When you place a bet with a bookmaker, you know that usually there are two possible outcomes.
You will either win your wager, or your gamble will lose, and the bookmaker will take your money.
This is the essence of sports betting, but it is not the only way you can wager. There is an option which can offer you a guaranteed profit, but only if you are willing to stump up the cash to cover all the possible outcomes on a sporting event across multiple betting companies.
It is known as an Arbitrage bet, sometimes shortened to an arb or arb bet, and in this post, we are going to explain what an Arbitrage bet is, how you can find Arbitrage betting opportunities and how Arbitrage bettors will place their bets (also known as arbing).
Arbitrage Betting Explained
The essence of an arbitrage bet is simple; it is where a bettor covers all the possible outcomes on a market for a sporting event.
However, the secret behind Arbitrage betting is that sports bettors will use the disparity in odds across their chosen markets, across different betting companies for the same sporting event. Using an arbitrage calculator, they can identify arbitrage opportunities and how much they need to bet on each of the possible results of the market.
By making arb bets in this way, a bettor can ensure that their winning wager from all those they back, will ensure they make a profit, regardless of which bookmaker pays out.
That sounds very enticing, but most arb bets only pay out a profit of between 1% and 5% of the total amount spent making the bets. So, if you spent £100 arbing, you would typically only make a profit of between £1 and £5.
However, while arbing seems simple, behind that gambling process lies some complicated maths, a need for deep pockets and great organisation across several sportsbooks.
Furthermore, arbitrage bettors will need to learn the best ways to identify arbitrage opportunities when they are looking to gamble in this way.
How Can I Find Arbitrage Bets?
It is not easy to spot arbitrage opportunities just by glancing through markets and there’s a good reason for that. Bookmakers don’t like them and so will generally ensure that there are as few options as possible for a bettor to place an Arbitrage bet.
A key thing to remember here is that you will never find Arbitrage bet opportunities with a single bookmaker. That’s because when calculating the odds for a single market, say on who will win a tennis match, they over-round their prices.
This over-rounding ensures that if you back both players to win, then you will always lose money to the bookmaker.
For example, if a tennis match is a very even contest and a bookmaker offers 10/11 on either player to win the match, even if you backed both players at that price, you would make a loss:
If you were to wager an £11 bet on both players to win the tennis match at 10/11, then this would see you return £21 when one of the players wins, but the total cost of covering both bets would be £22.
So, you lose £1 whichever player wins. Not the ideal sports betting strategy!
However, different bookmakers offer different odds for the same markets, and it is by taking advantage of these varying odds, and the degree by which they vary, which allows a bettor to place an arb bet and make a profit.
It is this ability to find an arbitrage opportunity which is arguably the most time-consuming part of making arb bets on any sporting event. Fortunately, there are some very speedy ways you can do this nowadays.
Arbitrage Betting Software
The easiest and quickest way to identify any opportunity for an arbitrage bet is by using specialist software to identify them for you.
When in use, the software will automatically track the prices for thousands of markets available at a wide range of bookmakers and betting exchanges in real time.
When it spots an opportunity to use arbitrage bets to make a guaranteed profit, it will highlight the markets you need to bet on, and crucially, how much you will need to bet on each market to make a profit.
You can then make these bets with the bookmakers indicated, at the prices indicated, to guarantee yourself a profit if it results in a successful arbitrage win.
Using an Arbitrage Betting Calculator
More time consuming, but perhaps more satisfying, is for a bettor to find an arbitrage opportunity themselves. Initially, using a bookmaker odds comparison site, such as Oddschecker.
Here you want to identify a market which has a relatively small number of outcomes, such as the Match Result market when football betting or the Money Line bet in American Football.
What you then look for are the bookmakers offering the highest value odds on each of the markets.
Then, you need to calculate whether this is a genuine arbitrage bet opportunity. To do that you can use an Arbitrage Betting Calculator, which will work it out for you, or you can also do it yourself to work out the Arbitrage Percentage.
This is worked out as follows:
((1/decimal odds for outcome A) x 100) + ((1/decimal odds for outcome B) x 100).
Then you add the two results of those two calculations together to get your Arbitrage percentage.
If the Arbitrage percentage is 100 or greater, then this is NOT an arbitrage bet.
But, if the Arbitrage percentage is less than 100, then this IS a chance to place an arb bet, or as it is sometimes called a Surebet.
However, it is quicker and easier to use an online calculator to help you calculate the arbitrage in sports betting percentage, than doing it yourself.
That’s because once you have worked out whether your bet is an arbitrage bet, you then need to work out how much you need to wager on each option and how much profit each will generate.
Using specialist software to place bets on a sporting event, or an automated calculator will speed up this process a great deal and reduce the chances of human error creeping into the calculations.
Can I Place an Arbitrage Bet Legally with a Bookmaker in the UK?
Some people avoid Arbitrage betting as they think it is illegal. That is not the case in the UK, but that does come with a caveat.
A bookmaker works hard to ensure that their odds, when compared with other bookmakers, makes it extremely difficult to find arbitrage bets. They will adjust odds quickly to ensure any arb bets are closed off quickly and they can cancel a bet if they suspect a bettor is trying to place an arbitrage bet.
Having a bet cancelled can be disastrous for an arbitrage bettor as it means that their carefully structured wager is now just a standard gamble. A potentially heavy loss is on the horizon if their uncancelled bet is not a winner.
Furthermore, if a bookmaker suspects a bettor of arbing, then they can cancel their account and that will certainly ruin any betting experience!
Therefore, while arb bets are not illegal, they do need to be used judiciously and carefully.
However, you can arbitrage bet on some betting exchanges, as these let you back and lay bets like a bookmaker and this form of betting means that arbitrage betting opportunities are more frequent.
Is an Arbitrage Bet the same as Matched Betting?
An arbitrage wager is not the same as Matched Betting, although both use the same principle of using differences in odds to guarantee the bettor a profit.
In an arb wager, the bettor uses their own money. In matched betting, the bettor uses a promotion from a bookmaker to ensure they make a profit.
Is There a Specific Arbitrage Betting Strategy I Should Follow?
Unless you are massively experienced in placing a variety of sports wagers, the best strategy to follow is to use the software and/or automated calculators to help you when placing an arbitrage bet.
They will eliminate a lot of human error when making a wager of this type, which is easy to do when you go through the complex calculations required when making potential arbitrage bets.
Pros:
- You are guaranteed a profit if your arb gamble is successful.
- An arbitrage bet is not illegal.
- Some betting exchanges welcome arbitrage bets.
- For high-stakes gamblers, it can result in a sizable risk-free profit.
Cons:
- Identifying potential arbitrage markets is tricky without the use of software.
- It can be time consuming to gamble using arbitrage bets for the typical bettor.
- Bookmakers do not like arbitrage and can cancel and suspend bets, and even suspend the account of bettors they suspect are arbitrage betting. They are constantly monitoring accounts to root out arbitrage bettors.
- You need considerable funds spread across many different bookmakers to be able to make significant profit this way. This may be beyond the means of most .
We hope you have found our guide to Arbitrage betting useful and that, as a bettor, you are now more cognizant of how to use Arbitrage betting successfully across a range of sports markets.
