Sports Arbitrage is a way of gambling where in you are guaranteed to profit whatever the outcome of the game. A good example for this is tennis. In tennis, there can only be one winner and one loser in the game.

How Sports Arbitrage Works?

Here is a view: Bookie 1 gives a higher rating on player A than player B and gave odds of 1/3 on player A winning. Bookie 2 gives a higher rating on player B than player A and gave odds of 1/2 on player B winning the game.

Getting into the game, if you place a bet of $100 on player A, and also bet $150 on player B, you are guaranteed to win $300 who ever wins the game. Since you have a total bet of $250, you have made a $50 profit (20%). It would not really matter if who will win the game because you are guaranteed to made a profit from it what ever the outcome. The figures above are just examples that rarely happens. Most of sports arbitrage will only give a return ranging between 1-5% on max.

Before you get deep down on this topic “sports arbitrage”, here are some issues you might consider and think about.

Bookies are there to make money and if they suspect a certain account using arbitrage to profit, this account is likely to be closed. You need to consider your initial investment in order to perform sports arbitrage. $500 would be good to start in at least 10 online bookies, otherwise the percentage that you are profiting would be very low. There is also a limit on your initial investment that you can spend. An amount above $20k and the amount you can profit relative to your investment size reduces. The reason is that many bookies will give a limit on the amount you can spend on smaller games were the arbitrage occur most often.

On a lower note, it is unlikely that an arbitrage will occur on a major game event such as superbowl, where you can supposedly bet thousands and make tons of money.

NOTE: Be cautious on High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP’s) that claim to be involve and doing sports arbitrage. Even though the profit on sports arbitrage is guaranteed, there is a limitation on the amount you can spend on these.