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With arbitrage betting we can make a profit regardless of the end result of a sports game. It allows us to profit from sportsbook that misprice their odds. If you need a refresher on the arbitrage betting strategy check out my guide on ‘What is Arbitrage Betting?‘
Once we understand the arbitrage betting strategy we just need to find arbitrage betting opportunities. But how do we do this?
Well, there are a number of ways we can do this either manually or through the use of software tools that scan sportsbook odds 24/7.
How to find Arbitrage Bets Manually
Arbitrage Betting doesn’t always require fancy (and expensive) software. It is possible to find arbitrage be manually for free.
Finding arbitrage betting opportunities manually is particularly useful for exotic and novel prop markets. Think markets like ‘What color will the Gatorade be at the superbowl’
These markets can have MASSIVE arbs as sportsbooks tend to just throw some random numbers up at the start before the markets converge.
However, these markets are usually not covered by arbitrage software tools.
Step 1: Open all of our sportsbooks
The first thing you need to do is open all of the sportsbook account you have. I would also recommend opening an account with a sharp sportsbook like Circa Sports or betting exchange such as Sporttrade or Novig if you have done so already.
As sharp sportsbooks and betting exchanges tend to have better odds than regular sportsbooks.
Step 2: Open a spreadsheet
Open either an excel spreadsheet or a google spreadsheet and create a column for each sportsbook and a column for each outcome we want to compare
In this example I’m looking for arbs in the college basketball markets. This game is between Brown University and Columbia University.
Step 3: Enter the odds from each sportsbook into the cells of each row
Take the odds from each sportsbook and copy them into the spreadsheet like the image below
Step 4: Find and compare the best odds
Once we have entered all the odds from each sportsbook we can now look for arbitrage opportunities.
If we’re betting on a 2-way market such as moneyline, spread or totals we can find arbitrage bets quickly by checking to see if any positive moneyline odds are large than any negative moneyline odds.
i.e. if we have +170 as the highest odds for Brown, any odds below -170 such as -168, -165, -160 would be an arbitrage bet.
In this case, Brown is +170 at Sporttrade and Columbia is -164 at Fanduel
However, if we have more than one potential outcome we can check to see if there is an arb by entering the best odds for each outcome in the 3-Way Arbitrage Betting Calculator or the 4-Way Arbitrage Betting Calculator.
Step 5: Enter best odds into Arbitrage Calculator
To check if any combination of bets are an ‘arb’ we can enter those odds into one of our arbitrage betting calculator:
For our example with Brown vs. Columbia we would enter the odds of +170 and _164 into the calculator
The calculator gives us an Arb % of 0.84% meaning these bets create an arbitrage bet.
We can now select how much we want to bet and the suggested bet stakes will be displayed in the calculator.
The total profit we would make from this arb is also displayed at the bottom of the calculator.
Step 6: Place our bets with both sportsbooks
The last thing we need to do it place our bets with each sportsbook provided that the odds have not changed.
If the odds have change we will need to recalculate whether the odds are still an arb and if they are we need to adjust our bet stake.
As you can see finding arbitrage bets manually can be very time consuming and tedious. Especially as odds are constantly changing and moving between sportsbooks.
Trying to arbitrage bet manually will ultimately result in lower profits. That’s why I would always recommend using software to streamline the process of finding profitable arbitrage betting opportunities.
In certain situations such as Live Arbitrage Betting during in-play games software is almost essential.
In the next sections we’ll look at both free and paid options for maximizing your profits from arbing in the USA.
How to find Arbitrage Betting Opportunities using Free Software
If we ask ourselves ‘How to find arbitrage bets’ we can break the task down into two main tasks:
- Collecting lots of sportsbook data
- Comparing lots of sportsbook data
Two tasks which computer software excels at over humans. If we want to make the most profit when arbitrage betting we need to be utilizing software.
However, some of the premium arbitrage software can cost $1499 per month!
But don’t worry in this section I’ll show you how to find arbitrage bets using free arbitrage betting software.
Unabated’s Odds Comparison Tool
The first piece of software we’re going to look at is Unabated’s Free Odds Comparison Tool.
The odds comparison tool will list the odds currently available at a number of American sportsbooks.
The left of the table is the Best Line Column which will allow you to see at a glace which sportsbook currently has the best odds for a given outcome.
To the left of this column is the Hold Column which displays the Vig/Hold Percentage of the best odds between all sportsbook.
When this number is negative this means the best sportsbook lines are currently an arb. Unabated conveniently highlights these arbs in green as you can see in the image above.
You can change the current sports and betting market in the filters section above the table to look for arbs in different markets and sports.
Using the odds comparison tool still requires some manually searching but the software really speeds up the process of how to find an arbitrage bet.
The next tool we’re going to look at will just find us the arbitrage bets and calculate how much we should place on each bet.
Best thing of all it’s completely Free!
Oddsshopper’s Free Arbitrage Tool
Oddsshopper provide a host of paid and free betting tools for both sports betting and daily fantasy sports.
There arbitrage tool is part of their collection of free tools and doesn’t require a subscription. Check it out using the button below.
The tool will provide us with arbitrage bets and calculate how much we should bet on each outcome given a total bet stake amount.
You can select your state using the dropdown menu at top of the tool. If there are no arbitrage bets currently available the page will be blank. Just check back later.
Oddsshopper’s tools covers the odds available at the main sportsbooks in each state but doesn’t cover all sportsbooks and betting markets.
Having used the tool there can be times when the software will show an arbitrage opportunity but by the time you have navigated onto the sportsbook’s website, logged in and found the correct market the odds have changes
How to find Arbitrage Betting Opportunities using Paid Software
If you’ve been using the free arbitrage tools for a while you may have noticed that a sizeable number of sportsbooks and markets are missing from these tools.
You can make some nice profit using free arbitrage tools!
However, In order to earn the maximum potential profits from arbitrage betting you need to invest in a paid arbitrage service.
Getting access to the fastest odds from the largest range of sportsbook cost a lot of money to create an maintain. This is why most free tools only cover the main sportsbook and markets.
How to find Arbitrage Bets using Oddsjam
Oddsjam provide real-time betting odds from almost every sportsbook in the USA and Canada.
They have one of the most extensive arbitrage betting tools in America as part of their positive ev betting package.
The oddsjam arbitrage tool looks similar to the oddsshopper tool but has more sportsbooks, faster odds and many more custom features such as email notifications.
The tool finds arbitrage betting opportunities, calculates the optimal bet stakes given your bankroll size and tracks your profits with their built in profit tracker.
The image below shows the extensive range of sportsbooks we are able to track using the Oddsjam arbitrage betting tool.
The arbitrage tool also has an extensive range of filters allowing us to filter by sport, league, betting market, date until event and min/max odds.
With Oddsjam we can create a custom filter and then set up notifications meaning Oddsjam will notify us when an arbitrage opportunity which meets our criteria is found. We can either get an email or a browser/phone notification.
For example, we can set a filter to only show arbs of 3%+ on college sports starting in the next 24 hours. When Oddsjam finds a bet that meets this we can get sent an email or browser notification.
The Oddsjam Arbitrage Tool is $199 per month and comes with a host of other tools such as the postive ev betting tool, middles betting tool, promos conversion tools and more. I cover all of these tools and the package in my Oddsjam Review.
Oddsjam also offer a 7-Day free trial so you can test out the software for yourself.
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