Many people, certainly those who have been bitten, will tell you that there’s no such thing as a hard-up bookmaker.
That this is true is due largely to the fact that only a few bettors will ever seriously take the trouble to understand sports betting arbitrage.
Sports arbitrage is not some mysterious, magical system that enables one to regularly pick winners. Naturally, using arbitrage you will certainly pick the winner every time. But you will pick the loser too.
The magic of arbitrage trading lies in the fact that you will benefit whatever the outcome of the fixture that you are betting on. And that is it in a nutshell; by placing bets on every possible outcome of a given fixture you will lock in a guaranteed profit each and every time you place your bet.
Did I say every time? Okay then I am exaggerating very slightly. There will be occasions when a quoted price will suddenly move, or when you will make a genuine mistake, and you will have to cover yourself normally in a way which involves a very small loss. But by making a small profit with the large majority of the bets that you place you will quite easily compensate for these inevitable mishaps over and again, and steadily build up your bank.
The principle is actually quite simple. By exploiting the differences in the prices quoted by different bookmakers on a particular line you stake a certain amount of money on every possible outcome in a way that ensures that, whatever the final result, your return will be higher than your outlay. Easy as that.
Such an eventuality does not emerge from every bet, indeed it is quite rare. But when it does happen you have what is known in the game as an “arb”. When you identify an arb you place your stake and you await your payout from whichever bookie accepted your winning bet.
Before you can take advantage of an arb, of course, you do need first to locate one. Essentially there are two ways of achieving this. The first is to construct a spreadsheet of prices offered on every individual line on every individual sport with every individual sportsbook, and hope that when you eventually do find an arb you will be able to go back and place your bets with the prices that you have recorded still intact. Unfortunately in the real world this very rarely happens. Sports arbitrage is a big, competitive business these days and therefore you can be virtually certain that someone else would have spotted it before you, placed a substantial bet and thereby alerted the bookmakers, at least one of whom will have readjusted their prices accordingly.
The other is to find a reputable arbitrage trader, who will advise you as to which arbs are live, giving you a far much better chance of getting onto the bet before the price can be altered.
Arbitrage trading services usually charge a monthly fee for their services. For a sum of money you will be able to subscribe to that service and have all the arbs delivered to you as they become available. It is without doubt an extremely worthwhile investment; you will recover your subscription many times over from the advice they give.
Whether your passion is Premier League darts or horse racing in thee UK, you will find all the information you need from your arb service provider. All that is required of you on top of that is your stake money and nerves of steel.
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