Arbitrage: The secret to always making a profit
Making a profit is the object of any bet and any gambler. And that doesn’t come without risk.
Yet there is one way you can pretty much eliminate all risk and still guarantee a profit. It’s called arbitrage.
In principle, at least, it is a risk-free way of betting as you are taking advantage of price differences between bookmakers and exchanges on two or more markets to guarantee a profit.
Perhaps the easiest example to demonstrate how arbitrage works is when there are only two possible outcomes, as in a tennis match between two closely-matched opponents, such as Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
Bookmakers or the exchanges may have differing opinions on who is the favourite to win. In order for you, the punter, to make a profit on the match, you need to find someone who offers odds of better than evens for Federer to win, and someone else who offers better than evens for Djokovic to win.
In that simple example, you could put the same stake on both players and come out with a profit, irrespective of who won.
Obviously it can, and generally is, a lot more complex than that, and learning how to become a skilful ‘arber’ takes years of learning, practice, discipline and patience, especially as you’re profit margin is generally between two and five per cent.
So to make money, you usually need a lot of money to start with. And you would need to be a maths whiz as well to work out your various stakes, and also to factor in the commission payment if you’re betting on exchanges.
You also will generally have to act fast as many arbitrage opportunities tend to have a lifespan of just 15 minutes, and some can disappear in seconds.
But there is software out there that can do most of the legwork for you to ensure that you still come out with a return from your investment.
Matched betting calculators can help you to determine how much stake you need to place on each outcome to guarantee your profit.
Using an app, meanwhile, can locate all the arbitrage opportunities for you to ensure that you don’t miss out on the chance to make a profit.
Within the app, you can set the percentage of profit that you wish to make from your bet, you can choose which bookmakers and exchanges you want to use, and which sports you want to gamble on.
You will then see the various arbitrage opportunities available to you, with which bookmakers or exchanges and what the percentage profit will be.
Bets can be placed within seconds, and with just one click.
You just always have to stay alert; both to the opportunities that are available and to make sure you don’t click the wrong button or put in the wrong stake.
It would be wrong to say that no bet is ever risk-free, but arbitrage is the best way to be in a position to always make a profit from your gambling.
