Lesson 01 – Where to start placing arbitrage bet?

Well, the answer is as in many cases — “it depends”.

The market

Generally, you will need to briefly investigate the market, and check odds from other bookmakers. Provided you are ensured, that your surebet is not a palpable error and the event will not be cancelled you should start placing your arb from a bookmaker, which odd “makes a difference”.

Please see example below (overtime included):

As you can see, there is a surebet between Unibet and Pinnacle. I would start placing the bet from Unibet at 2,10 odds. This is “making difference” odd, as this is exclusive one on New York Rangers across bookmakers, that we may use to make surebet. Provided it will drop down, if we virtually start placing bet from pinnacle at 2,02, we will end up with negative outcome, so we will lose money. Contrary, if Pinnacle will lower its odds, when we start from unibet, we will all the time have 2nd option to place bet on Maple Leafs at Tobet at 1,95 odds, still having surebet (although lower). Besides, we are on the safe side, because Pinnacle (having big limits – if we bet straight before game) will not lower its odds too dramatically. You might expect drop from 2,02 to 1,97 at most, which still would keep your surebet alive.

Limits

Generally if you have surebet against Pinnacle Sports (which is common situation, as Pinnacle is present in most arbitrage events) you should finish your surebet at Pinnacle (start in other bookmaker).

There is however one exception of this rule.

If you see surebet on “low limit event” like Italian Volleyball, where Pinnacle Sports limit is at 100 euros level, you should start placing your surebet from Pinnacle Sports. Thats because, any bet placed on that event will change odds dramatically resulting in evaporating of the surebet and most probably negative earnings.