Arbing or arbitrage betting is a great way of making some big profits in the betting industry. In this guide I will walk you through exactly what arbitrage betting is, how you can find arbs and ultimately how you can make money from this form of betting.
What is Arbitrage Betting
Arbitrage betting or “arbing” for short, is the act of placing a back bet on a certain outcome and subsequently placing a lay bet on the very same outcome at a shorter price.
For example, if you placed a back bet on Liverpool at 2.8 you would then place a lay bet on Liverpool at 2.6, this action provides a profit on the outcome that you have backed and layed.
With the profit generated from backing and laying the same outcome, you have the option to take a free bet on the outcome in question, (Liverpool in my example), or take a smaller guaranteed profit across all of the possible outcomes in that market (team A to win, team B to win or the match to finish as a draw in my case).
When arbitrage betting the back bet is usually placed with a bookmaker and the lay bet placed with a betting exchange.
Video Guide
Free Bet VS. Fully Hedged Profit
As touched on, you have the option to take a free bet on the arbed outcome that you have backed and layed, or you can simply take a smaller fully hedged profit across all the outcomes within that market.
To take the free bet load up the matched betting calculator on OddsMonkey, enter all the relevant information into the calculator, such as back odds with the bookie, back stake with the bookie, lay odds with the exchange and exchange commission.
After you have provided all the necessary information, navigate to the “mode” drop-down box in the top right-hand corner of the calculator.
Once you have opened out the mode drop-down box simply click on advanced mode, this will provide three different boxes, underlay, standard and overlay.
Using the lay stake provided within the underlay box you should place your lay bet on the betting exchange, this will provide you will a larger profit if the arbed outcome occurs but a breakeven scenario should that outcome fail to occur.
To take the guaranteed fully hedged profit, simply use the lay stake provided within the standard box to place your lay bet, this will provide a smaller guaranteed profit regardless of the eventual outcome.
Where Do Arbs in Betting Come From
Arbs can be found on a daily basis, as a rule of thumb they are generally derived from the mispricings of bookmakers on their sportsbooks.
For the most part, arbitrage opportunities are only available for a short period of time as bookmakers will always scramble to get their back prices shorter than the lay prices on the betting exchange.
With this knowledge it’s important to act as swiftly a possible when you receive the information of an arbitrage opportunity.
How To Find Arbs In Betting
There are various ways to locate arbs in betting, the first option would be to scour both the bookmaker’s websites and betting exchanges all day long monitoring the back and lay prices between the two.
The second alternative and most productive method is to use software to scour these websites for you, this saves lots of time and energy.
When using software all that is required on your end is to place your back bet and lay bet respectively.
The software I recommend is a matched betting software which is called the oddsmatcher, this software is provided by OddsMonkey.
After loading up the oddsmatcher it’s time to define the criteria that you are looking for the oddsmatcher to locate for you.
To create an arbitrage betting preset on the oddsmatcher you should click into the filter box, this will bring up multiple selection boxes for you to refine your filter.
Below I have listed the information that I recommend you select within the filter tab to receive as many high-quality arbs as soon as they become available, these markets are popular selections and they are punter friendly which is good for account health with bookmakers.
limit sports: football and horse racing
limit markets: winner and match odds
limit bookmakers: select whichever bookie accounts you are looking to arb with
limit exchanges: select whichever exchange accounts you are looking to arb with
match rating: 100.50% – 105.00%
back odds: 1.0 – 10.00
Once you’ve got all the criteria that you’re looking for, simply hit apply filter and OddsMonkey will scour all the bookies and the betting exchanges and locate some arbitrage opportunities for you!
You can also set the oddsmatcher to ping you alerts straight through to your mobile phone as soon as an arb is available, this is very handy and prevents you from having to sit at your computer at all hours.
