Lay less than the Back

Russinating

Russinating

Russinating

Soldato
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This is my second thread on this topic, although the last time I had slightly different markets so it wasn't correct.

However I've seen two markets recently where the lay on Betfair has been 0.5 less than the back elsewhere. And I actually placed one bet, although it was a free bet (part of the bet matching) so the stake isn't returned and the odds difference isn't enough to guarantee a profit anyway.

*snip*

But I have seen one where the odds were lower so the 0.5 difference would have guaranteed a profit. However the stakes have to be huge to get anything worthwhile. For example at odds of 5 (back) and 4.5 (lay), you'd need to bet £500 and lay £561.80 (+£1966.29 liability coverage) to guarantee a profit of just £33.71.

I've read things about people locking in profit through odds differences but is it really plausible? £561 is a huge amount to lay and you'd risk it not getting matched on anything but popular markets. How do people do it?
 
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Short answer is you will find arbs bigger than that to make more money but they're a good way to get your bookie accounts heavily limited or closed eventually, especially doing the horses. As I said on the other thread, I've been matched betting and arbing for just over a year now and I'm currently just short of £7k in profit. It's a bit unforgiving because there is plenty to learn and people will not give away their secrets (for obvious reasons), but there's plenty of money to be made.

As an example, today Arsenal were available to back at 7/5 if you knew where to look and 2.1 to lay. Gives approx £10 profit per £100 you get on.

Also, for your 5/4.5 example, the best way to take advantage of those is to lay to break even if your bet loses. Your profit increases exponentially when it comes to arbs at higher odds. You obviously won't win that often but you WILL make more profit in the long run.

Edit: also, I'd remove that screenshot. It's highly unlikely the bookie in question will see it but if they do you're going to lose your account and possibly the winnings from your bet should it come in.
 
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Cheers OMS. Strange that bookies don't like it as nobody is losing more when you arb than normal. Whether you're arbing or not the back site is going to lose or gain the same amount of money, and Betfair win no matter what.
 
Russinating said:
Cheers OMS. Strange that bookies don't like it as nobody is losing more when you arb than normal. Whether you're arbing or not the back site is going to lose or gain the same amount of money, and Betfair win no matter what.
Click to expand...

The reason bookies don't like arbers is not because they hedge their bets but because arbers always take the best value odds. It's all about expected value (EV) - the return of your bet vs the chance of it actually occurring. Good value (EV+) is when the odds a bookie offers are greater than the actual chance of an event occurring and vice versa. If you are always EV+ odds then over time you will win more than you lose. For example, if a bookmaker offered 11/10 on a coin landing on heads and you always bet on it then you would always end up in profit as the odds of winning are better than the probability of the event occurring.

The odds offered by Betfair are a reasonably good indication of the likelihood of something happening, so if you are regularly taking odds greater than this at bookmakers you will end up winning more than you lose over time. I still hedge my bets because I'm not that brave, but a cursory glance over my records shows I'm in profit across every book I use so the theory holds true.
 
Managed to place two arb bets on Betfair earlier on the same market. I'm assuming Betfair don't care about that because their profit is in the commission?

Both times I found the lay odds lower there vs Coral, but before I could place the back Coral had lowered their odds whilst Betfair's had risen.

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I'd usually place the back before the lay as your lay liability will generally exceed your back stake. Fortunately you've ended up inadvertently doing a nice bit of trading there.
 
Yeah it was all a bit of luck. Each horse would have won me £1.33 except Ivan Boru which was £8 odd. Just so happened that horse won so the winnings were much higher than the average. Fair tip re: placing the back first though I did find it easier doing it all on Betfair as it shows you each options win/loss within the market, and that required placing the lay first.

Crazy thing is at one point the horse got to 8.6 back after my lay of 6.6.
 
Horses do odd things before the off, especially at smaller meetings where there is less liquidity. If you can identify the trends (I can't!) then there's money to be made definitely.
 
Indeed. Just watched a horse go from being layable at 8.00 to backable at 17.5, all pre-race within the space of about an hour. I didn't place the lay because I'm just watching at the moment but that'd have been some nice return.

I did just lay one @ 6.60, backed automatically at 7.60 but it carried on up to 8.60 pre-race.
 
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