Sports Just Arbitrage Betting; Highway To Riches Or Just A Fools Paradise?
Sports Arbitrage Betting goes by several other names. These include; Sure Bets and Arb Trading. No matter what the name is, they all refer to the same type of betting: A system whereby you try to find two bookmakers who offer different odds on the outcome of a particular match in such a way that you can make money by placing a bet with both of them.
Under normal circumstances, if you place a bet on both possible outcomes of a sporting event at one particular bookmaker, the odds are calculated in such a way that, although you are guaranteed to win, the cost of the bet will be more than the payout.
Sometimes, however, you will find two bookmakers who don’t share the same views about the likelihood of a particular team winning or losing a match. They would then offer the bets at different odds – and this is where the opportunity to make a;sure win; comes in – by buying the cheapest bet for an outcome at each one of the two bookmakers.
A basic example will illustrate this point better.
Suppose you have two rugby teams playing next weekend. Bookmaker A has these odds: 1.10 on the visiting team and 8.00 on the home team. Bookmaker B offers different odds: 1.20 on the visiting team and 5.00 on the home team.
Now let us work out how much you’ll have to bet on every potential result to make a profit of $4000.
Bookmaker A:$3636.40 at 1.10 wins $4000,$500 at 8 wins $4000
Bookmaker 2:$1666.70 on 1.2 wins $2000,$400 on 5 wins $2000
Studying the above calculations you can undoubtedly immediately see that betting on both possible results at Bookmaker A will incur a cost of $4136.40 and you will only make $4000, with a net cost to you of $36.40. Placing a bet on both outcomes at bookmaker B will cost you $4133.40 and you are still only going to win $4000, with a net cost of $33.40 to you. So its very clear that both bookmaker A and bookmaker B have done their homework – they’re going to return a nice net profit no matter who wins.
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.
Apart from that you must also watch out that your betting costs don;t eat up all your profits. Too many withdrawals might well do just that. Very often there is a fixed cost involved with every withdrawal and deposit you make at a bookmaker. If you don’t watch out, this can soon eat up all your profits from sports arbitrage betting.
Looking for a new way to make bets? If haven’t heard heard of arbitrage betting, you’re missing out! Learn all about sports arbitrage betting here and find out what you’ve been missing!
