Sports Arbitrage Trading - A Practical Minicourse - Part Three

p>How do I locate arbs to trade?every week during the soccer season since they can
There are 2 factors which identify an arbitrage tradingproduce some lucrative opportunities. One of the
opportunitybenefits of soccer betting compared to many other
1. The event must have a limited number of possiblesports is the very large stakes size that bookmakers
outcomeswill accept. look out for arbs not only in regular Home,
The event that you are betting on should ideally haveAway, Draw markets but also Asian Handicaps &
either 2 or 3 possible outcomes.Total Goals market
For example, the event may be a head-to-headPOLITICS & ENTERTAINMENT
contest, such as a tennis or snooker match, whereWhether it is the next US President, or the next
only one of the players can win. Or you may considerperson to leave Big Brother, if there is room for
a cricket or football match, where there are threedisagreement between odds-compilers, there is
possible results including a tie/draw.potential for arbitrage. Some very large margins can
There are exceptions, where arbs become available inbe earned in these non-sporting events because the
events with more than three outcomes, and they canbookmakers have to guess much more than in sports.
prove to be very lucrative, but you will find your mostOTHER SPORTS When on the prowl for risk-free
regular arbs in events as described above.profits, you should also consider
2. There should be an adequate percentage margin in
your favour1. - boxing
When you are beginning, it will probably be better to2. - basketball
restrict your betting to opportunities that yield 2.0% or3. - baseball
more. This will allow you a margin for error as you are4. - hockey
learning, and any mistakes will probably just result in a5. - ice hockey
break-even situation where you may just have toIf you are going to look for arbs manually, then you
sacrifice your profit.have to be prepared to spend a lot of time and effort
However, as you grow in experience, you will be ablescouring individual bookmaker sites &
to consider ALL situations, including the manyodds-comparison sites for prices. This can be
THOUSANDS of 1%-2% opportunities that occurrewarding in some cases but it makes far more sense
every month. While juicier 8%-15% arbs, which pop upto use software to perform this task as it is much
a few times a week, will provide you with wonderfulfaster and will free you to do other things.
bonuses, the smaller, far more frequent ones willSo, now you know what to look for, let's take a look
consistently add to your bottom-line.at how the software at the top end of the market will
So - that's it. You find the event, do the maths, placeassist you...
the bets, and earn a guaranteed profit regardless of- INCREASED PROFITS There is no doubt that if you
the outcome. Once you have streamlined youruse your sports arbitrage software properly you will
processes, it couldn't be much simpler.make much higher profits than without. As well as
The skill is in finding suitable events to bet on. You'll befinding arbitrage trades for you automatically, it should
able to learn more in detail about this below.There arealso locate middles trades and even alert to to trades
many arbitrage-producing events available, butthat you can use to fee up any bonuses that you
overleaf is a short list those which you are highlyhave pending with your bookmakers
recommended to check.- SAVED TIME Using the software will help to save a
TENNISlot of time. If you can rely upon the software to do the
With only two possible outcomes, this is the idealsearching on your behalf, it frees you up to look in
event. The more obscure the tournament, the betterother places or do other things.
your chances of finding profitable differences of- TIP-OFFS FOR OTHER TRADES This is a much
opinion between sportsbooks. A large proportion of theoverlooked benefit but it is something which almost
bookmakers listed regularly offer prices on all tennisevery professional trader uses. When the software
matches.You are likely to find a significant number ofalerts you to an arbitrage trade, it very often provides
arbs in tennis.tip-offs about other possible trades. For example, a
SNOOKERsoccer arbitrage trade may contain a price which you
Once again, with only two possible outcomes, snookercan use in a betting-exchange strategy instead of the
is an ideal event in which to seek arbitragearbitrage trade of which you have been notified. The
opportunities, although stakes can sometimes be limitedkey issue is that the software is going to bring this to
by bookmakers to just a few hundred pounds.your attention faster than any other method of
CRICKETresearch. Your sports-arbitrage software should also
The one-day matches allow for only two outcomesallow you to choose to receive break-even trades i.e.
while the winter tour also allows for a draw. Cricketthose where the prices add up to 100% and this can
seems so be something of a weak-spot for manybe used to great effect when using bonus-hunting
bookmakers; a fact which often gives rise to sometechniques
large percentage arbs.- EARLY WARNING FOR PRICE-RELEASES The
US FOOTBALLbest sports-arbitrage software allows you to be the
The divisional championships can produce somefirst to know when a bookmaker has posted new
lucrative arbs. Once a few games have been played,prices on-site. This early-warning system can be of
very large discrepancies between sportsbooks cangreat advantage in trading strategies that require you
arise. It is also often the case that North Americanto analyse new prices as soon as possible.
odds-compilers take a completely different view to- USEFUL STATS With the large numbers of data it
their European counterparts-which creates morehas access to, your software should be able to
arbitrage opportunitiesprovide you with very useful statistics. It should be able
GOLFto show you how many arbs each bookie has had in
Golf produces an abundance of arbs each week ineach sport each month. This is extremely powerful for
2-ball and 3-ball 18-hole matchups as well as theresearch as it lets you see exactly which accounts
72-hole matchups. Further,in the match-play eventsare the most important each month. Many professional
such as the Dunhill Cup and World Matchplaytraders use this type of analysis to decide where their
Championship, the contestants are paired up and canfunds should be placed ready for trading each month.
only either win or lose. The markets in these eventsIn my next article, we'll see what we can do to
can be quite volatile and produce many arbs.minimise the impact of transaction fees when you're
SOCCERtrading...
It is worth keeping an eye on the European matches