Betting arbitrage, miraclebets, surebets, sports arbitraging is a particular case of arbitrage arising on betting markets due to either bookmakers’ different opinions on event outcomes or plain errors. By placing one bet per each outcome with different betting companies, the bettor can make a profit.
In the bettors’ slang an arbitrage is often referred to as an arb; people who use arbitrage are called arbers. A typical arb is around 2%, often less, however 4%-5% are also normal and during some special events they might reach 20%.
Arbitrage Betting involves relatively large sums of money (stakes are bigger than in normal betting) while another variety, betting investment, means placing relatively small bets systematically on overvalued odds most of which will lose but some win thus making a profit.
The best way of generating profit, which has been established in Britain via sports arbitrage, consists of ‘key men’ employing others to place bets on their behalf, so as to avoid detection and increase accessibility to bookmakers. This allows the financiers or key arbers to stay at a computer to keep track of market movement.