How much money you make?
What bookmarkers you use?
Are you eventually banned or limited?
What bookmarkers you use?
Are you eventually banned or limited?
-
-
The major risk comes in when you target slow moving "soft" books who can be prone to cancelling bets or banning you, leading to large losses on one bet that can wipe out any profit from your previous 20 or 30 arbs.
If you run smaller arbs through reliable books you reduce that risk but will also reduce profit by quite a lot.
.Comment -
I'm a retired arber.
Made lots of money in the past (2010's) but Arbitrage isn’t very profitable anymore. Why? Because bookmakers limit you very quickly. Not to mention, they’ve improved significantly, they adjust lines faster. Even if you manage to catch some value lines, they either limit or close your account. Many arbers I know have quit or moved on to other things..
Arbitrage isn't worth pursuing anymore unless you're based in a 3rd world country with access to numerous soft bookmakers.Last edited by Sawyer; 07-05-25, 01:23 PM.Comment -
As the above 2 post correctly point out - arb betting is much less a thing today than it was 20 years years ago for example.
Today - books are relatively vanilla in their lines and move quicker than they did in the early days of sports betting. Reality is a few books set the line and everyone clones and adjust a cent or 2 to move you in the direction they need.
To arb - you need to be posted up at multiple shops (lines move quick - no time to deposit), need to follow multiple off the radar shops simultaneously (lots of services out there monitoring the big sites for arb opportunities and alerting their clients once they pounded the opportunity themselves - so by the time you get in it’s too late) need a high tolerance for risk and need to be prepared to deal with shops calling you a cheat when you win (oddly - no one ever gets accused of wrongdoing when they lose and offered a refund of their losing bet). Oh - and you have to keep in mind every book might have slight variances in their rules too - for example rain outs shortening a baseball game or retirement in tennis. Nothing like holding a huge advantage in tennis and a player retiring due to “injury” instead of just taking the loss or a baseball game getting rained out in the 7th and the shop you bet the winning side at calling it a void as they require a full 8.5/9 be played for money lines. (Bookmaker for example is a great example of a book with rules that vary from the norm).
As a novice - arbing sports is just not practical to do and win. Bonus whoring is POSSIBLE but again fraught with risk and takes a high appetite for risk and willingness to know when it’s a losing cause and not dump good money after bad.
Too many people thought they could get rich quick doing this and too many books realized they could maximize profits by squeezing players who showed even a slight indication of taking advantage of soft lines. Your better off day trading crypto or stocks over sports. Bigger pools and no ones going to notice a player hitting them for 3-500 a day - unlike 3rd world sports books where even such low level activity is going to set off alarms.
The best side hustle is having 3-5 things going concurrently with no real connection between them. This way when one is down - hopefully another is still paying off and once in a blue moon the stars align and everything is working at once. For example - check out bonus whoring banks/credit cards - build a little profit signing up for new accounts and then take that profit and start bonus whoring this august with the football sign up offers trying to lure in valuable fresh blood to the offshore betting sites. Once you grab that low hanging fruit - then take what you’ve earned, find 3-5 cappers you follow regularly on these boards and start betting their plays you agree. It’s a slow build - but that’s the only way you will make it long term in any business.Comment
