Arbitrage betting is the strategy if you want to keep winning, even though the ROI depends a lot on your bankroll. However, you have to find these opportunities before you put down the money. In this post, I will show you how to find arbitrage bets, which is basically a method of spotting inconsistencies in bookmakers’ odds.
I have made thousands of dollars from arbitrage betting, and then my accounts get restricted. Of course, this is always the problem when sportsbooks see you winning too much. They don’t like it when you win because it takes away their money. Today, I’ll share 4 methods that will help you identify these profitable arbitrage bets, complete with examples, so you can make money without any risk. The strategies include manually searching in the right markets, using synthetic arbitrage, taking tips off Reddit, and using odd scraping software. Now, these methods complement each other, and you’ll be able to find different kinds of arbitrage opportunities. This means you can boost your earnings even by using them all together.
How to Find Arbitrage Bets
1. Find Arbitrage Opportunities Manually
The first sports arbitrage betting method we will talk about is the manual method. Here, you are looking for arbitrage bets on your own. You may have tried this before and didn’t find anything. As such, you concluded that it’s not worth it. Well, you simply didn’t know where to look. When it comes to manually finding arbitrage bets, a bettor should understand why they exist in the first place. They are the result of sportsbooks making pricing mistakes. We can liken it to someone accidentally dropping money, in this case, the sportsbook, and you are out there trying to find and pick it up. There are certain places where it’s more likely they would drop that money, and similarly, there are markets where sportsbook mispricings and arbitrage opportunities are more likely to happen. These opportunities are rare and tend to vanish quickly once someone finds and takes advantage of them. In my article about the arbitrage betting formula, I talked about moving fast whenever you find arbitrage bets, so I recommend you read this article.
Perhaps you started searching for arbitrage bets in your favorite sports markets, such as soccer, football, or NBA games, thinking you’d find opportunities there. However, these areas almost never offer arbitrage chances. That’s because these sports are really popular, and they attract a lot of bettors. As such, the markets are very efficient. So, the possibility of finding a bookmaker’s pricing mistake, and hence an arbitrage opportunity, is slim. Instead, you should turn your attention to markets with less betting activity, like smaller tennis tournaments, lower-division football matches, college basketball, and even player markets in the NBA. In these less scrutinized areas, sportsbooks may not be as sharp with their pricing, which is what increases your chances of spotting an arbitrage opportunity.
Also, there’s another market where I’ve found quite a bit of success in arbitrage, and that’s in the futures markets. This includes aspects such as who will win the NBA championship or a specific football tournament. The smaller bookmakers usually may not update their odds quickly after a big game that could change the future market’s odds. This delay can give you a chance to make some money. Now, some sportsbooks just don’t offer good odds at all, way off from what they should be. So, you are probably not going to find any arbitrage chances with them. On the other hand, there are sportsbooks that offer really competitive odds, and they can make mistakes too. This means you could find plenty of arbitrage opportunities to take advantage of.
In Australia, I’ve noticed that sportsbooks like Uni Bit and Coin Spit are really profitable. Here, you will find many markets, especially those with less betting action, and their odds are good too. This leads to finding many arbitrage opportunities, which shows in my profits and losses with these bookmakers. When this is done manually, I typically advise checking out a betting exchange to see what the fair odds should be for a specific market, so you can spot when a sportsbook’s pricing may be off. This method is easier than using online arbitrage calculators. You have to input so many numbers just to search for an arbitrage chance, making it a slow process, and most times, you won’t even find an opportunity. It feels like a waste of time.
With a betting exchange, it’s simple. You can see if there’s an opportunity for arbitrage. If the bookmaker’s odds are higher than the exchange’s lay odds, which means betting against, then you have found an arbitrage opportunity right there. You can use the exchange to balance out your risk by betting against the team in the futures market, while at the bookmaker, you bet on them to win. Since there’s no draw in the futures market, you have covered all possible outcomes. This makes it possible for placing lay bets on the exchange to cover arbitrage bets in markets with more than two possible outcomes. Just make sure the difference between the bookmaker odds and the exchange lay odds is enough to make up for the commission on the exchange. This is usually between 5-10%. You could hedge with a bookmaker too, but the odds may be even less favorable than on the exchange.
Now, it’s much better than just heading straight to a few bookmakers where you have accounts, checking out some odds, and using limits and an online arbitrage calculator; that’s really not the best use of your time. This way of manually searching does help you figure out where to look, but it still takes up a lot of time, and sometimes you may not find arbitrage betting opportunities. However, the upside is that the arbitrage opportunities you do find are unique compared to those you’ll discover in other methods.
2. Use Sportsbooks’ Promotions
The second method we will talk about that can help you find arbitrage bets has to do with the sportsbook itself. Some bettors refer to this as ‘synthetic arbitrage’. This method requires you to create arbitrage opportunities through promotions and offers from sportsbooks. You can’t lose when you place bets and hedge this strategy. The simplest version of this arbitrage betting is known as match betting, which leverages the first deposit bonuses that sportsbooks offer when you sign up with them for the first time.
These sportsbooks may offer things such as free bets or bonus bets. While these aren’t funds you can directly withdraw, you can use the free or bonus bet to place a wager on an event with the bookmaker and then place a counterbet, which is hedging, on an exchange. Therefore, regardless of the outcome, you either convert your free bet into cash that you can withdraw, or you earn a profit from the hedging account, which is the betting exchange. If you win, you have managed to turn a free bet into withdrawable cash without any risk.
The way you can create these synthetic arbitrage opportunities really depends on the sportsbook or bookmaker promotions available in your country. For the more complex promotions, it requires a deeper understanding of mathematics and probability to work out the expected value and hedge your bets in such a way that you guarantee an arbitrage and maximize your profit from it.
3. Find Arbitrage Opportunities on Forums
You could take advantage of Reddit to find arbitrage bets in sports. Just join subreddits in sports betting, such as r/sportsbook and r/SoccerBetting. Not just on Reddit, there are other forums where people discuss arbitrage betting opportunities. Some subreddits, for instance, are dedicated to arbitrage betting. You’d have to engage with the community by asking questions and, of course, sharing your own insights.
There are lots of experienced arbitrage bettors you could find. Many are willing to share tips, experiences, and even specific arbitrage opportunities they come across.
Members do share tools, software recommendations, and resources, and this will really help you when it comes to using software to find arbitrage bets. This is the next method we’d be talking about. So, make sure you pay attention to posts about different betting calculators, odds comparison sites, and even Chrome extensions or apps that will help your arbitrage journey. Just so you know, not all arbitrage opportunities others share will be accurate, and the odds can change rapidly. So, do the double-checking and know the odds on the sportsbooks before placing bets.
4. Invest in Arbitrage Betting Software
Finally, you can find arbitrage bets in sports using software. The software basically scans for odds to help you find and place bets on guaranteed arbitrage opportunities. With this method, you’ll be able to bet across different sportsbook accounts to make the most of arbitrage. There’s a lot of arbitrage betting software out there, and many use tools to scrape odds. Some software is free, while others you have to pay for.
If you are a beginner, feel okay to start with a free version or a trial. However, the downside with free software is that it often limits how many bookmakers’ odds you can see, which means fewer arbitrage opportunities. Or, you may experience a delay in updating the odds, so by the time you see an arbitrage opportunity, it may be too late to act on it. By the way, I wrote a lengthy article that will help you become successful at sports gambling.
Arbitrage betting, as I explained earlier, is like finding free money on the ground that someone dropped. With free software, you may find and pick up this money, but the limits could mean that a premium user will be the first to find it before you even know it’s there. Still, trying out free arbitrage betting software can be worth it, especially if you’re new to Arbitrage betting and want to learn how it works.
As for the paid arbitrage betting software and odds scrapers, you will get more features, such as access to more sportsbooks, more markets, and handy things like email alerts. These alerts are based on filters you set up, and they let you know right away when there’s an arbitrage opportunity. This means you can be the first to jump on it, almost like being the first to spot and pick up money that someone has dropped.
Let’s look at an example with today’s video sponsor, OddsJam. OddsJam provides up-to-date odds from numerous bookmakers in the US, Canada, Europe, and now Australia, which is where this demonstration will take place. There is this popular one called OddsJam. You can check it out; it has arbitrage tools that will help you find mispriced odds.
Conclusion
So, we have been able to go through 4 simple methods you need in your betting inventory to find arbitrage bets. It is even better to find arbitrage opportunities by yourself. There are Chrome extensions that can quickly calculate the odds for you for a small, one-time fee of $2. This is a good investment if you are serious about arbitrage betting. The main thing you really need for arbitrage is good software. Manually searching can be tough in sports betting, but having software as part of your inventory will go a long way. Odds change all the time, and most sportsbooks list hundreds of thousands of odds at any moment. So, software will help you move faster and then act fast. Just make sure the software updates odds faster and can cover many markets and sportsbooks.
Don’t forget the basic rules of arbitrage betting—don’t get greedy. Always round your bets (for example, bet $925 instead of $923.44), and try to stay away from betting on markets you are not familiar with. Unfortunately, sportsbooks may put limits on your account at any time, so play wisely to avoid limits.
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