of the software above.
Alternatively, the premium version of the software is available standalone here as mentioned earlier.
Otherwise, feel free to ask any questions in the comments below.
How-to Make More Money:
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Choose this if you have no or very little experience with matched betting.
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