Sports Arbitrage Betting; The Road To Millions Or A Pipe Dream?
Sports Arbitrage Betting – “Arb Trading” – “Sure Bets” – and “scalping” all basically mean the same thing: the idea of realizing a profit from the fact that different bookmakers have different views about the statistical probability of a particular event happening.
Ordinarily if you should place two bets on the outcome of a specific match at one broker, you will a) be sure to win and b) be sure to pay more for the two bets combined than what you will win after the match. This is of course how bookmakers make a profit – regardless of the outcome of the match.
Should you be able to find two bookmakers who have different views about the outcome of a particular match, so they offer different odds, you might well be able to turn this to your advantage and make a profit by placing bets at both of them. You do this by placing the cheapest bet for a specific outcome at each one of them.
Let us take a simple example…
Suppose you have two soccer teams playing the coming weekend. Bookmaker 1 has the following odds: 1.10 on the home team and 8.00 on the visiting team. Bookmaker 2 has different odds: 1.20 on the home team and 5.00 on the visiting team.
Now calculate how much you have to place on each possible outcome to make a profit of $2000.
Bookmaker 1: $1818.20 on 1.1 wins $2000, $250 on 8 wins $2000
Bookmaker 2: $6666.80 on 1.2 wins $8000, $1600 on 5 wins $8000
A quick look at the above calculation shows clearly that if you should bet on both players at bookmaker X, the total cost would be $7272.80 plus $1000 = $8282.80. You will win $8000, but at a cost of 8282.80, resulting in a net loss of 282.80. Similarly, should you bet on both players at bookmaker 2 the total cost will be $8266.80 with a guaranteed net loss of $266.80. Now you see how bookies make their money, don’t you?
Nonetheless, if you bet on the underdog at bookmaker 1 (8.00) and the front-runner at Bookmaker 2 (1.20) you would have to bet only $1916.70 in order to win $2000. That is a sure win of $83.30 since you’re using the arbitrage opportunity arising from the different odds offered by the two bookmakers. Regardless of who wins, you will still win $2,000, and you will have only paid out $1916.70.
Sports arbitrage betting might therefore sound complicated, but is in fact quite simple. The challenge is to study odds offered by potentially hundreds of bookmakers to find an arbitrage opportunity and then to act quickly to make use of that opportunity.
Don’t make too many deposits and withdrawals though – they come at a price. If your bookmaker charges you a fixed amount every time you deposit or withdraw money, this can very quickly add up and leave you with no profits to show from your sports arbitrage better at all. Similarly you might incur losses as a result of fluctuating currency exchange rates and canceled matches, resulting in canceled bets.
Searching for a different way to gamble? If you’ve never heard of arbitrage betting, you’re missing out! Learn all about sports arbitrage betting here and find out what everyone is talking about!