The Ultimate Guide to Arbitrage Betting
The world of online betting over the past few years grew in another very high level, and all the bookmakers want to provide the best to its players, and of course, all of them have completely different minds about what the best its. On the other side players always want to earn some money and enjoyment from betting. An Arbitrage betting, or also knows as arbing, is taken from trading on the financial and stock markets. Arbitrage is simply buying from the one market and selling it for a higher price. For Arbitrage Betting things are quite the same, you bet on one bookmaker for one option, and place the exact same amount on another bookmaker against the same option. This literally guarantees a profit.
What is Arbitrage Betting?
As we already mentioned Arbitrage betting is a betting option, which guarantees you a profit. You simply bet on an exact outcome on one bookmaker and also bet on another bookmaker against that outcome, you simply cover all the possible results. This is only possible because online bookmakers have different opinions about each event, which means they also offer different odds for betting. Arbitrage betting guarantees your profit, but you should know that you are not going to make a lot, which of course is not a reason to give up. The more you bet, the more you make, so for example, if you bet 100 dollars, you can make about 5 dollars, but if you bet 1000 dollars, you can take 50 dollars.
Arbitrage betting is not the easiest way to learn, but if you do you are going to have a consistent daily profits. The first thing, which you should notice is that most online bookmakers offer an exchange bets which simply is bettings against a certain outcome, and when you place an exchange bet, and also a bet for the same outcome on another bookie, you literally have a secure bet, with 100% of winning. As you can see things are not quite easy as they look so, if you are new to arbitrage betting do not be jealous and do not jump ahead before you learn at least the basics, which actually can be learned really fast.
What is an Arb?
To begin the learning process, let’s start with the term “Arb”, which describes an arbitrage betting from a matched betting point of view. But, for matched betting, you never look for arb because it cannot be profitable. Arb is simply when the back odds are higher at the bookmaker than the lay odds, which means it is impossible to make a clear profit, no matter what the final outcome is.
Arbitrage Betting Types
In order to learn arbitrage betting, you should notice that there are a few arbitrage betting types, which move that kind of betting in a completely different direction. And here we are not talking about betting on different sports, but a different type of arbitrage betting like:
- Arbitrage Exchange Betting - when you place on an exact outcome on one bookmaker and bet on exchange for the same outcome,
- Arbitrage Without Exchange Betting - When you cover all the possible outcomes on bookmakers.
More information about all types of Arbitrage betting, you are going to see below.
What are the benefits of Arbitrage Betting?
Arbitrage Betting has a lot of benefits for you. Actually, most of the bookmakers are not very happy about players arbing, but there is simply not a way to stop this, because everything is legal and completely allowed. Arbitrage betting is simply a way to receive a sure profit, so as you can imagine there are a lot of benefits:
- Arbitrage Betting is a source of sure consistent income,
- Arbitrage betting is completely legal,
- Arbitrage Betting can be your main source of income,
- Arbitrage Betting can be learned very fast,
- Profits are not high, but are sure.
How does Arbitrage Betting Work?
As you already know Arbitrage Betting is simply a “Buy low, sell high” for online betting. With that type of betting, you have a sure profit and zero chance of losing. Basically arbitrage betting is betting on an exact outcome on one bookmaker, and on another one, you can bet against that same outcome, in order to make a net amount of clear profit. No matter if you are arbitrage betting by using exchange bet or not, the process is quite similar, your purpose of arbitrage betting is to make a clear profit, no matter if you are using exchange bets, which simply is betting against the outcome, which you place on one bookmaker, or without exchange betting, where you cover all the possible outcomes.
Arbitrage Betting More In-Depth
By now, things about Arbitrage betting are quite good, you just place some money in order to make some clear profits, but are things actually that good, and how much can you make by doing arbitrage betting?
How much profit you can make doing arbitrage betting?
There is no second mind that you can make a clear profit by doing arbitrage betting, but actually how much you can make. Online bookmakers know that players are trying to arb and to prevent this are offering lower odds, which makes arbitrage betting very hard. Most of the time, you can earn between 1% and 5% net profit of the bet you placed.
Example:
In order to visualize how exactly you can win by doing an arbitrage betting, let’s see an example when you are about to spend 100 dollars. If you staked 100 dollars, in most cases you are going to make between 1 and 5 dollars. And actually 5 dollars is quite a big profit.
In order to make more money from arbitrage betting, you can place multiple bets per day, which will guarantee you a profit of about 10 dollars, of course, this will be only in the beginning, and of course, depending on how much you started with.
In order to be good at arbitrage betting, the best advice is to be very quick, because when a bookmaker see that a lot of players are betting on the same event on an exact same outcome, the team of that bookmaker is trying to balance the odds with other bookmakers, which will make arbing impossible.
Arbitrage Betting via Betting Exchanges
Arbitrage betting as you already saw can be done using a lot of different methods and bookmakers. The first option, which actually is very easy is to do arbitrage betting via betting exchange, which is available in almost every single online bookmaker.
As you already know arbitrage betting is betting on one online bookmaker for exact markets and in another bookie, you bet against that outcome. Before you even start, you can use a simple arbitrage calculator, which can be found, just typing “Arbitrage calculator” in Google. These calculators are made to show you exactly how much you should bet, in order to make the biggest profit. From there, the only thing, which you should do is to find the best event for arbitrage betting.
Example:
In order to visualize arbitrage betting via a betting exchange, let’s see a simple example. Let’s imagine that we have a bet of odds of 2.06 on an exact bookmaker, and the odds to bet against that bet is 2.00. In order to calculate things, the easiest way is to use a simple calculator, which as you already know can be easily found on Google.
By calculating thing on the calculator, you are going to see that if you bet 100 dollars for the bet with 2.06 odds, you should bet 104.04 on the exchange, where you will win a commission of 2%, which guarantees a profit of 1.96 dollars, which actually is not a lot, but you can find events, which can make you even more per bet. Of course, you should be careful, because if you do not place the right bet, you can make a 0% commission.
Arbitrage Betting Without Exchange
The next option for Arbitrage betting is without exchange, simply because it is not available in some countries, and actually for most of the players, this is considered as an easier way to place arbitrage bets.
Here, you simply place a bet on one bookmaker, and then in the other, you cover the rest option, this technique is called “Dutching”. Your main purpose when you are making an arbitrage betting without exchange is to cover all the possible outcomes, where no matter what the result is, you make a profit. There are also a dutching calculators, which can help you to see what stakes should be and after that what the profits will be.
Example:
The easiest way to understand Arbitrage betting is to see an example for a tennis game, where there are simply 2 possible outcomes, unlike for the football where they are 3.
Let’s say we again have odds of 2.06 for the one player and 2.00 for the other player. When you enter the numbers in the calculator, you are going to see that you can make a profit of 2.91 dollars or 2.92 dollars, depending on what the results are, but you need to place 100 dollars for the first bet, and 97.09 dollars for the second.
The arbitrage betting without exchange can be even made with 3 possible outcomes, where things are quite the same, you just cover all the possible outcomes, by separating your bet between them. Here, you also can use the free dutching calculators.
Tools for Arbitrage Betting
We already mentioned that there are calculators, which you can use for both arbitrage betting with and without exchange, which can be very helpful to a lot of people.
But, the world of Arbitrage betting step ahead and even consists of special software, which can show you the best events for arbitrage betting. There are lots of software, which can show you a comparison between odds from many online bookmakers, and with the help of all the calculators, you can find the perfect bet and make a really good profit.
Which are the best sports for arbitrage betting?
Actually, you can do arbitrage betting on every single sports, like football, tennis, darts, eSports, horse races, etc. The only thing, which you should remember is to be quick no matter which sport you are betting on.
Esports
One of the best sports for arbitrage betting is eSports, where each game is very hard to predict, so different bookmakers, have completely different minds about the odds, so for example if one bookmaker has an odds of 2.50 for an exact outcome, the other bookmaker might have odds of 2.00 for the same event,
Tennis
Tennis is one of the easiest sports to begin your arbitrage betting journey. In tennis, as you know there are only 2 players, for which you can place a bet. You can simply bet for one tennis player to win in one bookmaker, and bet for the other on another bookie, which simply covers all the possible outcomes. Actually, the biggest profits from arbitrage betting can be made on tennis, and also to other sports, which consists of 2 outcome options,
Snooker
Snooker is another very friendly option to do arbitrage betting, which is another sports, that there is no chance of a draw, the idea here is similar to the tennis, you just cover the 2 possible outcomes in 2 different bookmakers,
Basketball
Another very popular sport for arbitrage betting is Basketball, which actually is a very dynamic and fast game, so it is again very hard to predict who will win, so different bookmakers offer different odds, which means you can take advnatage of this. For basketball, you again place a bet for one team to win, and cover the other team in other bookmakers, which of course have better odds.
Which are the best online bookmakers for arbitrage betting?
Actually, there are a lot of online bookmakers, which you can use to do arbitrage betting, depending on what you are going to do, an arbitrage betting with or without exchange, you can use different bookies. But, there is one rule, the more bookmakers you join, the more profits you make, imagine that you can make 2 dollars from doing arbitrage betting in one bookmaker, but what will happen if you do the same bet on 10 bookmakers, you simply made 20 dollars, and that can be made each day.
William Hill
William Hill is one of the most popular online bookmakers, which arbitrage bettors are using. William Hill is offering a lot of bonus offers, which can be very beneficial for that type of bets, also the odds are extremely high, which is literally the most important thing for arbitrage betting,
Betfair
Betfair is another online bookmaker, which is again very popular through online arbitrage bettors, the bookmaker has a separate exchange betting section, which makes things even easier for you. Also, the bookmaker has a lot of bonus offers, which are connected with exchange bets.
Betway - Betway is very popular with its high odds, which makes it again very good for arbitrage bettors,
SportingBet
There is another very good online bookmaker, which also gives you very high odds. Immediately after you join it, you can even claim some amazing bonus offers, which can help you for your arbitrage betting journey. Check out our full review about SportingBet.
Matchbook
Matchbook is an online bookmaker, which odds are considered as one of the highest on the market, also the bookmaker have the option “Request a market”, which is very helpful if you find the perfect odds, but you cannot find the perfect bookmaker.
How do bookmakers know you are arbing?
Arbitrage betting as we already mentioned is one of the most popular betting methods. Arbitrage betting simply guarantees you a secure bet, 100% chance for a win, and 0% for loss, so it might be obvious that bookmakers do not like arbitrage bettors. But, unfortunately, bookmakers cannot do anything about this, because arbitrage betting is completely legal, which means, you are free to do it, if you know how to. Actually, no matter that bookmakers cannot do anything to prevent you from placing that kind of bets, they can still make the odds very unlikely for arbitrage betting, so that is why to be fast is very important, when we are talking about arbitrage betting. Immediately, after a bookmaker sees that people are betting a lot for an exact outcome, the odds immediately drop, which is kind way to prevent you place secure bets. But, let’s see what are the ways, which actually bookmakers do to see that you are arbing:
Exchange Price
Of course the easiest way for bookmakers to see if you are arbing is to check the exchange prices, almost all of the online bookmakers have special software, which allows them to see both their odds and also all the exchange prices available. Immediately after an exact bookmaker spots that, the odds are decreased.
Start Price
Here, we are again talking about odds, if you placed a bet, which starting odds was lower than the odds now, the chance of you doing an arbitrage betting is big. Bookmakers do not like that kind of players simply because they are losing money.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Arbitrage Betting?
By now, you should already know what arbitrage betting is, and how to do it correctly. Arbing has a lot of advantages, simply because you literally can place bets, which are 100% winning, but also it is very hard to find them, let’s see what are the advantages and disadvantages of arbitrage betting, in order to see if it is worth it?
Advantages:
- Arbitrage bets are literally “Secure” bets, where you only can win,
- Arbitrage betting can be learned very fast,
- Arbitrage betting can be done from all over the world,
- Arbitrage betting can be done in every single bookmaker,
- Arbitrage betting can be your main source of income,
- Arbitrage betting is completely legal,
- You can both do arbitrage betting with and without exchange.
Disadvantages:
- Arbitrage betting requires a lot of work,
- Bookmakers do not like arbing,
- It is very hard to find events suitable for arbitrage,
- Sometimes profits can be less than 1%.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is arbitrage betting legal?
A: Yes, arbitrage betting is completely legal.
Q: Does bookmakers like players who are doing arbitrage betting?
A: Bookmakers actually do not like arbitrage bettors, but the only thing that they can do to prevent it, is to give similar odds like the other bookmakers.
Q: How much profit I can make doing arbitrage betting?
A: The profit you can make from doing arbitrage betting is not much, about 1% to 5%, but it is sure bet, there is no chance of losing.
Q: How much time I need to spend to start doing arbitrage betting?
A: Actually, in order to make a lot of profits from Arbitrage betting, you should spend a lot of time.
In summary
Arbitrage Betting is one of the most popular betting options, which you can use to have a secure profit, but it is actually not easy to learn. But, from this guide, you already know what Arbitrage betting is, what tools to use in order to find the perfect bets, which bookmakers are the best, and also which sports you can start with. For no doubt, if you spend some time doing arbitrage betting, it can be very profitable. Notice, that you can even make a living if you understand all the things and bet on as many bookmakers as possible.
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