Originally <a href='http://www.sportsbookreview.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26275436'>posted</a> on 09/18/2016:

Quote Originally Posted by Alfa1234 View Post
The argument is sound and 100% correct. Pinnacle and betfair are so called sharps. They set the market and in a big enough market have the most efficient price (or odd). That means, if Pinnacle gives an odd of "2" for something there is a 50% chance of that event happening minus their juice (for major markets lets say the juice is 2%). That would mean the chance of that odd winning is about 49%.

This is a constant for every odd on their lines, the same goes for a fully formed market on Betfair.

Now if you were to bet, consistently, on an odd that is higher than the Pinnacle or Betfair odd every time (this is what arbitrage players do, they bet on an odd at a softbook and counter it with Pinnacle or Betfair) you would effectively be betting on a odd that is a "better" odd than the efficient market price...giving you an edge over the long term. If you were to find, at a book an odd of 2.2 and the Pinnacle odd for that same market was 2 and you would bet that consistantly every time you'd be getting a payout of 60% for something that has only a 49% chance of happening. That gives you an edge. Do it hundreds of times and you will win money.

It's like a coin toss. If someone would give you a payout of 55% for "heads" and you would bet that every time...in the end you would always win as the actual chance of it happening is only 50%. This is a fact. As long as the payout you can get is higher than the actual chance % of the event happening, you'll win long term.

It's a fact, there is data about this and people have been doing it for a long time. Just don't do it in small or unformed markets as the Pinny or Betfair price is not efficient there and won't reflect the real odds of something happening.
But what you forget to mention is that there are only very few books that will keep you long term if you are making profit. Pinnacle, bookmaker, sbobet when it comes to book and exchanges like betfair. All other books like bet365 and all the other square books where you can find soft lines will kick you out when you win consistently--there limits aren't great either to make significant scalp. Eventually you will be left with bookmaker, pinnacle, sbo and betfair and with today's super fast line updates its not easy to scalp profit. Even if you manage to scalp profit, all you need to do is make one mistake or lose out on a possible wager to give back all the little scalp you accumulated in the past 15 or 20 events.