Thoughts on arbitrage betting

I have a similar experience here. It's a waste of time for all but the most dedicated people with absolutely nothing better to do.

I tried it a few times about a decade ago, usually laying the opposite of the wager on Betfair. It worked sometimes. I decided that the time and effort required and risk (for reasons you stated) for a relatively tiny profit of 1-2% spread around many different bookies on my meagre bets wasn't worth it.

If you're looking for arbitrage betting the best site is Pinnacle from what I've heard...they not only haven't anything against arbitrage betting but in fact they encourage the players....otherwise it's a waste of time as you and Ed concluded above.

Sportsbettor_no wrote:

Thanks for the response CL-Ed.

Do you bet yourself? In that case which strategies are you following? I know matched betting is a form for arbitrage betting, but that's completely different as you just take advantage of the bonuses which bookmaker offers. But never tried it myself, anyone got any experience with matched betting?

What you mean by matched betting?

I don't follow any strategies but my intuition usually...of course there are a few basic rules and I'm sure you're aware of those.

For me there's no such thing as risk free bet..or at least not worth the effort anyway...

O, by the way the only system I've ever tried is Martingale...and to be honest I've done decent with it...but of course there's always the issue you'll run out of funds if you have to double your stake more than 6-7 times...or just got scared to do it...

But at big football forums I've done OK with it...the other alternatives is Ice Hockey when you can bet on certain team to draw (the draws odds are higher than in football) but of course there isn't any guarantees...

Yes I've done matched betting, around the same time I tried arbitrage. Matched betting is much easier to take advantage of. I quickly ran out of bookies willing to give me a bonus though.

sharpe, matched betting is where you bet both sides of the same match (similar to arbitrage). You structure your bets so that no matter what the result is you win money due to the bonus funds. For example if you have a €20 free bet with a bookie, you bet the €20 on say Liverpool to beat Man United 😉 with the bookie, and the reverse at a betting exchange.

You can do some calculations to work out the exact amount to lay at the exchange so that you profit the same amount no matter the result. For example:

Place a €20 free bet on Liverpool to beat Man United at odds of 2.0 at your bookie. Potential win of €40.

Lay the same bet for €19.05 at the betting exchange at odds of say 2.1. You use the potential win amount at the bookie to work out how much to lay (€40 / 2.1 = €19.05). So you gain €19.05 in your exchange account but potentially have to pay out €40 if Liverpool wins.

If Liverpool wins you gain €40 in your bookie account from the free bet, but you paid out €40 at the exchange for a loss there of €20.95. Net profit is €19.05.

If Liverpool loses, you lost the free bet at the bookie, but you gained €19.05 for laying the bet at the exchange. Again a net profit of €19.05.

So either way you pocket most of the €20 free bet with no risk.

That's a simple example that does not factor in betting exchange fees for laying, and there can be free bets where the stake is not returned and that changes the calculation. But I'm sure you get the idea.

Yeah , of course Ed, I got the idea...generally I'm aware of that..just not been aware of how they call it.
By betting exchange you mean... yeah I guess like Betfair betting exchange where I could bet against Liverpool to win the game(using your example) 😉..it's curious to know you've been doing that Ed.

I most of the time don't even use my pre match free bets from Bet365...and haven't been at the Betfair betting exchange for a few years probably...I realize that's very naive from side of course.

But in the end from my understanding of all that you could win at most what equals the size of the free bet which never be hundreds or thousands ..but like 20Euros like in your example...so you have to be involved in many sites to gain these free bets regularly...or just gain a small profit here and there...?

Nice example there by the way...not too realistic though😛😉

Haha I knew you would like the example.

You're right that you can only pocket at most the bonus amount and its only going to be small amounts. The bookies will cut off the bonuses if they ever figure you're doing this. Also, win a few times at the bookies and the bonuses stop too.

So the ideal result is for you to lose at the bookie and win at the exchange, as the exchange doesn't care what anyone bets on as they are just taking a transaction fee off every bet. You can use this knowledge to your advantage by betting on underdogs at the bookie which are less likely to win with your bonus bet.

Thanks Ed,useful tips there, I think all you're saying there sounds quite relevant and logical but I'm not sure why I didn't thought about any of this earlier...probably because I've been always after a high odds so never really had any issues with the bookies I've been on.

Reading all of this..you've probably been quite more successful bettor than me...😉

I didn't thought you've been after it so much.

Yeah it's a tough thing. I rather like to "hedge" by taking a big underdog and hoping they win the 1st set or 1st quarter or something that will result in the favorite laying low odds. I then can bet on the favorite around even money and essentially have a "risk free" bet if the underdog does end up winning.

Yeah, that sounds quite logical sportsstar19931992 and it's a successful strategy more often than not...at least from my experience.

sharpe wrote:

Yeah, that sounds quite logical sportsstar19931992 and it's a successful strategy more often than not...at least from my experience.

Obviously still risk, if the favorite dominates the whole match and you can never get good odds.

Yeah of course but at least there is some sense in that I think , quite often favorite dominating whole the way is not the case and of course you still have to listen to your intuition and not just bet on any given match/game.