Surebets

This section is intended mostly for novices. It contains general information about surebets.

What is a surebet?

A surebet (also referred to as betting arbitrage or arb) is a set of bets on a certain event that guarantees a profit of no less than the total amount of bets made, regardless of the result of the event. Simply put, it is a situation where the player gets a profit regardless of the situation – or at least does not lose anything. Bets comprising a surebet are called surebet outcomes. A surebet should not necessarily yield the same profit for all of its outcomes. A player may want to set bets in a way that will produce a better result for a specific outcome. Surebets can also be used as a backup, i.e. distributing your money pool in such a way that will maximize your winnings in one outcome and return your stakes in the rest.

How does it work?

Let us take a look at an example of a surebet placed on a specific event – a game between Argentina and Saudi Arabia. Here are the lines of three bookmakers for this event, taken at the same time.

Novibet:

Betboro:

Parimatch:

Let us assume the three possible opposite outcomes as a win for the first team, a draw and a win for the second team. As a rule, players place a bet and hope for luck. If they are not lucky, their money will be lost. Apparently, if you place three bets at once, each on a separate outcome, one of them will definitely win, since one of the teams always wins or there is a draw. However, no matter how much we stake, our prize money will never cover the loss if we do it at only one bookmaker. There is always a chance of losing money. This happens because bookmakers always add a certain commission (a.k.a margin) to their odds. Bookmakers always try to adjust their odds in a way that will give them advantage over players. Fortunately, however, there are thousands of betting exchanges and bookmakers across the world. It is rarely possible for them to track the changes in each other’s odds. That is where betting arbitrage or surebets can be used.

Let us stake 842.08 dollars on Argentina’s victory with the odds of 1.20 at Novibet, 117.50 dollars on a draw with the odds of 8.60 at Betboro, and 40.42 dollars on Saudi Arabia’s victory at Parimatch with the odds of 25.00. The total of our bets is 842.08 + 117.50 + 40.42 = 1000 dollars. If Argentina wins, we will get 842.08 х 1.20 = 1010.50 dollars. If there is a draw, we will get 117.50 х 8.60 = 1010.50 dollars. If Saudi Arabia wins, we will get 40.42 х 25.00 = 1010.50 dollars.

So no matter what happens, we have a guaranteed winning of $10.50 on top of the total amount of our bets! And that is a 1.05% return. From just one event. You can easily make several surebets a day. If you push the same bank through at least 10 surebets with a 1.5 return, you will get 15%. Banks offer the same interest, but per year. Our service detects hundreds of surebets with up to 30% profitability every day. As a rule, each surebet brings 2-3% of profit.

How to find a surebet?

To obtain a surebet, you need to find a set of bets meeting the following conditions:

• regardless of the outcome, one of the bets wins or all bets are returned
• the odds allow you to distribute the total bets amount in such a way that regardless of the outcome, the income from the winning bet is higher than or equal to the total bets amount

In order to find such a set of bets, you need to collect lines from as many bookmakers as possible and go through all possible combinations of bets, checking whether they meet the conditions described above. Apparently, this is a tedious and calculation-intensive task. Besides, the search must be completed as quickly as possible to have the most up-to-date information at hand. Bookmakers are actively optimizing their lines and lucrative surebets are short-lived.

However, we are lucky to live in an era when everyone can drop the burden of monotonous calculations and leave it to the computer. It will do it better and faster, while you can do something more enjoyable. To get the best surebets, just visit our service to find them sorted and stacked up for you.

What kinds or surebets are there?

Surebets differ by the number of outcomes and market types. The simplest surebet consists of at least two bets. Examples:

1 – 2
1 – X2
12 – X
1X – 2
Over – Under

More complex, but equally common surebets are based on three non-overlapping outcomes. In such surebets, one bet wins and two others lose:

1 – X – 2
AH1(-0.5) – X – 2
1 – X – AH2(-0.5)
AH1(-0.5) – X – AH2(-0.5)

Apart from this, there are numerous surebets with three outcomes that can overlap, so in some cases two bets can win at the same time (alternatively, there can be a win and a return). Here are some of them:

1X – 12 – X2

AH1(0.0) – X – 2
AH2(0.0) – X – 1
AH1(0.0) – X2 – 2
AH2(0.0) – 1X – 1
AH1(-0.25) – X – 2
AH2(-0.25) – X – 1
AH1(-0.25) – X2 – 2
AH2(-0.25) – 1X – 1
AH1(+0.25) – X – 2
AH2(+0.25) – X – 1
AH1(+0.25) – X2 – 2
AH2(+0.25) – 1X – 1
AH1(-0.25) – X – AH2(0.0)
AH2(-0.25) – X – AH1(0.0)
AH1(-0.25) – X2 – AH2(0.0)
AH2(-0.25) – 1X – AH1(0.0)
AH1(-0.25) – X – AH2(-0.25)
AH1(-0.25) – X2 – AH2(-0.25)
AH2(-0.25) – 1X – AH1(-0.25)
AH1(0.0) – AH2(+0.25) – 2
AH2(0.0) – AH1(+0.25) – 1
AH1(0.0) – X2 – AH2(-0.25)
AH2(0.0) – 1X – AH1(-0.25)
AH1(+0.25) – AH2(0.0) – 2
AH2(+0.25) – AH1(0.0) – 1
AH1(+0.25) – 12 – X2
AH2(+0.25) – 12 – 1X
AH1(+0.25) – 12 – AH2(+0.25)
AH1(0.0) – 12 – X2
AH2(0.0) – 12 – 1X
AH1(0.0) – 12 – AH2(+0.25)
AH2(0.0) – 12 – AH1(+0.25)

Over 2.0 – Under 2.5 – Under 1.5
Under 2.0 – Over 1.5 – Over 2.5
Over 2.25 – Under 2.5 – Under 1.5
Under 1.75 – Over 1.5 – Over 2.5
Over 1.75 – Under 2.5 – Under 1.5
Under 2.25 – Over 1.5 – Over 2.5
Under 1.75 – Over 1.5 – Over 2.0
Over 2.25 – Under 2.5 – Under 1.75
Over 2.0 – Under 2.25 – Under 1.5
Under 2.0 – Over 1.75 – Over 2.5
Over 2.0 – Under 2.5 – Under 1.75
Under 2.0 – Over 1.5 – Over 2.25
Over 1.75 – Under 2.0 – Under 1.5
Under 2.25 – Over 1.75 – Over 2.5

There are also surebets with a larger number of possible outcomes. In tennis, for example, you may encounter surebets with four or even six bets.

0:2 – 1:2 – 2:0 – 2:1
0:3 – 1:3 – 2:3 – 3:0 – 3:1 – 3:2

You can create new types of surebets by replacing equivalent bets in the mentioned surebet formulas, as well as by shifting totals (by adding or subtracting the same whole number) and handicaps (by adding a whole number to one team's handicap and subtracting the same whole number from the other team's handicap).

Let's look at it step by step, using the following example:
AH1(+0.75) – 2 – AH2(-1.5) -> AH1(-0.25) – X2 – 2

1. First, we need to find an equivalent formula with the Handicap market in all outcomes. In our case it will be: AH1(+0.75) – AH2(-0.5) – AH2(-1.5)

2. Then we shift all the handicaps by an integer number. For example, subtract 1 from the handicaps for the first team and add the same number to the handicaps for the second team:

AH1(+0.75 -1 = -0.25) – AH2(-0.5 + 1 = +0.5) – AH2(-1.5 + 1 = -0.5) = AH1(-0.25) – AH2(+0.5) – AH2(-0.5)

3. Next, we convert handicaps back to moneyline bets:

AH1(-0.25) – AH2(+0.5) – AH2(-0.5) = AH1(-0.25) – X2 – 2

Thus, the final conversion is as follows:

AH1(+0.75) – 2 – AH2(-1.5) = AH1(-0.25) – X2 – 2

Another example:

AH1(-0.75) – AH2(-1.5) – X2 -> AH1(+0.25) - X2 - 2

Steps same as above:

1)AH1(-0.75) – AH2(-1.5) – X2 = AH1(-0.75) – AH2(-1.5) – AH2(+0.5) 2)AH1(-0.75) – AH2(-1.5) – AH2(+0.5) = AH1(+0.25) – AH2(+0.5) – AH2(-0.5) 3)AH1(+0.25) – AH2(+0.5) – AH2(-0.5) = AH1(+0.25) - X2 - 2

What are the possible pitfalls?

In theory, a surebet must always generate profit. However, in practice unpleasant things can happen as well. Forewarned is forearmed: you should be aware of possible dangers and try to avoid them.

Sometimes, you just can not place bets on all surebet outcomes. This can be caused by a limit on the bookmaker’s side or a bookmaker’s refusal to accept a bet outside a system or express bet. Sometimes bookmakers do not accept more than one bet from one player on the same event. Besides, odds can change with time. And while the player is placing bets on certain outcomes, other odds may change for the worse. The danger of this situation is that the bet that has not been placed can actually win, while all other bets will be lost.

You should also make sure that all bookmakers taking part in a surebet use the same rules in terms of processing overtimes and shootouts, allowing draws and so forth.

But even if all bets are made, there is a risk that the bookmaker will make a refund of a bet. Virtually all bookmakers reserve the right to refuse to pay if there is a "technical" problem with determining the odds value. The possibility of this happening depends on the reliability of the bookmaker and the profitability of the surebet. The higher the profitability and the less reliable the bookmaker is, the more likely it is that the stake will be refunded. That is why you should not hop on super-profitable surebets right away. It is a good idea to check and recheck, especially if the profit is above 10%. Although we managed to place surebets with 100% profitability and get our money, this is more of an exception.

Apparently, bookmakers may not like the fact that a certain player takes solid winnings each month. So they can come up with all kinds of obstructions, like bans or refusals to give out winnings. Here again, the less a company cares about its image, the more likely it will use such methods. Betting exchanges are different. They do not care about surebetters as they make money on charging a commission on wins, while their users play with each other. That is why surebetting on exchanges is safer.

Use of an automatic surebet search saves you the trouble of performing routine calculations and searches. Software, on the other hand, can also fail at times. We try to minimize such risks, but always recommend our customers to manually recheck all surebets before placing a stake. Besides, even if our service did everything right, it is possible that some of the odds may have been updated since the last scan.

When playing with surebets, keep your head up and thoroughly analyze your bets. Also, choose bookmakers carefully if you want to be able to get your money without problems.

We advise a novice player to bet no more than 5% of their bank, since, in the event of a cancellation or error, the likelihood of losing a lot of money at once decreases. If a problem happens, then take it philosophically - you can both make a profit and lose. At most, you will incur losses equal to the bookmaker’s margin at a distance. But you will also be positively treated the bookmaker's security service, as you have made an ordinary bet without falling into the wave of arbers who want to make use of a bookmaker’s mistake.