Football Arbitrage

  1. Arbitrage betting involves covering every outcome of an event. In order to guarantee a profit no matter the outcome. Here is an example of a number of arbitrage bets found using the software rebelbetting. For example if we take one of the arbitrage bets above. There is a 3.7% arbitrage bet between The New Saints and Bala in the Welsh division.
  2. Today we discuss how I managed to get banned from sports betting, but we also discuss how to implement arbitrage betting strategies to make you money!Arbitra.

Football Arbitrage Betting Calculator

Arbitrage betting, also known as arbing, is something taken from stock markets and retail. In these instances, arbitrage is the action of buying an asset in one market to sell it simultaneously in another market at a higher price. The difference between the buying and selling price makes it possible to guarantee a profit.

Arbitrage is an advanced sports betting strategy that comes from the financial world. This strategy involves multiple wagers on the same game in order to guarantee a profit. An opportunity to arbitrage for a game is more about making money than betting and rooting on a particular team.

To be clear, arbitrage is a sports betting strategy that guarantees a profit. This isn’t a get rich quick scheme and isn’t illegal. It takes effort to find an arbitrage opportunity. This kind of gambling isn’t for everyone, but all sports bettors could use this tool as part of their wagering plans.

This might sound too good to be true but it isn’t. The most difficult part about arbitrage is actually finding the opportunity.

What is arbitrage?

In the financial world, arbitrage is considered “the simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset to profit from an imbalance in the price. It is a trade that profits by exploiting the price differences of identical or similar financial instruments on different markets or in different forms.”

Arbitrage is similar for sports bettors. This betting strategy involves placing a wager on all possible outcomes of an individual game or event so that that there’s a guaranteed profit regardless of the winner. The name might sound complicated but the idea of arbitrage is actually quite simple.

How to arbitrage in sports betting

The goal of arbitrage betting is to find inefficiencies in the sports betting market in order to guarantee a profit. Sportsbooks often set odds so that they have even (or close to even) money wagered on both sides. There are times when sportsbooks have different odds from one another and this results in an opportunity to arbitrage a game.

Arbitrage betting is done by placing multiple wagers on different outcomes of a single sports event. One of the wagers will win while the other wager will lose. If done correctly, the result will be a small win for the bettor regardless of which side wins.

Arbitrage math and results

An example should help explain how to arbitrage a game.

New York Yankees vs. Houston Astros

  • Sportsbook 1 odds: Yankees +110
  • Sportsbook 2 odds: Astros +110

In this example, a bettor will wager $100 on each team. The total amount of wagers for this game will be $200. Regardless of which team wins the game, the bettor will be paid $110 for a winning wager plus the original $100 for a total of $210.

Altogether there was $200 wagered on this baseball game. There is a guaranteed return of $210 no matter who wins the game. The total profit of this investment was $10. This is a guaranteed 5% return; that’s solid for a short-term investment.

The return will remain the same if a bettor can risk more than $200. Grinding out small wins over time can help a bettor grow their bankroll. In the example above, the rate of return will be 5% no matter how much money is wagered.

If the bettor can find a larger moneyline spread, they will profit greater. For example, if there is a moneyline available for +120 on both sides of the game above, the profit for the bettor will be $20 for the same $200 wager. That’s a 10% return on the investment. Again, not too shabby for having money in play for three to five hours of a baseball game.

An arbitrage opportunity can be useful for any sized bankroll. A larger bettor might be able to risk $2,000 on the same game. The 5% return, in this case, would give the bettor a profit of $100 while the 10% return would return $200.

Having a large bankroll helps grow profits quicker but isn’t necessary. Anyone can use arbitrage to supplement their sports betting bankroll.

Lastly, the odds don’t have to be the same for both wagers. The example above is just keeping the math simple.

Line shopping

Line shopping is important for all sports bettors but especially when looking for an arbitrage opportunity. Finding the best odds for a game will take place at multiple sportsbooks. Unfortunately arbitraging a game isn’t a get rich quick scheme. Finding the right odds takes time and effort. Having said that, this extra work also helps a bettor become profitable.

Even if this isn’t a particularly fun strategy, the underlying approach can be helpful for all sports bettors. Line shopping is one way to be a more profitable sports bettor – and it isn’t difficult in most states that have multiple legal sportsbooks.

The process of line shopping isn’t difficult but it does take a time switching between apps and websites to compare the information. Visiting different sportsbooks to find the best lines and odds will help a bettor in multiple ways.

An arbitrage opportunity will always be profitable. Finding the best moneyline for an event will obviously pay more money. Finding the best point spread for a game increases the chance that a team will cover and the bettor will win the wager.

There’s always an upside to placing bets with the best odds available.

Arbitrage isn’t for everyone

Sports betting arbitrage is an advanced strategy and it’s not for everyone. All sports bettors want to win but they have different motivations. Recreational sports bettors often seek to have some action on the game they’re watching or the team they’re rooting for.

Sure all bettors want to win but sometimes the goal is to have fun watching the game and to win money based on predicting the outcome correctly.

Professional sports bettors are strictly gambling to make a profit. These bettors appreciate being able to find arbitrage opportunities. Pro sports bettors are always looking for ways to make money when wagering on sports and are typically the type of bettor most open to arbitrage.

There’s a large number of sports bettors that fall in between these two extremes. These bettors will put in the work to find the best information and odds for games they’d like to wager. Many will do the extra work to find an arbitrage situation because generating a profit is the most fun part of gambling. However, arbitrage betting takes time and even an advanced recreational bettor may not have time to always seek out opportunities.

There are pros and cons to all kinds of sports wagers. Arbitrage is a great opportunity to generate small guaranteed profits on a game. This is another great tool available to sports bettors.


(1) Arbitrage between Two Bookmakers in One Betting Market

This is the classic form of sports arbitrage (sure bets) in football betting.

The arbitrage opportunity relies on at least two bookmakers evaluating the same event differently, each offering different odds. Taking advantage of these price differences is the key to creating an arbitrage, or “arb”.

For example, bookmaker ‘A’ offers a price of 2.04 on the ‘Over 2.5 Goals’ market, whilst bookmaker ‘B’ is pricing the ‘Under 2.5 Goals’ bet for the same match at 2.08.

This is an arbitrage opportunity, or “surebet”. Both prices return more than even money, and of course one of the bets will definitely be a winner.

To ensure the same profit whatever the outcome, the stake money is weighted on each outcome. With bookmaker ‘A’, 50.49 units are wagered at 2.04 odds; with bookmaker ‘B’, 49.51 units are placed at 2.08 odds.

The total stake is 100 units, and no matter which bet wins, the guaranteed return is 2.99 units (almost 3% profit on the total stake).

Sometimes, “arbs” with 5% or more return may be found in the market, although larger arbs occur more seldom in this “classic arbitrage/surebet market”.

The situation described above is the easy option. For more advanced gamblers who enjoy thinking outside the box there is another type of arbitrage opportunity available, and these arbs often achieve a higher return. This of course relies on knowing where to look…

(2) Cross Market Arbitrage Betting

Due to the explosive growth of the Internet and the increase of betting customers, bookmakers now offer more and more betting options.

Football Arbitrage Trading

This means that the market is not limited to the historical standard sports betting markets such as gambling on the outcome of a match (home, draw, or away), or on goals; there are now many more betting choices within a single game and thus more arbitrage openings.

For some of the more popular matches there are often over 100 different bet types available in the market.

This enormous coverage opens up cross-market arbitrages opportunities but, in order to find them, creative thinking is required.

The Big Advantage of Cross Market Arbitraging

Many cross market arbitrages are not obvious; therefore, the opportunity remains viable for a much longer time. Surebets between bookmakers in only one betting market have a limited lifespan, sometimes only minutes as demand and supply in the market fluctuates.

It is said that there are about 60,000 different combinations of arbitrages using cross market methods, and this means that everyone seriously interested in arbitrage will certainly be able to identify a preferred strategy for identifying unusual arbitrage groupings…

Some Cross Market Arbitrage Examples:

  • Team 1: More than 0.5 goals
    Team 2: Clean Sheet
  • Match result: Draw
    Draw no bet: Team 1
    Asian Handicap Team 2: +/- 0
  • Total goals: 1
    Total goals: 2
    Total goals: Over 2.5
    Time of first goal: No Goals (or 0-0)
  • Match result: Draw
    Draw no bet: Team 1
    HT/FT: Team 1/Team 2
    HT/FT: Draw/Team 2
    HT/FT: Team 2/Team 2

Caution! Not everyone bookmaker has the same bets on offer, and with some, a bet is not necessarily known by the same name as it is with others. Equally, the same bets may be subject to different conditions with different bookmakers.

Cross Market Arbitraging Requires Thinking outside the Box

Cross market arbitraging does not only entail placing straight forward bets, e.g. final score: 0-0, goals by only one team, and both teams to score. There are plenty of cross market arbitrages such as: Match result = draw, Draw no bet: team 1, and Asian Handicap team 2: +/- 0.

In this case, if the match finishes drawn the stakes for bets 2 and 3 are returned, but if team 1 or 2 win the game then the stakes for the other 2 bets are lost. This certainly requires some thinking and accurate calculating before committing to place the bets for a guaranteed profit.

Football Arbitrage Video

Recommended Sports Arbitrage Services

If you fancy a taste of cross-market arbitraging, then consider subscribing with an automated arb finding service. Unfortunately, none of the really good sites are free, and usually there are also no free trials.

However, please note the one service we will document below have their software available for free download to demonstrate arbs in the range up to 0.6% (Rebel Betting). Of course, profits this small are hardly worthwhile, so you will have to subscribe to see the higher arbs.

Arbitrage services are not cheap and one of the reasons is certainly the extremely high programming effort required, which does not stop after the software has been developed. You will always see new bookmakers and/or new betting types added to the armoury at your disposal.

On the other hand, there is a limited customer base which is interested in purchasing niche products such as these. The competition between arb finding software producers is high, and many of these providers share a relatively small market of perhaps just 20,000 serious customers worldwide.

The best automated arb finding service
which we have tested at the time of writing is:

Rebel Betting:Different packages available at different costs to suit your budget.

Rebelbetting provide a wide range of cross market bets and also update them as soon as they are detected. Their tutorials are comprehensive and ultimately they are easy to use.

Football

If you thought cross market arbs were limited to three or four markets then you may be surprised to see some opportunities flagged up involving up to 20 bets on the same game.

Cross market arbitrage is a real science and turns betting from a form of gambling into pure investing.

Football Arbiter