[ozpak]

I am not sure this is the right place to ask this question, but I hope I will get some decent answers to go further. Also, if moderator thinks that this is not the right place for this topic, they can move this topic to appropriate place.

So, I am doing arbing from last 8 months now. It's going great. I had some hiccups but otherwise, it's fine and it's good extra source of income for me. Almost all my arbs are before start of match.

Lately, I was monitoring odds on live sports between different books and I found really good gems. I found arbs of 2-5% on live sports between different bookmakers. Now I am planning to get into live arbing. It's difficult to find manually arbs on live sports but there are definitely arbs available. So I am thinking to hire a offshore programmer who can make a software for me which will scan the odds on live sports. I need to scan only 3 books. One is pinnacle and other two are local books.

As I don't have any IT background, so I don't know from where to start this project. How much it will cost to make such a software. How to Hire a offshore developer.

If some of you can give decent inputs, I will really appreciate this.

Thanks in advance

[benjy]

IT estimates are often more guesses than anything realistic. That said I'd be happy to guess for you but first I'd have to know if the two "local books" have an API (i.e. an easy way to get their data, Pinny has one and it is solid (though I haven't explicitly tried it for live sports)).

It would also depend on other factors such as what you would want as a front-end (interface) and if you wanted the software to automate your bets.

[BitCoinTalk]

If I did a project like this, I would charge 2 bitcoin (Using a trusted escrow of coarse), so if you are going off shore then you should get way under that..

What is going to help you out is DEFINE your scope..

1. PHP
2. Do you want to log them so you can compare? You will need a DB. (MySQL)
4. Define your scope: Detail out exactly how you want to compare the live games in the user interface. If you have examples, show them.
5. Define the books you want to monitor live events.

Overall, if an API is available, big score... If not scraping is super easy to do and throwing in a regular expression to filter out what you want, or iterating through HTML tags, easy as pie, not a complicated task. This can even be done by automating logging into an account OR scraping the odd's from a public page.

Then ESPN has very nice API too that I've used in the past to get real time scores that is free. That way you can see everything in real time that you need for ARB'ing on one page.

GL!

[Optional]

I don't think any books offer an API for their live betting.

And with the speed odds change and come on and off the board live, I wonder if this can actually be done.

If you make an app that hits each book every second for updates, that opens up a set of problems too.

Freelancer.com is a place you can get a quote fairly easily.

[FreeFall]

Another thought is if you are max betting live limits, which are what $500?, making 2-5% on that might not even be worth your efforts. I'd also consider that books will probably kick you pretty fast if you are beating then at live odds. Those a luxury not a right to get to use.

Let us know how it goes!

[ozpak]

IT estimates are often more guesses than anything realistic. That said I'd be happy to guess for you but first I'd have to know if the two "local books" have an API (i.e. an easy way to get their data, Pinny has one and it is solid (though I haven't explicitly tried it for live sports)).

It would also depend on other factors such as what you would want as a front-end (interface) and if you wanted the software to automate your bets.

No automation is required. I will prefer to manually place the bets.

I am not sure that local books have an API or no. But I know I use rebelbetting software which finds arbs and in Rebel Betting, I can see arbs from these two local books. So may be there is an API or may be Rebelbetting is scrapping the books website to get odds. I am not sure on this.

Regarding interface, I want simple interface showing odds of live sports from 3 books and percentage difference between these 3 books in a line (same like Pinnacle Asian View). That's it. Nothing fancy as I will not use it for commercial purpose.

[ozpak]

Another thought is if you are max betting live limits, which are what $500?, making 2-5% on that might not even be worth your efforts. I'd also consider that books will probably kick you pretty fast if you are beating then at live odds. Those a luxury not a right to get to use.

Let us know how it goes!

If I am able to place $1000 per game and per day on 5 games, that's an extra $100 per day for me considering 2% arb. Yesterday found 2 arbs manually and made extra $110 while watching Tennis and Basketball match. $110 is not very big amount but it adds up in a week time

[ozpak]

I don't think any books offer an API for their live betting.

And with the speed odds change and come on and off the board live, I wonder if this can actually be done.

If you make an app that hits each book every second for updates, that opens up a set of problems too.

Freelancer.com is a place you can get a quote fairly easily.

When I am watching any match, I have laptop on my lap, Mobile on my right hand and tablet on my left hand to monitor odds. I will try to do live arbing for little more and see if it's worth the effort or no. I have noticed, the best time to find and place live arb is after each game finished in Tennis and during breakouts in Basketball.

Sorry I couldn't get what you mean by "If you make an app that hits each book every second for updates, that opens up a set of problems too". Is it not possible to hit each book every second or is there some other problem?

[ozpak]

If I did a project like this, I would charge 2 bitcoin (Using a trusted escrow of coarse), so if you are going off shore then you should get way under that..

What is going to help you out is DEFINE your scope..

1. PHP
2. Do you want to log them so you can compare? You will need a DB. (MySQL)
4. Define your scope: Detail out exactly how you want to compare the live games in the user interface. If you have examples, show them.
5. Define the books you want to monitor live events.

Overall, if an API is available, big score... If not scraping is super easy to do and throwing in a regular expression to filter out what you want, or iterating through HTML tags, easy as pie, not a complicated task. This can even be done by automating logging into an account OR scraping the odd's from a public page.

Then ESPN has very nice API too that I've used in the past to get real time scores that is free. That way you can see everything in real time that you need for ARB'ing on one page.

GL!

Thanks for sharing. I will consider these points in mind

[Optional]

When I am watching any match, I have laptop on my lap, Mobile on my right hand and tablet on my left hand to monitor odds. I will try to do live arbing for little more and see if it's worth the effort or no. I have noticed, the best time to find and place live arb is after each game finished in Tennis and during breakouts in Basketball.

Sorry I couldn't get what you mean by "If you make an app that hits each book every second for updates, that opens up a set of problems too". Is it not possible to hit each book every second or is there some other problem?

Yes, if you reload their webpage over and again it costs them bandwidth and server resources and they don't like it so will block the IP you are using.

When scraping for pre match odds you only need to re-load the page every minute or two so many books will stand that (although many will also block any IP that is obviously an automated tool to scrape the site) but to do this for live odds you would need to re-read the odds way too often to not be noticed fast by just about any book's server techs I think.

[Nitrogen]

Any free line source is going to have a delay that will kill your advantage if you're arbing small moves.

Scraping is great if you can get some to scrape...parse....then store....then compare the data. Plus you'll more than likely get IP banned if you keep hammering their pages repeatedly.

If you can get past that, slight changes to the page can send that plan crashing down.