[ozpak]

Oh wauw, 10 whole months of experience gave you an insight in this industry? 1.2million turnover? Wauw...120k/month at 15k/arb... That sure makes you an expert.

What makes you think your stats are anywhere near relevant or represent anything near true results over a longer period with so few bets placed??

Come back after you've done 20k + bets and see what percentage of your money ended up in Pinnacle and what percentage ended up in softs. You'll change your mind.

Rather than criticizing me why don't you prove me wrong and post pictures of your high flying life as you are making a killing based on value bets. Ok leave yourself aside and give me few examples of value bettors who are having time of their life by all the money they are earning using value betting (if any such thing exist)

You are also probably driving a car which need maintenance from last 6 months but you are spending all car maintenance money on value betting hoping to get rich one day. In essence all you are doing making bookmakers rich.

Come on prove me wrong and show me % increase in your bank balance doing value betting from last 1 year and prove me wrong.

[ozpak]

Come back after you've done 20k + bets and see what percentage of your money ended up in Pinnacle and what percentage ended up in softs. You'll change your mind.

After 20k+ bets may be more money end in soft books and may be I lose more on Pinnacle side. But I am 100% sure, if I do value betting, I will be bankrupt within no times based on the fluctuations and up and down in value betting.

You seem like an expert in value betting and seem like you have done 20k+ bets. So comeon and tell your audience on this forum what's percentage increase you have seen in your bank balance in last 12 months using value betting.

[ozpak]

As a general response to your post though: most who attempt value betting fail.

I don't get this part. So most value bettors fail because of poor money management. It's same like most gamblers fail because of so many reasons. So what's the difference between value bettor and normal gambler if both are losing money in long term.

And also, where are the value bettors who are successful? I never came across any successful value bettor. All is see is some fat, ugly guys or students hoping to get rich quick sitting in front of computers all day hoping to find an edge. Would you mind to give some examples or success stories of value bettors???

[mtalock]

Great. Advice but if you did not cover opposite side you would lose outright ?

[HeeeHAWWWW]

And also, where are the value bettors who are successful? I never came across any successful value bettor.

Very few who succeed will talk about the specifics, because of the fear of giving away an edge.

There are a few famous types like Alan Woods, and indeed the founders of Pinnacle. However, there a much larger number of people making an ordinary living out of it, no great riches but paying the bills. I know about a dozen or so in Britain - there are a lot here because of no taxation on gambling income, and easy access to lots of books (although that's changed a bit in the last couple of years).


Here's something to think about: Pinnacle exists because of those sharp players. It's how their prices are refined, and absolutely fundamental to their business. They, along with SBO and IBC, allow the sharps (aka value bettors) to bet as much as they like. By contrast, the very definition of a recreational book is that value players are limited/banned as soon as possible.

[Alfa1234]

Rather than criticizing me why don't you prove me wrong and post pictures of your high flying life as you are making a killing based on value bets. Ok leave yourself aside and give me few examples of value bettors who are having time of their life by all the money they are earning using value betting (if any such thing exist)

You are also probably driving a car which need maintenance from last 6 months but you are spending all car maintenance money on value betting hoping to get rich one day. In essence all you are doing making bookmakers rich.

Come on prove me wrong and show me % increase in your bank balance doing value betting from last 1 year and prove me wrong.

Let's just say I do this full time and make a decent living. I don't feel the need to post pics of my bets and definitely am not going to give detailed stats out to the general public. My ROI is 3.1%. It's all about bankroll management, if you are going to bet 5 to 10% of your bankroll you'll definitely go bankrupt as the swings are huge. Your 'edge' is small so it's about volume and sticking to it. Also, don't expect it to work in small markets where the Pinnacle limit is 200$ like Badmington... Once you do it for a while, you'll start finding some ways and find some smaller edges that make you money.

I don't want to get into a fight with you, I just hate to see someone coming in here and make a post about his own, fairly limited experience, and tell us the entire theory doesn't work when he has, in fact, no idea if it does or not as he simply does not have enough detailed stats yet.

You WILL see after a large amount of arbitrage bets that all your money ends up in the soft books and your Pinnacle account will get drained time and again. Simply put: the smart money on Pinnacle has pushed the odd you take on Pinny up (by betting the other side), so you are on the wrong end of the smart money in Pinnacle hence you'll lose eventually. Taking the smart side won't help either as the odd has dropped to a point where there's no longer an edge. Once the market is fully formed on Pinnacle, you can assume it represents the actual probability of that event happening -> any odd higher than that will give you an edge. That's the easy part though...betting 50$ with a 5k bank and losing 900$ after 75bets will start making you doubt this edge...and that's how people lose money and go bankrupt.

[chesterfield]

I'm betting on 2 ways
comparison pinnacle & bet365
surebets less than to 1%(0<>1)
I bet only on bet365
for the moment, 60 bets, roi 10%

[BetweenHerCheeks]

Arbitrage/Surebet is waste of money if you're betting the other side at pinnacle..

Why?

Because the side you bet on Pinnacle will usually lose and your Pinnacle bankroll will decrease slowly.

Let's say odds are like this at Pinnacle,

Jack to win -164
Mike to win +140

You find "Jack to win" bet at -120 in another bookie.

Now, you can bet both sides and make a surebet (arbitrage) and guarantee the profit with zero risk. However, this is waste of money, why?

Because, the value bet is on other bookie. The bet you placed at Pinnacle is not a value bet. Time to time, you will have winning streaks in Pinnacle but over the long haul, you will lose more often and bets you lost at Pinnacle will drain your bankroll slowly..

At the end of the month,

You will have a situation like this:

Oh, very nice I made 5k net profit this month.

Total Money Won from other books: +15k
Total Money Lost (and deposited) at Pinnacle: -10k

Let me ask you. What if you didn't placed any wager at Pinnacle in order to cover other side?

You would be +15,000 up.

BECAUSE PINNACLE LINES ARE SHARPER!

OMFG just stumbled on this thread.

OP really doesn't understand math.

1. It's simple really, the arbitrage (aka betting both Pinny and the other books), GUARANTEES THAT YOU WIN NO MATTER WHAT. I don't think anyone can dispute this

2. You are ASSUMING that Pinny's lines will ALWAYS lose in the aggrgegate in any meaningful period of time. What if Pinny bets win over a month, two months, six months, a year period WHILE THE OTHER BOOKS BETS LOSE IN THE AGGREGATE. You CANNOT be certain that this will NOT happen.

[mycon]

If valuebetting theory holds true, sophisticated firms with high tech technology, large amount of previous data, and sharp minds would be cashing in. But research shows that's not the case.

Billy Walters, Matthew Benham and particularly Tony Bloom would like a word with you...

Also please point me to that research since it would make for a hilarious read.

[RangeFinder]

Bravo Alfa, great explanation. it takes at least 10,000 events to determine a mathematical outcome whether it is statistics or betting with an edge. it's not so much time as it is number of events. Congrats on your 3.1% ROI. That is excellent work.

[DISTROYA]

it doesnt take a rocket scientist to know that the sharp books balance will always in the long run decrease, and the stale/soft arbable books will go up. If you can stomach occasional losing sessions, you should just hammer away at full wager on the softer books and you would be very rich, until they kick you out of course.

[Harry N. Lloyd]

I read through this entire thread and now have a splitting headache.

[DISTROYA]

I read through this entire thread and now have a splitting headache.

[MikeyPicks1]

OMFG just stumbled on this thread.

OP really doesn't understand math.

1. It's simple really, the arbitrage (aka betting both Pinny and the other books), GUARANTEES THAT YOU WIN NO MATTER WHAT. I don't think anyone can dispute this

2. You are ASSUMING that Pinny's lines will ALWAYS lose in the aggrgegate in any meaningful period of time. What if Pinny bets win over a month, two months, six months, a year period WHILE THE OTHER BOOKS BETS LOSE IN THE AGGREGATE. You CANNOT be certain that this will NOT happen.

I don't think he's saying it's certain to happen. Rather, I think that from experience it tends to be the case more times than not. I played the game he's speaking of for a couple of years, and must admit, he's hitting it dead on. Of course, it was just 2 years of experience, not a forever.

[nicholasg97]

So I was reading this thread and how betting on the "soft books" (the ones that aren't pinnacle) is +EV in the long run. You mention in a post,

"That's the easy part though...betting 50$ with a 5k bank and losing 900$ after 75bets will start making you doubt this edge...and that's how people lose money and go bankrupt."

So I was accustomed to the notion that a "good" size for a unit would be 1% of my bankroll. Is what you're suggesting here that it should be even less?

Would've PMed this, but I don't have 40 posts.

Thanks,
Nick

[Alfa1234]

Best adjust your stake using Kelly, with a "to win" amount (don't bet 1% of your bank on an odd with a 20% edge if that odd is 8.0/+700-> huge variance that way) and the edge % taken into account. 1% as the basis would be ok but it depends on your bankroll off course...with a roll of 1k you are grinding out a bunch of bets for very low expected profit.

3% expected average profit for a 1k roll would make you 0.3€/$ per bet. Not great.

[biggie12]

arbing was soo good 8-9 years ago now its not even worth it unless u can get A TON of money down, which is not that easy anymore.

and this theory does not hold true with NBA lines at pinny. not a big enough sample but at least not this year and the previous couple.

[nicholasg97]

1% as the basis would be ok but it depends on your bankroll off course...with a roll of 1k you are grinding out a bunch of bets for very low expected profit.

3% expected average profit for a 1k roll would make you 0.3€/$ per bet. Not great.

Haha I understand. So what do I do if I have a bankroll right around 1k? I'm sure there is no one simple answer just wondering your thoughts. I'm just a college student tailing a couple people right now.

[Alfa1234]

I think you can use this time as a student to learn these skills and find something that works for you...see it as a way to earn a skill that can make you much more once your roll increases. There's no way you can safely do it with a small roll.

[Alfa1234]

and this theory does not hold true with NBA lines at pinny. not a big enough sample but at least not this year and the previous couple.

Yes, it does.

[HeeeHAWWWW]

arbing was soo good 8-9 years ago now its not even worth it unless u can get A TON of money down, which is not that easy anymore.

Yeah, it was easy money back then. Could combine with large new account or reload bonuses all over the place, then do the rollovers with arbs on top of it. At one point I had accounts with near 200 books :-)

[biggie12]

Yeah, it was easy money back then. Could combine with large new account or reload bonuses all over the place, then do the rollovers with arbs on top of it. At one point I had accounts with near 200 books :-)

Yeah i had close to around 70 books now ur lucky to find a 3% arb going off pinny but the site with the arb usually $500 limit. Okay for those looking for free lunches

[biggie12]

Yes, it does.

Do u have stats to back that up? Id be very curious to know the % im looking at nba lines from open to close daily id say its pretty much even bwtween 45-53%

[Alfa1234]

"Pretty much even" when I'm talking about a 3% edge...I don't follow every odd but I do know it holds up for the odds I've taken above the closing line.

[barnstorm]

I'm not. I just haven't found one any better than SBR. And it's very convenient that SBR lets you choose the order in which you see the books' lines. SBR is not always correct though. They are actually off a little quite often. And sometimes they are a minute or two late on their updates. I'm currently looking into having a programmer build me a program that updates the lines quicker and more accurately for me. Arbitrage is a hell of a lot easier when you can look at a number of books' lines all in accurate real time.
Do you use any other sites for line updates?

You can really just use SBR's odds page to catch these? I thought a service was really needed to do it.

Could you list your Books that accept U.S. players? Any Euro books or Asian books that accept U.S. players?

I use:
Fairlay (for Pinnacle lines)
5Dimes
BetOnline
Intertops
Bookmaker/Diamond
WagerWeb
Bovada
Jazz? Same as SBGGlobal
BetEast/BetBaller - Bitcoin Books, same as VitaBet.

Will fund GTBets and YouWager soon.

Got kicked out of Carib and they aren't taking new accounts.

Thanks!

[RangeFinder]

Okay, so this thread has been around for a few years. My question for Sawyer. Are you still using your same method and books for arbs?

[barnstorm]

If I could quote the Warden in Cool Hand Luke, "I think what we had here was just a failure to communicate."

It's an old thread, but new to some of us.

Sawyer and Hutennis couldn't get through to each other. I understand both their points. Perhaps, if they were in the same room, they could have been more clear to each other and understood each other. Something got lost in the translation that often happens in these forums.

It seems the main contention is whether or not one can bet enough cash on the Value bet to make more than you could by betting the larger amount that is possible when it is an arb and a guaranteed return of your principal? Could you survive a bad-luck streak in the Value bets if you were betting a much larger amount than Kelly would allow?

Is that what you all got out of this?

I never understood just how much Sawyer was wagering or whether he understood that part of it. Maybe he said he did have the bankroll and the stones to weather any bad streak in his Value betting. Was that his response to Hutennis' point?

We also didn't hear what the criteria was for choosing when to lay off the Pinnacle bet. I mean, I just had to cover the Pinnacle bet on Kansas -809 the other day as they were at home and a big fav over Kansas State +950 at 5Dimes. So it is a gut play or would you lay off covering the big favs on Pinnacle if the dog was a great value?

There was another good post about how if this is such a slam dunk, why wouldn't everyone and the syndicates be doing it?

Okay, hope I didn't open up any old wounds and hope I helped to summarize the sometimes confusing debate.

[RangeFinder]

I had to read your post a few times. I was confused

[stevenash]

You can really just use SBR's odds page to catch these? I thought a service was really needed to do it.

Could you list your Books that accept U.S. players? Any Euro books or Asian books that accept U.S. players?

I use:
Fairlay (for Pinnacle lines)
5Dimes
BetOnline
Intertops
Bookmaker/Diamond
WagerWeb
Bovada
Jazz? Same as SBGGlobal
BetEast/BetBaller - Bitcoin Books, same as VitaBet.

Will fund GTBets and YouWager soon.

Got kicked out of Carib and they aren't taking new accounts.

Thanks!

No DSI?

[barnstorm]

No DSI?

Yep. DSI = Diamond. Same as Bookmaker.

[Sawyer]

Nostalgia time..

Wow, 2012. 8 years ago! Oh my god, Time passes so fast..

[barnstorm]

What sort of strategy are you employing these days?

[Sawyer]

What sort of strategy are you employing these days?

Switched to value betting mostly..

[barnstorm]

Switched to value betting mostly..

Have you had any bets voided? I've had some voided, even after the event. And it wasn't an obvious mistake line, just a bad one that they even changed but never quite got right. It was the soft side of an Arb, so it really hurt and wiped out months' worth of arb profit. No more arbing for me if they are going to start doing that AFTER a game wins. Maybe it's their new way to discourage arbing. It could also have been a Value Bet that they voided for many, but at least I would not have lost the other side.

GL!

[Sawyer]

Have you had any bets voided? I've had some voided, even after the event. And it wasn't an obvious mistake line, just a bad one that they even changed but never quite got right. It was the soft side of an Arb, so it really hurt and wiped out months' worth of arb profit. No more arbing for me if they are going to start doing that AFTER a game wins. Maybe it's their new way to discourage arbing. It could also have been a Value Bet that they voided for many, but at least I would not have lost the other side.

GL!

It happens sometimes but very rarely, if you pick your spots right. I suggest you to stay away from these kind of bookmakers. Stay away from unreliable bookmakers and you won't have this problem.