Is It Ever Safe to 'Arb' as Part of Your Matched Betting Strategy?

On the face of it, “arb” bets are ideal situations for any matched bettor. They occur when the odds at a bookmaker on any given market are higher than the odds at a betting exchange, allowing a punter to stack the odds in her favour. Then, if she backs and lays that market bet, she is guaranteed profit.

At this point you’re probably scratching your head. If we can guarantee profit, why isn’t it safe to “arb” as part of a betting strategy? In the words of Detective Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun, is anything ever safe? Is it safe to get up in the morning, to cross the street, or stick your face in a fan? In a short word, no. But then again, nothing is ever that simple.

The Trouble With Arbs

The problem with arbs is that they are too good to be true. Betfair describes arbing as a “controversial technique...designed to offer punters minimum risk and...long-term profits”. If you were a bookmaker and you consistently offered higher odds - which you might as a lure to snare new punters - and you monitor the betting exchange - which every bookie does - and found savvy punters looking to extract maximum value from you by consistently arbing, what would you do?

Well, you might be an ethical bookie and might just say, “Hey-ho, I’m turning a profit so good luck to them.” Bookies don’t commonly say this. Increasingly, like many multi-million pound businesses, bookies are seeking to extract maximum profit from their customers. This isn’t putting customers first, it’s exploiting them. But business is business, and business must grow. So bookies might “gub” savvy punters or restrict their accounts.

Therefore, consistently making arb bets at bookmakers is a strategy likely to end our matched betting adventure. At that particular bookie, anyway. Many of the big bookies won’t let their odds drift above the exchange, so it’s unlikely that arb bets will be readily available at the biggest bookies. So, in that respect, even if you do find yourself gubbed or restricted for arb betting at a particular bookie, there’s plenty more fish in the sea.

One Arb Won’t Hurt

With that in mind, it’s worth disclosing here that I myself have engaged in arb betting. What? Shock, horror! A bet came up on the Yesbets each way bet calculator that offered an instant arb profit of £2.34 from a £10 bet. That’s a profit margin of 23.4% - hard to ignore. Especially given that arb profits often sit around 1.2%. I doubled this to a £20 bet and a £4.72 profit. Guess what? My account with that bookmaker is still up and running.

Now you’re wondering which bookie I’m talking about? I couldn’t possibly tell you. (Cough, cough...Coral...cough, cough.) There are a number of bookies who consistently offer odds higher than the exchange. Leo Vegas is one. Oddly enough, Betfair Sportsbook is another. The world’s biggest betting exchange regularly offers higher odds in its sportsbook for some markets than it does at its betting exchange. Mental.

Making The Most Of Arbs

Of course, as with matched betting in general, the higher the odds the higher the profit. But the higher the odds, the more liquidity we need in our exchange account. If you are new to matched betting and are just beginning to build your bankroll, it is unlikely that the profits offered by arb betting will be attractive enough for you anyway. You’re better off sticking to our advice on keeping under bookies’ radars to make the most out of the regular promotions they offer customers. The more profits you make from scooping and matching bookmakers’ free bet offers, the higher odds bets you can match at the exchange and the more profits we can make.

Even with a decent arb bet with profit hovering around the 10 percent mark, we’re still talking £40 profit from a £400 outlay. If the odds are high on this particular arb, say in the mid-teens or so, then laying that £400 back bet could easily require an eye-popping betting exchange liability of upwards of five or six thousand pounds. So we would need over half a grand in our exchange accounts and a spare £400 to frap in our bookie account to swoop a £40 profit.

They seem like high numbers, don’t they? And indeed they are. Given that we could make a £24 profit from a £30 free bet with nowhere near the same need for that kind of liability, we might well be better off just sticking to backing and laying free bets. And, if you’re talking about landing £5720 at a bookmaker, that’s a pretty high return if it comes in. Is a bookie going to be happy about you scooping that kind of dough? Probably not.

Landing The Bookies Price Boosts

Just to throw a spanner in the works, bookies will offer price boost promotions to entice us to bet. So, for example, Eden Hazard to score first was 4.5, but is now 6.5. The odds at the exchange might be 5.0. There is a ready made price boost arb that a bookie can’t argue about. Or, at least, is less likely to argue about. These kinds of markets are more likely to lose at bookmakers - hence the higher odds and bigger returns - in which case the bookie is most likely going to pilfer our money anyway.

Many bookmakers offer such price boost promotions around most games in a football season. So, in theory, we could be taking advantage of price boosts and landing arb winnings on a daily basis. With multiple games at a weekend not just in the Premier League but also in La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A, we could, in theory, land multiple arbs across the weekend and throughout the week.

 

But...!

And this is a but so big it would make Martin Lawrence off of Big Momma’s House shake his/her head in admiration - remember the third rule of the crisis situation? Bookies do not like a bonus abuser. They can gub us or restrict our accounts at the sniff of us abusing them for their bonuses. So, if we want to take advantage of price boost arb wins we have to make sure we follow the tenets of mug betting, and maybe throw a few cards or dice at the casinos while we’re at it. Remember, we’re normal punters. Act natural. Nice and cool, Trig. Nice and cool.