More Sports Betting Arbitrage

There have recently been a lot of promotions on sports betting sites along the lines of: if your team loses by less than X points, or scores first and loses, we’ll refund your bet, up to $100. Alternatives are offering a bonus bet equal to your stake or winnings if your team wins by more than 20 points or at least 2 goals etc.

These offers are almost always able to be arbitraged by covering the range of outcomes on other sites. I’ll illustrate how with a practical example.

This week, Ladbrokes is offering bet refunds on the AFL and rugby league finals matches. For the league, you get a full bet refund if your team loses by 6 points or less. For the AFL, the refund is for a loss of 20 points or less.

Let’s take the Manly v Canterbury rugby league game. Canterbury are paying 1.62 and Manly 2.35, but 2.40 on another site (Betezy). This is at the time of writing this post, of course.

Suppose the maximum refund is $100. That’s what you should bet.

So, suppose you bet the $100 on Canterbury. If they win, the payout is $162.

If Manly win by 1 – 6 points, you’ll get a refund payout of $100, so you’ll need to bet enough on a straight Manly win at 2.40 on Betezy to pay out the remaining $62 ie. bet $26.

If Manly win by more than 6, you’ll get $62 from your $26 @ 2.40, but nothing else, so you have to back Manly with – 6.5 points start to recover the outstanding $100. Sportsbet, Sportingbet, Centrebet and Luxbet all let you pick your own line. Betezy often has a reasonable set of line bets. In this case, the best odds I found for Manly –6.5 were Betezy at 3.85. So, bet $26 @ 3.85 to win $100.

So, for each of the options: Canterbury win, Manly win by 1 – 6, Manly win by 7+, your payout will be $162. The total outlay is $152. Thus, you have a certain profit of $10, regardless of the game’s outcome ie. an arbitrage.

Readers may notice I have neglected the possibility of a draw. That’s because a draw is sufficiently unlikely that you are better off self insuring, rather than covering it.

Head to head bets (no draw option) pay out half in the event of a draw. Thus, in our example, you will receive $81 from your bet on Canterbury, plus $31 from your straight win bet on Manly. You’re $50 short in the event of a draw. Draws usually pay about 25.00, so you could cover this for around $2, but the frequency of draws at the end of normal time is approximately 1 in 33, meaning that you'll be ahead if you just keep the $2 needed to cover the draw in your pocket, since in the long run you will have saved $66 in bets for every missed $50 in payouts.

An alternative strategy for covering the draw outcome is to lay Canterbury on Betfair, which is currently costing 1.70. You’ll still need to back Manly –6.5 for $26 @ 3.85 to match the $100 refund if Manly win by 7+.

Suppose you lay an amount A. If Canterbury win, you’ll get $162 from Ladbrokes, but pay out 0.70 * A on Betfair ie. you will receive a total of 162 – 0.7 A.

If Manly win, you’ll receive $100 from either the refund or the Manly 7+ bet, plus 0.95 * A from the lay (Betfair takes 5% commission on winnings).

Thus 162 – 0.7 A = 100 + 0.95 A, giving A = 37.60.

This means you lay $37.60 on Canterbury at 1.70.

You have spent $126 and will receive $135.70, regardless of the outcome, which is roughly the same profit as before.

In the event of a draw, your lay bet pays out in full, plus you receive half of the $162 Canterbury win payout. This leaves you $19 short instead of $50, so the self insurance for the draw is also more profitable.

OK, so you’ve earned a guaranteed $10, regardless of the outcome of the match.

Suppose you want to actually have some money riding on the game, but no chance of coming out with a loss. That is, if your team loses, you’ll get nothing, but something if they win.

Betting on Manly is easy. Because the odds are better on an alternative site to the one with the promotion, just do the arbitrage, knowing you will receive a certain $10. Now bet the $10 on Manly at 2.40.

If Manly win, you’ll get $24. If they lose, you’ll end up with zero, but at least no loss.

Let’s suppose you want to bet on Canterbury instead. You could do the arbitrage and maybe find another site paying say, 1.64.

Alternatively, just bet less on Manly to win at 2.40. You should be able to calculate that if you bet $18.50 on Manly at 2.40, instead of $26, you will break even if Manly win and make a profit of $17.50 if Canterbury win.

So, with this strategy, you have essentially earned yourself a free bet.

I’ll finish the post with an example of how to arbitrage a bonus offer, such as a bonus bet equal to your stake (max $100) if your team wins by more than 10 points. Luxbet have been doing this a bit recently.

I’ll use the Manly v Canterbury game above as the example.

If you read my post on how to use free bets, you’ll see how to convert free bets into cash at 70 cents in the dollar (sometimes more). Thus, if you bet $100 on the win, treat the bonus as worth $70.

Suppose as before, you bet $100 on Canterbury at 1.62. If Canterbury win by 11+, you’ll actually get $162 + $70 = $232.

So, you’ll need to cover the outcome of Canterbury winning by 1 – 10 for $70. You can do this easily by backing Manly at +10.5. This option is paying 1.40, so spend $50 on Manly +10.5. This will give you $70 if Manly win, it’s a draw, or Canterbury win by 10 or less.

Now you just need to bet $67.50 on Manly for a straight win at 2.40 to receive the outstanding $162.

No matter what the outcome, your payout will be $232 for a spend of $217.50 ie. an arbitrage profit of $14.50.

As before, if you want to actually bet, but not lose any money, either do the arbitrage and bet $14.50 on Manly for a possible win of $34.80, or if you want to bet on Canterbury, just bet less on Manly ($57) for a $25 payout if Canterbury win.

Across the sports betting sites, there seem to be a few of these types of promotional offers every week at the moment, so plenty of opportunity to get some free cash for a few no stress bets.