Arbitrage betting covers every outcome of an event so a profit is locked in whatever the result. Here is how arbing works, how to calculate an arb, and how UK bettors find opportunities before the odds move.
Arbitrage betting is a form of sports betting that has become extremely popular with the rise of sports betting markets. With the technique being focused on covering different outcomes, it is typically known as a form of matched betting, making it one of the many techniques that you can include in your betting strategy. Here, we are going to look through what arbitrage betting is, how it works in different sports, and all the other relevant information that you would ever have to know about arbing!
Arbitrage betting is a betting technique in which you place bets with different online sites, whether that be bookmakers or betting exchanges, to cover all outcomes of a sporting event, therefore ensuring there are no losses made. However, the main aspect of arbing is to find discrepancies in odds.
The concept of arbing is similar to matched betting, though there are no free bets or offers being used here. Therefore, it is a matched betting technique that can be used throughout different sporting events and is quite similar to value betting techniques.
Upon finding differences in odds between bookmakers for the same sporting event, you can calculate how much you would need to place on the two bets to split your desired stake and remove the possibility of loss. Essentially, you divide your entire stake between the two outcomes, with a higher amount going on the side with lower odds. This, in turn, balances out both ends of the bet and means no matter which outcome wins, you make the same profit margin.
If we look at this outside of sports betting, it is similar to the idea of buying a product at a low, discounted price to then sell it for a higher price. By placing arbitrage bets, we find odds that are too high and too low compared to each other, meaning that when the sporting event ends, we will make at least some profit, regardless of the result.
What the data says
Online real event betting Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) reached £647 million between October and December 2024 — a 38% year-on-year increase and the highest recorded since 2021. This highlights the scale and liquidity of modern sports betting markets, creating more opportunities for odds discrepancies to emerge.
Source: UK Gambling Commission
Sometimes dubbed "sure bets", 98% of arbitrage bets return less than 1.2%. This means that when participating in arb betting, some arbing strategies may require larger stakes or a lot of smaller bets that add up quickly to be worthwhile.
Finding genuine arbitrage opportunities manually can take hours. Many bettors therefore use specialist software such as OddsMonkey's OddsMatcher and Arbitrage Calculator to identify opportunities in real time and calculate optimal stakes automatically.
Let's take a look at a simple example to make the concept easier to grasp. Sports like the NFL and Tennis are much easier to place arbitrage bets on, as matches cannot end in a draw, so there are only 2 options. You can still do football arb betting, but the risk is higher due to the chance of a game ending in a draw.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to find these bets through the tools at OddsMonkey:
Using an odds comparison tool like OddsMonkey's OddsMatcher, find a sporting event that offers two outcomes.
Find the highest odds available for each outcome from two different bookmakers.
Calculate whether the odds represent an arbitrage betting opportunity.
If so, calculate the individual stakes using our arbitrage betting calculator.
Place the bets at the respective bookmakers.
Calculating arbitrage betting opportunities is a little fiddly and will certainly slow you down. You need to calculate the implied probability which provides the arbitrage percentage. You will need to use decimal odds and this is how it's calculated:
Arb% = (1 ÷ decimal odds for team A) + (1 ÷ decimal odds for team B)
The rule here is that anything with a percentage below 100 is an arbing opportunity. Anything above 100% means there is no profit in the bet.
A far simpler way to calculate and place your arb bets is to use a calculator. OddsMonkey provides free access to an Arbitrage Calculator which is really easy to use.
There's a couple of arbitrage betting strategies that are popular amongst arb bettors. One is using bookmakers and the other involves betting exchanges.
This method aims to take advantage of odds discrepancies between different bookies. The discrepancies occur when things like team or player news breaks or simply when bookies are slow to react to betting market changes.
The idea being that you place two bets on both possible outcomes to ensure a profit regardless of who wins an event. Based on this, you would ideally only bet on sports where there can't be a draw.
Example
Let's say Carlos Alcaraz is playing a tennis match against Jannik Sinner. You can bet on Alcaraz to win at odds of 2.2 at one bookmaker and Sinner to win at odds of 2.3 at another bookmaker.
Now, you could play around with the figures until you manage to calculate how to profit from the match. Alternatively, you could use the OddsMonkey Dutching Calculator.
You decide that you don't really want to bet any more than £600 in total. Therefore, you place a bet for £300 on Alcaraz first. But what next? That's where the calculator comes in. Once you enter the £300 and the odds of 2.2, the Dutching Calculator will then tell you what you need to place on Sinner.
Let's take a look at how both scenarios look when one player beats the other:
Outcome
Bookie
Odds
Stake
Return
Alcaraz Wins
Bookie A
2.2
£300
£660
Sinner Loses
Bookie B
2.3
£286.96
-£286.96
Profit
£73.04
Outcome
Bookie
Odds
Stake
Return
Sinner Wins
Bookie B
2.3
£286.96
£660
Alcaraz Loses
Bookie A
2.2
£300
-£300
Profit
£73.04
As you can see, by placing specified amounts on both players, you can lock in a profit.
If you have a particular interest in tennis, check out our tennis matched betting guide and our tennis arbitrage betting guide.
This method of arbing is right up our street and we have just the tools to make it possible. This time, you are only betting on one selection but you back the selection at the bookies and then place a lay bet at the exchange.
Let's say you back Jannik Sinner to win a tennis match at odds of 2.3 with a stake of £300. However, the bookies were a bit slow to react to market news and the betting exchange has adjusted the lay (betting against Sinner winning) price to 2.0.
When you place a lay bet at the betting exchange, you will have a liability against that bet. This is something all matched bettors will be familiar with.
Once you input the figures into the Arbitrage Calculator, it will tell you what you need to place on the lay stake and what profit you can make. In this example it does not matter whether Sinner wins or loses — you are guaranteed a profit of £45 either way.
Arbing isn't limited to online accounts. High-street bookmakers update their prices more slowly than online sportsbooks and run their own in-shop promotions, which can leave a counter price sitting above the current exchange lay price. This is known as sharbing — a blend of "shop" and "arbing" — and it has one advantage online arbing doesn't: pay in cash and you stay anonymous, so a restricted online account is no barrier.
Expert quote
"The biggest challenge with arbitrage betting isn't usually finding an opportunity — it's executing both bets before the odds change. Even a few seconds can remove the profit margin, which is why successful arbitrage bettors prioritise speed, preparation and disciplined staking over chasing every opportunity they see."
Paul Wallace, OddsMonkey Arbitrage Betting Expert
Whilst tennis is one of the most popular sports for arbitrage betting in the UK, there are also other sports across the world that are well-suited to arbing, such as American Football. The OddsMonkey guide can help advise which sports are best for arbitrage betting.
Let's use the example of the Pittsburgh Steelers up against the Kansas City Chiefs, with the Steelers being given odds of 1.5/1 and the Kansas City Chiefs using odds of 0.8/1. By using a technique similar to the one we have seen in the tennis example, we can create an arbitrage bet right here to ensure there are no chances of losses.
With an example total stake of £100, you would place £41.86 with Bookmaker A and cover the Pittsburgh Steelers winning at odds of 1.5/1.
Place the remaining £58.14 with Bookmaker B to cover the Kansas City Chiefs winning.
Due to the discrepancy in odds, no matter the outcome of the match, the bettor will be awarded £104.65, with a total stake of £100, meaning the bettor has made £4.65 in profit.
Due to the chance for draws to occur during sports like football, we would recommend staying with sports that tend to have a win-or-lose result, as a draw can lower your chances of success. As you would be placing a bet on both teams to win, a draw would mean that both bets lose, and therefore, you would not make any profit. To ensure you make a profit, stick to the sports listed above, such as American Football and Tennis. If you are interested in American football betting, then you can check out our detailed NFL betting guide.
While this is only a small amount of profit for such a large stake, there is zero risk whatsoever, and the bets would be paid out quite quickly. This means, assuming there are enough opportunities, you could do the same process multiple times per day and steadily increase profit. Everything on top of your £100 stake is profit. Of course, you do not need to start with £100; you could increase or decrease this, but it is the easiest way to make sure you place the same amount each time you make an arbitrage bet.
If you are able to find these opportunities throughout sport, then you can slowly continue building up your bankroll, as arbitrage bets, which are placed in the correct way, will cut out the risk of any losses. This is not the only way to make the most of your betting, with the OddsMonkey matched betting blog being full of fantastic tips and guides on how to take your sports betting to the next level!
There are a couple of ways in which you can spot arbitrage betting UK opportunities. The first of these is through manually searching and comparing bookmaker odds in order to find where the breaking points are and where the profit lies.
There's some good odds comparison sites that you can use such as OddsChecker that will show you the current odds across a large selection of bookies (including betting exchanges).
Expert quote
"Many beginners focus solely on the percentage return, but experienced arbitrage bettors also consider liquidity, bookmaker reliability and how quickly markets move. A slightly smaller arbitrage that can be placed confidently is often more valuable than chasing a larger margin that disappears before both bets are matched."
Lora Savage, OddsMonkey Customer Service Executive and Arbitrage Betting Expert
The other option is to use software and betting calculators to find out the profit margins and potential quickly. An amazing piece of software that does all the hard work for you is the OddsMonkey OddsMatcher. Used as a key tool for matched betting, the OddsMatcher also shows all of the arbing opportunities across multiple bookies and betting exchanges.
Basically, any rating that's above 100% will display in red and is an arbing opportunity.
Read the how to get started arbitrage betting guide for more information.
Now we have looked at what arbitrage betting is, we can compare it to matched betting and the similarities and differences that occur between the two.
Feature
Arbitrage Betting
Matched Betting
Uses free bets
No
Yes
Guaranteed profit
Yes
Yes
Requires promotions
No
Yes
Odds comparison
Yes
Limited
Legal
Yes
Yes
Get a lot more info in our Arbitrage Betting vs Matched Betting guide.
Arbitrage betting can be worthwhile for disciplined bettors who are happy to accept smaller but consistent profits. While individual opportunities often return less than 2%, regular betting combined with efficient bankroll management and fast execution can generate steady long-term returns. Most experienced arbitrage bettors use dedicated software to reduce the time spent searching for opportunities and minimise the risk of missing price movements.
Most of those mistakes are execution problems rather than mathematical ones, which is the key thing to understand before adding arbing to an existing strategy. Our guide on whether it is ever safe to arb as part of your matched betting strategy works through each risk in turn, from odds movement and partial bet acceptance to account restrictions.
Pros
Cons
Due to arbitrage betting being such a unique form of betting, we have decided to look through some of the most commonly asked questions about this sports betting method.
Yes, arbitrage betting is totally legal in the UK. However, bookmakers do not like it if they can detect any suspicious activity on your account, such as arbing. This can result in your bets being cancelled, which can have a huge knock-on effect when arbing. For example, if one bet gets cancelled and the other bet does not, this could result in losses if the bet does not come in.
Arbing can be a risky tactic when it comes to the security of your account, as accounts can be restricted or even banned when they have been found placing arbitrage bets. Some bettors attempt to avoid this by placing mug bets — you can find out more in our guide to mug betting.
When it comes to how much money can be made from arbitrage betting, this completely depends on three factors: how often you place arbitrage bets, how much you stake on them, and whether you are finding the best odds. The more often that someone places arbitrage bets, the more they can make from this strategy.
Arbitrage betting generates profit by exploiting price differences between bookmakers, whereas matched betting uses free bets, promotions and bonuses to generate profit. Arbitrage betting doesn't require offers, making it possible to find opportunities all year round.
A correctly placed arbitrage bet should produce a profit regardless of the outcome. However, losses can occur if odds change before both bets are placed, one bookmaker voids a bet, or you calculate your stakes incorrectly.
Bookmakers constantly adjust their odds using automated pricing models, so genuine arbitrage opportunities often exist for only a few seconds or minutes. Most successful arbitrage bettors use odds comparison software to identify opportunities before they disappear.
Yes. Arbitrage betting relies on backing different outcomes with different bookmakers, so having accounts with multiple sportsbooks gives you access to more pricing discrepancies and increases the number of opportunities available.
Yes, although beginners should start with small stakes while learning how stake calculations and odds movements work. Using an arbitrage calculator and odds comparison software can significantly reduce the chance of making costly mistakes.
Sports with two possible outcomes, such as tennis, basketball and American football, are generally the easiest for arbitrage betting because there is no draw to account for. Football can also provide opportunities, but three-way markets require more complex calculations.
Many arbitrage opportunities last less than a minute because bookmakers continuously update their odds. The faster you can identify and place both bets, the more likely you are to secure a profit.
Yes. Many bookmakers monitor betting patterns and may restrict, limit or close accounts that consistently place arbitrage bets. Mixing in occasional recreational bets and avoiding perfectly rounded staking patterns may help accounts appear more natural, although there is no guaranteed way to prevent restrictions.
For disciplined bettors, arbitrage betting can provide consistent, low-risk returns over time. While individual profits are usually small, regular opportunities combined with efficient bankroll management can generate steady long-term gains.
While you can calculate stakes manually, an arbitrage betting calculator is much faster and reduces the risk of errors. It instantly tells you how much to stake on each outcome so your potential profit remains consistent regardless of the result.
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