Sports Betting Arbitrage – a Modern Way to Supplement Your Profits

Introduction to Sports Arbitrage Betting

Have you ever wanted to invest a certain amount of money with no risk, meaning to get a guaranteed profit? Do you believe it’s possible? You may be surprised, but there is a way. If you like sports and betting, the mathematically proven strategy of online sports betting arbitrage will surely interest you as a means of earning profit. Using this method, anyone can make money if they are eager to put enough time and effort into arbitrage gambling.

What Is Arbitrage Betting?

Arbitrage generally stands for identifying the price differences at various markets and taking advantage of them for getting profit. Arbitrage sports betting is the practice of placing bets, based on accurate mathematical calculations, across various bookmaker websites and winning whatever the game results are.

Betting sites are nowadays multiple and variable to secure a profit you should carefully analyze the information and the possible outcomes. Until recently, to execute arbitrage, one should have surfed through various sites that provide betting on sports in search of combinations to analyze and to find the possibilities for arbitrage.

Web scraping betting sites can save you time and effort and enhance this lengthy and complicated process. What is important to mention here, is that you should not necessarily be a sports fan, but to gain the desired profit you should understand the mathematics and the processes that stand behind betting. To better understand, let’s see how such possibilities exist and what the calculations behind the strategy are.

How Does Arbitrage Betting Work?

Arbitrage is often called ‘sure bets’ because it guarantees a profit. In simple words—you should find two different bets at different bookmakers that will provide you as a bettor with a sure profit due to a favorable margin that occurs because of contradictory odds. You should wager all the possible outcomes of a game, but bet with only two bookmakers. Before betting, you should make sure that the opportunity of arbitrage exists, and in case you see it, it’s also vital to rightly divide your stake between the odds to secure profit. This a simple example to make things more clear. Let’s suppose Bookmaker#1 places odds like this: Team №1 – odds of winning – 1, 45, Team №2- 4.07, while Bookmaker#2 sees Team’s №1 chances to win as 1.57 and Team’s №2 – 2.95. To find out if arbitrage possible, you should divide 1 by each of the odds and sum both of the results. If the sum is below 1, the possibility for arbitrage exists. Is arbitrage possible? Check if 1 First odd + 1 Second odd < 1 Therefore, for our hypothetical scenario we would calculate as follows: 1 1.56 + 1 4.07 = 0.641 + 0.2457 = 0.8867 (Arbitrage exists) 1 1.35 + 1 2.75 = 0.74 + 0.3636 = 1.1036 (Arbitrage does not exist) Now, as you’ve spotted the arbitrage opportunity, you need to calculate the amount to place on each odd to get a guaranteed profit. In case you are going to spend $1000, your calculations should be like this: Amount of money to place on an odd = Investment amount 1 + (the first odd / by the second odd) Therefore, for our hypothetical scenario we would calculate as follows: For Team №1 = 1000 1 + (1.56 / 4.07) = 723.07$ For Team №2 = 1000 1 + (4.07 / 1.56) = 277.09$ It’s vital to remember to round your bets up (723 and 277 in our case), it will help you avoid suspicion. However, rounded stakes change the profit levels, keep it in mind as well. This is an example for you to understand the logic, which stands behind the process, however, there are many arbitrage betting sites calculators. All you need is just put the possible odds and the investment amount in and the online calculator will do the math for you.

Is Arbitrage Workable and Legal?

There is no clear-cut answer to this question since it’s hard to win some substantial sum through arbitrage for an average bettor. There are several reasons for it: All these reasons combined make it hard to generate consistent winnings. What is more, bookmakers get better trained to detect arbers and if you have a constant long-term profit, you are likely to be blocked. That leads us to the next question whether arbing is a legal practice? In fact, there are no laws claiming arbitrage betting on a website is illegal, however, the practice breaks the terms and conditions of most bookmakers’ resources and often results in the bettors being blocked.

 

Can Web Scraping Help the Process of Arbitrage Betting?

Web data extraction is an ideal technology to speed up and simplify searching for possibilities. Web scraping arbitrage betting sites and bookmaker resources, you can, for instance, extract the records of odds of football matches, insert the results into the formulas, like in the examples above, and figure out football arbitrage betting possibilities. The same works for any sports. Making scraping at regular intervals over a certain period across several sports betting sites, you can gather all results in a single sheet and automate the process of formula application. When a scraper does all the hard work for you, it will help you make the lengthy process shorter and more effective. Anyway, you should always remember that arbitrage betting is not about “getting rich fast”, it’s hard and persistent work. Now let’s speak about the possible profit you can gain in more detail.

How Much Can You Make with Arbing?

Arbitrage betting can help you get consistent and steady profits, yet not very high. It’s difficult to spot an arbitrage opportunity that offers over 5% in return, so be ready to place lots of small bets instead of trying to win big at once. The bankroll, the number of bets you make, the arbs’ sizes, and more will determine the profit you’ll get. So, you cannot count on arbitrage betting as a strategy to get rich fast. Even the arbs that near 5% often come with a certain risk. It’s reasonable to set up as many betting accounts as possible in advance so that when you spot an arbitrage opportunity at some bookmaker, you don’t lose your time on the site registration procedure. Arbitrage opportunities may crop in hundreds every day, but to take advantage of them you should have a relevant account to place the wager. The key to success in arbing is the ability to react promptly as soon as the opportunity has revealed. In general, starting out with $500 in your bankroll, you can expect somewhere around a few hundred in profit per month.