If you’re on the lookout for a reliable arbitrage betting calculator, look no further. With our free arbitrage calculator, you can enter the odds of two, three, or more different bets and the stake you’re planning to wager – and our calculator will tell you exactly how much you’ll win in net profit. In cases where the return on investment (ROI) is negative, it indicates that no profit is attainable, which means that your bets are not a good choice for arbitrage betting.
Don’t know how much to wager? You can just enter the odds of your bets, and the calculator will determine how much you need to wager so you end up in profit. Feel free to make use of our arbitrage calculator for free, and if you want to learn more about how arbitrage betting works, scroll down to read my detailed sports betting guide.
How the Gamble-USA Arbitrage Calculator Works
An arbitrage calculator, such as the one you can find at Gamble-USA, can be a useful tool for sports bettors who are looking to take advantage of the discrepancies in odds across different sportsbooks. The goal of arbitrage betting is to place bets on all possible outcomes of a sporting event in such a way that ensures a profit – regardless of the outcome of the game. To achieve this, bettors should identify situations where the odds offered by different sportsbook operators for the same event create a ‘sure bet’ arbitrage opportunity.
Once you’ve found an arbitrage opportunity, you can use Gamble-USA’s calculator to ensure that the bets are really profitable.
Although you can do this manually, using the arbitrage calculator is by far the easiest and quickest option. Operating it is very simple, and it won’t take you more than a few minutes to determine whether the arbitrage opportunity you’ve found is really profitable or not. This is how our arbitrage calculator works:
- Input the odds – You’ll first see the empty Bet fields on the left side. Enter the odds of the bets you’ve found for the same event from different sportsbooks. The minimum is two entries, but you can also enter the odds for three or more bets.
- Input the stake – In the Stake field, you should enter the amount you’re planning to wager on the bets, so the calculator can calculate the potential profit. If the ROI is negative, it means that the bets you’ve chosen are not ‘sure bets’, which means that they’re not a good fit for arbitrage betting. If the ROI is positive, it means that it’s a ‘sure bet’ and you can make a profit by betting on all the outcomes of the event. Alternatively, you can only enter the odds of your bets, and the calculator can calculate how much you need to stake to make a profit.
- Calculating the arbitrage – The calculator analyzes the odds you provided and calculates the optimal stake distribution across various bets to guarantee a profit. It determines the exact amount to wager on each outcome to make a successful arbitrage.
The calculator can also take into account potential commissions and fees that may affect the bet, as well as the vig (juice) charged by the sportsbook.
How do you calculate the arbitrage without a calculator?
Instead of using an arbitrage calculator, you can also manually calculate whether a potential bet is a ‘sure bet’. If you notice that two sportsbooks offer competitive odds for both outcomes of a sporting event, it might be an opportunity for arbitrage.
For example, in a hypothetical matchup between the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs, one sportsbook (we’ll call it Sportsbook A), offers odds of +110 (2.0) moneyline for the Rockets to win, and odds of -120 (1.83) for the Spurs to win. However, let’s say that Sportsbook B disagrees with Sportsbook A and thinks that Spurs’ chances to win are slimmer, so it offers odds of -105 for both sides. You notice that this might provide an arbitrage betting opportunity.
You think that by betting on the Rockets to win at Sportsbook A, and the Spurs to win at Sportsbook B, you can get a free winning bet, so it’s time to do the calculations.
However, to know exactly how much you would need to wager on both bets to come out in profit, you’ll need to do complex calculations. Keep in mind that the potential return of investment percentage will be the same regardless of the size of your stake, so you should first determine how much the net ROI is, and then calculate your bet size.
Let’s say that we have a budget of $100. In our example, we would need to bet $48.17 on the Rockets to win at Sportsbook A, and $51.83 for the Spurs to win at Sportsbook B. The total payout of both bets would be $101.16, meaning we have netted $1.16 in net profit. Of course, to obtain larger winnings, the stake amount must be larger.
Arbitrage Betting
Arbitrage betting, often referred to as ‘arbing’ or ‘surebets’ is a betting strategy in which bettors can take advantage of the discrepancies in the odds offered by different sportsbook operators or betting exchanges for the same sporting event and guarantee a profit.
To understand it better, you first need to understand that different sportsbooks may offer different odds for the same sporting event. The oddsmaker at one sportsbook might consider one team to be a favorite, while another oddsmaker at another sportsbook might not share the same opinion.
This provides a unique opportunity for bettors to make a profit by betting on all the possible outcomes of the same event at different sportsbooks. Keep in mind that these opportunities are rare, the profit margins are often small – usually around 1% to 3% of your stake. However, the best way to calculate exactly how much you would net in profit from arbing is to use an arbitrage betting calculator.
Hedging vs Arbing in Sports Betting
There are several ‘sure bets’ strategies, out of which the most popular are arbitrage betting, hedge betting, and middle betting. Although there are many similarities between the three, there are some key differences.
In arbitrage betting, bettors are looking for arbitrage betting opportunities in the odds discrepancy between two or more sportsbooks. Then, they place arbitrage bets based on the calculations made manually or by a calculator to come out in profit.
In contrast, middling relies on the changes that betting lines are subjected to before the game starts. For example, a bettor may have placed a bet on the Lions to cover the spread against the Eagles at odds of -110. However, as the event approaches, the spread has shifted in the other direction, opening up a possibility for middling, in which the bettor will come out in profit.
Hedge betting’s purpose is to manage the risk and reduce the limit of potential losses, or guarantee a profit. It’s usually used when you have an existing bet (in most cases, a parlay bet), and you want to protect yourself against all the outcomes. For example, let’s say that you have a 5-leg parlay, and 4 legs have already finished in your favor.
So, if the last leg is a moneyline bet on Liverpool in a match between Manchester City and Liverpool in the EPL, for example, you can place a hedge bet on Manchester City to win, and another hedge bet on the game to end in a draw. Although you’ll be decreasing your potential payout of Liverpool wins, you’re ensuring that you’ll end in net profit regardless of the outcome.
Arb Betting Example
The best way to show how arb betting works in practice is through an example, so we’ll consider an example of arbitrage betting involving a hypothetical matchup between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams in an NFL game. We’ll use decimal odds in our example for simplicity, although you can do it with moneyline (American odds) as well, or just use an arb calculator.
So, let’s say that Sportsbook A offers odds of 1.90 decimal for the Patriots to win, and odds of 2.05 decimal for the Rams to win. Sportsbook B offers odds of 1.80 decimal for the Patriots to win, and odds of 2.25 decimal for the Rams to win. To identify an arbitrage opportunity, we need to calculate the implied probabilities for each outcome and check if the combined probabilities are less or above 100%.
In our case, the implied probability for the Patriots is 106.68%, while the implied probability for the Rams is 93.07% at both sportsbooks, which means that there might be an opportunity for arbing.
To calculate the bet amounts for each outcome, we need to distribute our total stake (let’s take $1,000 as a bankroll for our example) across both arbitrage bets in a way that guarantees a profit. Using our calculator, I’ve calculated that we need to place a $542.17 bet on the Rams with Sportsbook B and a $457.83 arbitrage bet on the Patriots with Sportsbook A. Now, regardless of the outcome of the game, we’ll win $1,030.12, which means that we’ve netted a profit of around $30.
Tips & Strategies for Arbitrage Betting
Although it’s often advertised as a fool-proof strategy, arbitrage betting can be hard to execute – especially if you’re doing things manually. That’s why we’ll provide you with several tips and strategies to maximize the potential of this strategy.
- Use an arbitrage calculator – The calculator at Gamble-USA is free to use, so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t use it. It minimizes the risk of getting the calculations wrong, and it will help you place proportional bets that will guarantee you a profit.
- Double-check all the variables – Arbitrage opportunities are not very common, so you need to check everything at least twice before you place your bets.
- The profit margins are low – Before you engage in arbitrage betting, you should keep in mind that it usually involves very low profit margins. So, it means that you’ll need to place sizable bets to make a relatively small profit. As you can see from our sports arbitrage betting example, we had a bankroll of $1,000 and managed to squeeze out a profit of around $30.
- Make the best of the bonuses and promotions – Sportsbooks often offer bonuses and promotions to their users, so use them wisely. Whether it is a bonus bet or an odds boost, you can use this to your advantage and execute a strategy that will result in a guaranteed profit. However, keep in mind that there’s often a maximum stake limit with every promotion, so your best bet is to use the arbitrage calculator and calculate how much you should wager on each bet.
Finding Arbitrage Betting Picks
The growing popularity of sportsbooks and sports betting worked inversely proportional to arbitrage betting. Finding arbitrage betting opportunities has become challenging, but it’s not impossible to find arbitrage betting picks even today.
The most straightforward method is by doing it manually. All you need to do is monitor the odds at multiple sportsbooks and compare them against one another. We suggest looking at early lines, which is when the odds tend to be the highest. Pick an event where both sides are relatively evenly matched, and monitor the odds. You can also use odds comparison sites to help you identify arbitrage betting opportunities.
Another tried and tested method that helps arbitrage bettors find arbitrage betting opportunities is through sure bets sites and odds comparison software. There are several software programs that can scan multiple sportsbooks at a time and detect potential arbitrage opportunities, but this is also not a 100% fool proof strategy because you need to be careful of scam software, and even if the software works, the lines change frequently, so you still need to open the sportsbooks’ websites and monitor the odds manually.
Benefits of Using the Gamble-USA Arbitrage Betting Calculator
Considering that the margins are low, it can be very difficult to determine exactly how much you need to wager to come out in profit. One mistake and you can ruin the arbitrage, or even worse, mix up the calculations and end up losing money instead of making a profit.
Our arbitrage calculator does all the hard work for you, so you don’t have to do it manually. It also reduces the risk of making mistakes and will determine exactly how much you need to wager. It will also calculate the profit you’ll make, so all you need to do is wait for the event to finish and make some buck, regardless of the outcome of the game.
