4/10/2022

Roulette Arbitrage Betting

Most punters will at least once make the mistake of backing both teams in a match to win a bet. But what they soon realise is that betting on all the outcomes in a game is never a good strategy unless the odds are in your favour. Why? Because you’ll always end up losing money by virtue of how bookmakers set their prices.

Arbitrage sports betting is a strategy which involves finding variable odds across multiple betting sites that guarantee a profit no matter what happens in the match. So, it’s actually possible to win this way? Yes, but you’ll have to be very patient and determined.

With the prevalence of online bookmaking today, arbitrage sports betting has become increasingly difficult but there are still some opportunities for a sure win if you look hard enough and act fast.

We explain the meaning of arbitrage sports betting, discuss how it works in practice, give you tips for spotting arbing opportunities and debate whether it’s really a strategy worth trying out.

Arbitrage Betting Software, free arbitrage betting software software downloads, Page 2. Win $300 To $1200 Daily Using Our Secret Roulette Software. Arbitrage betting occurs when you spread around your stake by wagering on all possible outcomes of an event with odds that guarantee you make profit no matter what the final result will be.

What Is Arbitrage Betting?

To understand arbitrage betting it’s important first to understand how bookmakers make money. Every time you place a bet, you pay a hidden transaction fee, also known as the bookie’s margin, vigorish or overround. The amount ranges from 3% to 20% depending on the bookie and betting market. This margin is built-in to all betting markets but the easiest example is where the true probability of an outcome is 50%, such as a coin flip.

To help explain, the bookie typically pays out at odds of 9/10 in these situations (not EVS) because the 10% difference in odds (the margin) is theirs to keep if you win the bet. The margin is a safety net for bookies to ensure they make a long-term profit even if their odds aren’t dead right every time.

Roulette Arbitrage Betting Definition

So where does arbitrage sports betting come in? Arbing takes advantage of the occasional small discrepancies in odds between different bookies on the same match. The aim of arbitrage is to bet on both sides of a market in such a way as to eliminate the bookie’s margin and guarantee a very small profit no matter what happens.

Does that sound complicated? Maybe this example will help…

How Does Arbitrage Sports Betting Work?

Let’s say Betway has set the Match Winner odds for an upcoming tennis match between Djokovic and Nadal as follows:

  • Nadal – 17/20 (1.85)
  • Djokovic – EVS (2.0)

At Sportingbet, you see the odds for the same match as follows:

  • Nadal – 7/10 (1.7)
  • Djokovic – 5/4 (2.25)

For this Match Winner market, the best odds for Nadal (17/20) are with Betway and the best odds for Djokovic are with Sportingbet (5/4). By taking a bet on Nadal with Betway and another bet on Djokovic with Sportingbet you can create a situation where you’re guaranteed to make a profit no matter what happens in the match.

How can this be? The combined cost of your two bets covering all possible outcomes is slightly less than your payout if either bet wins—and you have a 100% chance of one bet winning!

To use the same example, let’s say you decide to bet R200 in total on the above-mentioned match between Nadal and Djokovic. Your first step is to use anarbitrage betting calculator to work out how much profit you stand to make from the bet and also the amount you need to stake on each selection to guarantee a profit.

You will divide your total spend between the two bets based on the odds for each selection. If you don’t stake on each bet correctly, one outcome could lose you money which makes your arbitrage bet pointless.

Nadal is the favourite to win and has smaller odds, so you’ll need to bet slightly more on him than Djokovic to ensure your return equals more than the total cost of your two bets.

You will need to divide your R200 as follows to ensure a profit:

  • Bet R110 on Nadal with Betway @ odds of 17/20
  • Bet R90 on Djokovic with Sportingbet @ odds of 5/4

To calculate your profit, subtract the total cost of your two bets (R200) from their potential returns.

  • If Nadal wins the match, your return is R203.50 and your profit is R3.50 (1.75% profit).
  • If Djokovic wins the match, your return is R202.50 and your profit is R2.50 (1.25% profit).

How To Find Arbitrage Sports Bets

It’s all very well making a guaranteed profit with arbitrage sports betting, but how do you even go about finding betting opportunities? The straight and truthful answer is—with great difficulty. These bets are seldom obvious and it usually takes a lot of practice looking at odds before you can spot them.

If you see odds of EVS or better on both sides of the market, you know for sure you have a viable arbitrage betting opportunity. But in most cases, the market’s odds make it far less clear and you’ll have to use an arbitrage betting calculator to find out.

5 Ways You Can Take Arbitrage Bets Under The Radar

  1. Round your bets up or down to the nearest rand.
  2. Don’t deposit and withdraw funds every time you win.
  3. Bet on the occasional accumulator.
  4. Use a site with a betting exchange like 1xBet (if you are outside of South Africa) where you aren’t betting against the bookmaker but rather other punters.
  5. Don’t take bets for the maximum stake every time.

Is Arbitrage Betting Legal?

Yes, arbitrage betting is legal. However, some bookmakers still don’t allow players to place these bets, stating in their T&Cs that they close the accounts of known arbers. Some off-shore betting sites like Pinnacle actually encourage arbitrage sports betting because it helps increase betting volume—even if they are guaranteed to lose some arbitrage bets to punters, they are bound to win some too.

Can My Betting Account Be Closed For Arbitrage Betting?

Yes, your account can be closed by a bookmaker if you are found to be arbitrage betting. However, it’s not so easy for bookmakers to know when customers are arbing—you can often place these bets without raising any red flags by following a few simple guidelines.

Can You Make Money Arbitrage Betting?

The only way to make money with arbitrage sports betting is to spend a lot of time and money doing it. Even with the help of odds comparison sites like Oddschecker, finding arbing opportunities on sports betting sites in South Africa is very time-consuming. The next hurdle for arbitrage bettors is having a big enough bankroll to make it worth the effort.

Most arbitrage bets yield no more than 2% profit after offsetting the bookmaker’s margin, so you need to bet huge amounts to make any real money. This can be a problem for many bettors, not only in terms of having the finances but also successfully getting these large bets down with some bookies. Depending on the operator and betting market for which the arbitrage opportunity is available, your bet size might be limited to R1 000 or less, which doesn’t allow you to make much profit each time you win an arbitrage bet.

Is Arbitrage Betting Even Any Fun?

Another question worth asking yourself is “Will arbing take all the fun out of sports betting?” to which I would answer a resounding, “Yes!”. Why many of us like betting in the first place is because we like being right about our predictions and making some money while we’re at it.

By betting on all possible outcomes of the match, you remove the fun of cheering on your team and hoping your bets win. Success is never guaranteed with traditional bets but at least you can get a decent amount back when you do land a winner!

In Summary

Arbitrage sports betting is a good idea on paper but it requires a lot of hard work and patience for very little reward. Many years ago back when bookmakers were all offline and couldn’t adjust odds so quickly, there were more opportunities for arbitrage bettors to make a quick buck.

Nowadays, the small differences in odds you find across bookmakers are so rare and insignificant that it’s difficult to bet them profitably. We recommend you avoid arbitrage sports betting and stick with traditional wagers. If you’re a conservative punter and like to play it safe, check out these low-risk soccer betting markets for inspiration!

Useful Links

Have any experience placing arbitrage bets and making money? Kudos to you—we want to hear about it in the comments below!

More on Best Sports Betting

Roulette is one of the most popular table games in modern casinos. Although variations on the game have been around for several hundred years, there are now only 3 variations in American casinos.

You’re likely already familiar with American roulette and European roulette. The most recent addition to the table game inventory is Sands Roulette.

Which of these games should you play?

How should you bet on them?

What’s the smartest strategy for roulette betting?

I’ll explain all that in this post:

What Are the Differences between American, European, and Sands Roulette?

Although these games have a few other differences, the most significant distinction between the 3 versions of roulette are the number of green slots the wheels contain.

Every roulette wheel has at least 37 slots.

36 of those slots are always numbered 1 to 36, and they’re alternately colored RED or BLACK.

The additional slots are green.

In European roulette there is only one green slot, the “0”.

In American roulette there are two green slots: “0” and “00”.

In Sands roulette a third green slot, “S”, has been added to the wheel.

The green slots are there for one reason:

They make the game’s statistical probabilities uneven.

This is because of the way roulette bets are paid off. You can win anywhere from 35-to-1 (for betting on a single number) down to 1-to-1 (for betting on 18 slots at a time).

The payoffs, called “odds”, are not as fair to you as the actual estimated probabilities of the roulette ball landing on any given slot. This is how the casino makes its money.

In a game of roulette the house should keep at least 2.70% of all the bets players make over time. The casino has no need to cheat the players. In fact, the players often make really bad bets that improve the “house edge”, as that casino profit is called.

One of the other differences between European roulette and both American and Sands roulette is that the European roulette table has an additional betting area. This secondary betting area is used to place specially designed bets. They are more complicated than the normal bets made in American and Sands roulette. I’m going to ignore this section of the table, because I’m going to show you how to place bets that have the best chances of paying off.

Is There a Winning System for Roulette?

Everyone who gets into roulette sooner or later starts to think about how they can “beat the system”.

I’m going to be honest here:

There is no way to do that.

The green slots on the wheel make it impossible for anyone, anywhere, to ever design a betting system that is guaranteed to win. If you really want to guarantee yourself a win every time, then put a chip on each of the 2-to-1 outside bets and on each of the green number bets.

That’s the only way you’ll be paid money every time the wheel spins.

You’ll also go broke.

You may have heard about a system called the Martingale System. It’s a popular betting system with new roulette players.

Experienced roulette players just turn their heads and roll their eyes when someone mentions the Martingale System. The only way you can make money with the Martingale System is to write a book about it and get people to buy your book.

Even that’s a gamble, though, because most people now know that the Martingale System promises more than it delivers.

Here’s how this system works:

You start out betting the minimum. If you lose, you double your bet. If you win on your doubled bet, you go back to betting the table minimum. If you lose again, you double the size of your bet again.

This sounds great to inexperienced bettors but the problem is that you’ll either run out of money or hit the table limit before you can recoup your losses as they add up.

The Martingale System is a sucker bet, plain and simple.

Every betting system in every form of gambling tries to leverage probability theory. The Martingale System and other roulette betting strategies also rely on probability estimates.

But there’s a flaw in the thinking behind these systems. If you account for the flaw you’ll be okay. You won’t always win but your expectations will be more reasonable.

The secret to not going broke when you gamble is to set reasonable expectations and maintain your self-discipline. You should never drink or take drugs when you gamble. They lower your inhibitions and impair your judgment.

You might as well just hand your money over to the casino at the cashier window and say “keep it” if you’re going to drink or do drugs when you gamble.

How Do Probabilities Work in Roulette?

Probability theory came out of statistics. It tries to give us rules by which to guess what happens next in any situation. The guesses are seldom accurate predictions. Sometimes the guesses work out, and sometimes they don’t. Gamblers love probability theory because they think it helps them pick the best betting strategies.

You’re actually more likely to double your money during a roulette session if you put all your money on a single bet. The more bets you place, the less likely it becomes to double your money.

That’s because every bet brings you close to the long term expectations. The closer you are to the short term, the more likely you are to get better than expected results.

In roulette, the probabilities are simple. The dealer spins the wheel and releases a ball that whirls around the outside of the wheel and finally settles in a slot. With only 37 slots on a European roulette wheel you have a 1-in-37 probability of the ball landing on a specific slot.

This probability never changes.

This probability is calculated on the basis of all the known possibilities.

What probability theory cannot do, however, is predict where the ball will stop.

Nor can it predict whether the ball will land on red, black, or green any number of times over the next 100 spins.

Nonetheless, a lot of gambling guides tell you that you have the best chances of winning if you do this because of such-and-such probabilities. And many of these guides warn you that there is no way to predict the future, but by setting the expectation that the ball will land on red about 47% of the time, these guides are making predictions and promises they cannot keep.

They’ll even back up their claims by talking about how to run computer simulations for 1 million spins of the wheel so that you see how often the ball lands on red, black, or green.

In the real world the Probability Fairy is always on vacation. She’ll never be there to wave her magic wand to make things happen the way experts say they should. The ball could land on red over the next 20 spins. Or it could land on black or green or some random mix of color combinations.

You have no way of knowing how many of the next [X] spins will turn out a certain way. Talking about probabilities in this way is just dishonest.

What you can do is look at the wheel and ask yourself how much it costs to bet on the largest possible set of numbers. The idea here is to get as much coverage as you can without losing money too fast.

But even if you cover every number on the wheel you’ll lose money.

So the only way to win in roulette–and this is completely random, never guaranteed–is to bet on less than all the numbers on the wheel.

You also want to play bets that pay better than even money. You can place a variety of bets, but most of them aren’t worthwhile.

Betting on single numbers is a bad idea. You can place bets on the lines between the numbers (these are called “street bets”) and on lines at the corners of numbers (these are called “corner bets”).

But even though you get pretty good odds (payoff) you’re still covering too few numbers.

How Bets Work in Roulette

Divide the bets into two groups:

  1. Inside bets
  2. Outside bets

Roulette Arbitrage Betting Strategy

Betting

Inside bets are based on individual numbers or small groups of numbers. When you see players betting on the lines, corners, and individual numbers on the table they are making inside bets.

Outside bets are based on pre-selected groups of numbers on the wheel. The “2-to-1” bets cover 12 numbers each: 1 to 12, 13 to 24, and 25 to 36. The “1-to-1” or “even money” bets cover 18 numbers each:

  • Odd
  • Even
  • Black
  • Red
  • 1 to 18
  • 19 to 36

The bets more likely to pay are the even money bets.

But unless you can win 5 times out of 9 on even money bets you’ll lose your stake. That’s the problem with roulette. You always have to win at least 1 more time than you lose no matter how you place your bets.

The “2 to 1” bets pay better than the “1 to 1” bets because they cover fewer numbers. You have less of a chance of winning.

There are 6 types of “2 to 1” bets:

  • 3 kinds of dozens bets: (1 to 12, 13 to 24, and 25 to 36)
  • 3 kinds of columns bets: ([1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34], [2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, 35], [3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36]).

You can make a bet by betting on any two of the “2 to 1” groups. That means that instead of covering only 18 numbers you’ll be covering 24 numbers.

This type of bet is often called the “double dozen” bet. It’s popular among gamblers who like to hedge their bets. They have a better chance (all other things considered) of scoring a win with a “double dozen” than with one of the standard even money bets. If you’re playing it safe and going for even money odds, you should always play a double dozen bet.

If you want to bet more aggressively, then instead of betting more money on your double dozen, you can cover all 36 of the red and black numbers. Leave the green numbers alone. Yes, they’ll come in every now and then, and you’ll lose money.

But there’s a way to keep your losses low.

How to Bet on Columns or Dozens Aggressively

Take 6 chips and distribute them across EITHER the three dozen bets or the three column bets.

Place 3 chips on 1, 2 chips on the 2nd, and 1 chip on the 3rd. If the ball lands on a green number you’ll lose your entire bet, so always play the table minimum with this aggressive style.

If the ball lands on any number with your single chip bet, you’ll win 2 chips and lose 5–for a net loss of 3 chips (half your bet).

That’s the safest way to bet aggressively on the table.

If the ball lands on any number in your 2 chip bet you’ll win 4 chips and lose 4 for no loss. This keeps you in the game.

If the ball lands on any number in your 3chip bet, you’ll win 6 chips and lose 3 for a net gain of 3 chips. This will offset 1 single chip win.

The way this betting strategy works out, your money can grow substantially and still take some big hits. Where the strategy will fail you is when the ball lands on green or if the ball lands on the single chip bet more often than it lands on the 3 chip bet.

Sorry, but there’s no way to prevent that from happening.

Roulette Arbitrage Betting Sites

There Is No Guaranteed Way to Win in Roulette

I can’t say this often enough:

You can’t win at roulette in the long run.

I think roulette is a fun game to play. It’s exciting because you don’t know where the ball will land. You take an active role in making your wagers.

And you’ll find there are a lot of different betting systems to experiment with. The only thing that is guaranteed in roulette is that the casino will make a profit. What you hope for is that they make their profit at someone else’s expense.

Roulette Arbitrage Betting Rules

Players who try to improve their luck by making big bets do sometimes win, but most often the people who come out ahead are the patient players who use conservative betting strategies and take money off the table. If you only walk away with your beginning stake you’ll be luckier than most gamblers.

And you can take that to the bank.