Sports arbitrage is not a new phenomenon, but I’ve noticed that it’s been gaining a lot of popularity the past couple of years. Part of this is down to the advent of affordable high speed internet connections – you can browse sports betting online sites, bet on sports from the comfort of your own home, and follow sports you may otherwise not have had access to – so boxing betting and football betting aren’t limited just to people with good sports channels on their cable.
Another part of this resurgence in popularity is down to sports betting arbitrage services. I’m not a fan of that myself, though – a lot of them cost money, and unless you’re really strapped for time, they don’t offer anything that you couldn’t do yourself. A good spreadsheet and a list of online sports betting bookmarks should be all you need to get started with sports arbitrage betting. An aggregator service may save you time, but unless you’re doing arbitrage as a business, I think they’re overkill.
The trick with arbitrage betting is playing two bookmakers against each other. You place two bets, one on each outcome, in such a way that no matter what the outcome of the sporting event, you make a profit. This isn’t always possible, but there are a lot of events, and a lot of bookmakers, so you should be able to find instances with odds appropriate.
Before you rush off to do that, make sure you’re aware of the charges at each site, and any terms / delays in withdrawing funds, etc. You may find that your initial bet funds will be tied up for a period of time, so if you’re doing arbitrage as a long term business goal, make sure you have enough money to get started with.