Upon request, I'll talk a little about arbing in sports. Sports arbitraging occurs when two different bookmakers offering prices on an event with only two possible outcomes and there is enough of a difference in their prices such that you can back both outcomes and make a profit whoever wins. It's very similar to sports trading but the difference is that for arbitrage you are betting almost simultaneously with two books offering different prices. Arbitraging is sometimes described as risk-free betting, this is true in theory, but not in practice.

Let's see a real life example based on the forthcoming 2007 Greek Elections... 

These are the available fixed odds at the time of writing on Greek Elections taking place on 16th of September. Let's see the available odds in two other bookmakers: 

Nea Dimokratia (or ND or Costas Karamanlis) is trading at 1.30 in Betfair. While the first book doesn't offer a better alternative, the second one does so. Here we have a good looking opportunity for arbing, at least at first glance

We can LAY ND at 1.30 and BACK (bet) ND at 1.33 at the second bookmaker. If we lay 30€ to win 100€ in Betfair on Costas Karamanlis,  we can then back 100€ on ND at 1.33 to win 33€. Therefore, if Karamanlis wins the elections we will pay 30€ to the backers in Betfair but will be paid 33€ from the bookmaker, showing an overall profit of 3€. If he loses, we will break even since we win 100€ in Betfair but lose the same amount to the bookie. Note though that you have to take commission into account before submitting your bets. Read how commission affects odds. In addition, you can even calculate the stakes in a manner that you will profit whoever wins.

While it seems like a risk-free opportunity there are some dangers lurking.  We will talk about them in a future article. For the time being you can download my personal excel sheet I have been using when I tried arbitrage.

Check out trading after the Debate on Greek Elections.

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