What is Arbitrage Betting? Risk Free Sports Betting Explained
Guides4 min read
What if there was a way to make money from sports betting with zero risk?
No hoping your team wins. No relying on luck. Just guaranteed profit, every single time.
It sounds too good to be true, but it's not. It's called arbitrage betting.
What is Arbitrage?
Arbitrage is a strategy that guarantees profit by exploiting price discrepancies for the same asset across different markets. This concept applies to many fields including crypto exchanges, stock markets, foreign exchange, and sports betting.
The principle is simple: buy low in one market and sell high in another, locking in risk free profit.
In Betting:
Arbitrage betting involves placing bets on all possible outcomes of an event with different bookmakers to guarantee a profit, regardless of the outcome.
A tennis match priced at 2.10 both ways
Imagine a tennis match where Sportsbet offers 2.10 odds on Player A winning, while TAB offers 2.10 odds on Player B winning. You can bet on both players and guarantee profit regardless of who wins.
If you bet $100 on each player, you'd receive $210 back no matter the outcome, making a guaranteed $10 profit.
How to Find Arbitrage Betting Opportunities
To find an arbitrage opportunity, you need to compare odds across multiple bookmakers for the same event and calculate if betting on all outcomes guarantees profit.
Calculating Arbitrage Bets:
Firstly, convert all outcomes odds from a single market or line to implied probabilities by dividing 1 by the decimal odds. Then add up all the implied probabilities.
If the total is less than 100%, you have an arbitrage betting opportunity.
Worked example
Player A at 2.10 = 47.6% implied probability
Player B at 2.10 = 47.6% implied probability
47.6% + 47.6% = 95.2%
Since this is less than 100%, you can lock in a guaranteed 4.8% profit through arbitrage betting.
Finding Arbitrage Opportunities Manually:
Manually checking dozens of bookmakers for every match would take hours. Whether you're betting on AFL in Australia, NFL in America, or Premier League football, arbitrage opportunities disappear within minutes, sometimes seconds, as bookmakers adjust their odds.
This is why arbitrage betting software is essential. It scans bookmakers in real time, calculates arbitrage percentages instantly, and alerts you the moment risk free betting opportunities arise.
Using Arbitrage Betting Software
With over 100+ bookmakers in Australia, arbitrage opportunities are fairly common with multiple of the same markets being priced differently.
Arbitrage opportunities disappear quickly, so speed is essential. Good arbitrage software displays all the information you need to place both bets before the odds change.
Best practice is to have both bets ready to place with the correct stakes before confirming either bet, in case odds change on one bookmaker.
A good arbitrage software will have your required stakes automatically calculated for each opportunity, making it extremely fast for you to place both bets.
Setting Your Filters:
Configure your filters to show only the opportunities you want:
- Sport
- Best practice is to leave all selected.
- Bookmakers
- Choose bookmakers where you have accounts.
- Odds
- Set your preferred odds range.
- Profit%
- While any positive percentage guarantees profit, we recommend at least 3%. Avoid extremely high percentages (20%+) as these can flag your accounts.
- Starts In
- Best practice is betting close to start time, ideally within a few hours.
- Stakes
- Set your total stake amount and rounding preference. We recommend rounding to $5 for account sustainability.