What is a surebet?
A surebet (also referred to as betting arbitrage, miraclebet 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’s 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 shoulders. A surebet should not necessarily yield profit for all of its shoulders. A player may want to set bets in a way that will produce a better result under specific conditions. Surebets can also be used for padding, e.g distributing your money pool in such a way that will maximize your winnings in some outcomes and return your total bets amount in all other situations.
How does it work?
Let’s take a look at an example of a surebet placed on a specific event – for instance, a game between Chelsea and Manchester United.
Here are the lines of three bookmakers for this event:
Gol+Pas
Bwin
Leon
Let’s assume the three possible outcomes as the victory of the first team, a draw and the victory of the second team.
As a rule, players place a bet and hope for luck. If they aren’t 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 bet, our prize money will never cover our lost bets, so there is always a chance of losing money. This happens because bookmakers always add a certain commission (a.k.a margin) to their odds. Bookmaker always try to adjust their odds in a way that will give them advantage over players.
Fortunately, there are thousands of betting exchanges and bookmakers across the world. It’s rarely possible for them to track the changes in each other’s odds. That’s where betting arbitrage or surebets can be used.
Let’s bet 439.31 dollars on Chelsea’s victory with an odd of 2.3 for Goal+Pass, 306.18 dollars on a draw with an odd of 3.3 in Bwin and 254.51 dollars on Manchester’s victory in Leon with an odd of 3.97.
The total of our bets is 439.31 + 306.18 + 254.51 = 1000 dollars.
If Chelsea wins, we’ll get 439.31 х 2.3 = 1010.41 dollars.
If there is a draw, we’ll get 306.18 х 3.3 = 1010.39 dollars.
If Manchester wins, we’ll get 254.51 х 3.97 = 1010.40 dollars.
So no matter what happens, we have a guaranteed winning of about $10.40 on top of the total amount of our bets! And that’s a 1% 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’ll get 15%. Banks offer the same interest, but per year :)
What are the possible pitfalls?
In theory, a surebet must always generate profit. However, the reality is a bit different, so you’ve got to be aware of possible risks and try to avoid them.
Sometimes, you just can’t place bets on all surebet shoulders. This can be caused by a limitation on the bookmaker’s side or a bookmaker’s refusal to accept a bet outside the system or express. Sometimes, bookmakers don’t 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 allowing overtimes and shootouts, draws and so forth.
But even if all bets are made, there is a risk that the bookmaker will call the payment off. Virtually all bookmakers reserve the right to refuse to pay if there is a technical problem with determining the odd 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 payment will be called off. That’s why you shouldn’t hop on super-profitable surebets right away. It’s a good idea to check and recheck, especially if the profit is above 10%.
Apparently, bookmakers may not like the fact that a certain player walks sway every month with a solid amount. In this case, they can come up with all kinds of obstructions – bans or payment recalls, for instance. But if a bookmaker cares about reputation, it’s less probable that they will use such methods. Betting exchanges are different. They don’t care about surebetters, as they make money on charging a commission on wins and it’s the players who play there. That’s 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 go wrong here and there, so I'd recommend to manually recheck all surebets before placing a real bet. Besides, even if service did everything right, it’s 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 with extreme caution if you want to be able to get your money without problems.