Arbitrage Betting Advice
Before you even start arbitrage betting you should accept that successful arbing includes a learning period, and a certain amount of work. These things are required to maintain a long term profit. Although sports arbitrage is a simple way to make money and with the use of arbitrage betting software 90% of work can be done instead of you, you will still have to do the remaining 10% and place the bets. If you are still reading this, you have probably concluded that arbing can be a great way to make money online, and that time spent in learning about it, is a time well spent.
General arbitrage advice
So as to ensure that you will be successful arber, you should:
- Learn arbitrage betting basics. By this point you have read what is sports arbitrage betting, how to find and calculate arbitrage bets and what you have to prepare before you start arbing using our arbitrage guide.
- React quickly on arbitrage opportunities. This especially applies to those of you who are planning to buy arbitrage trading software or alert service. These services are paid monthly and to make profit with it you should react as quickly as possible when you get arb alert because arbs usually last around 15 minutes. To speed up the process of placing bets you should do some small stakes trading with arbs you have found at odds comparison sites.
- Get organized. After you learn arbitrage basics and do some small stakes trading you will already be organized so this won't take more of your time. Organizing would be: remembering your usernames and passwords for different sportsbooks, getting accustomed with ways of placing bets at different sportsbooks etc. In organizing you should pay special attention to keeping track of your account balances at different bookmakers because you will always need to have enough money to place your usual bet.
Advice to keep arbitrage trading risk free
Now after this general advice, we will give you some that will help you avoid any possible risks. When done correctly sports arbitrage trading is completely risk free. However, like in every business people do, problems in sports arbitrage betting can occur when the trader doesn't have enough knowledge or experience about it.
- Small stakes trading. This will eliminate the biggest problem which creates all the other problems, and that is inexperience. If you start trading with small stakes, you will gain experience and any error from your side won't bring you a major loss. So you will have to find the arbs, calculate arbitrage percentage and individual bets, go to the bookmakers and place bets with small stakes (around $10 total). This will allow you to learn the whole process of placing arbitrage bets, but without taking any risk your inexperience may bring. Small stakes trading will resolve problems like placing the wrong bet or reacting too slow on arbitrage opportunity. If you place the wrong bet or miss the opportunity to place the second bet before the odds change, you are making a risk or gamble. The purpose of arbitrage betting is absolutely risk free profit and not gamble.
- Check bookmakers rules. Check rules about sports you are going to bet on at different bookies. The most common differences in rules are how bookmakers settle a tennis match in case one of the players retires before the end of the game, in case of an extra time in basketball etc. If something unexpected like that happens, one sportsbook might return your bet and the other might act on the bet completely (pay your winnings or keep your money if that bet lost). In order to prevent problems, you should check bookies rules and make sure that both sportsbooks use the same or very similar rule which won't generate you a loss in case of a special situation in a sports event.
- Check stake restrictions. Stake limits may present a problem if you are investing $10,000 or more in a single arbitrage bet. Let's assume you have to place two bets to make profit, the first is $2,000 and the second is $8,000. You manage to place the first bet because you were under the stake limits, but you fail to place the second bet because you were over the stake limits. As a result of not checking stake restrictions, you are exposed to risk and possible loss.
Final arbitrage betting advice
At last, we will give you tips which don't need a lot of explanation:
- Avoid long-term arbs - events that will happen or end in more than a week
- Never bet to the maximum stake limit
- Stake whole numbers ($150, not $151,37)
- Do not withdraw your funds after every bet - some sportsbooks may charge fees for withdrawals
- Bet in the same currency - betting in different currencies may result in a loss
After a short learning period you will be able to make great profits with arbitrage betting. But you have to accept that arbitrage betting, like every other legal way to make money, includes learning and work. Although you can reduce work to the minimum with the use of arbitrage alert service, you shouldn't skip the process of learning. That is why you should read this advice and our sports arbitrage guide which will help you achieve profits free of unnecessary risks.
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