Betting comes with risk; that’s the thrill of it for a lot of people. For people who see betting as a way to make money though that risk might end up being more than the investor is comfortable with. That’s where the concept of arbitrage betting comes in.
What is Arbitrage Betting?
In a nut shell arbitrage betting is when an individual places a bet on every potential outcome of a given situation, thus guaranteeing a profit no matter the outcome. This is most commonly done with sports betting, since only one team or the other can win a match. The bettor simply places different bets with different bookies on different teams, thus guaranteeing that no matter who wins the bettor comes out ahead and makes a profit.
Is Arbing For Wimps?
Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams, the top academic expert on the gaming industry in the UK, called out those who use arbitrage betting as wimps for their preferred method of investing. The view Williams endorses is that sports betting is for those who want to put their money where their mouths are to support their teams, or to go head to head with bookmakers using analytic techniques to beat them at their own games. From his perspective arbitrage betting is nothing more than calculation, cheating the odds whether someone even cares about the game in question. Win or lose no one stands to lose anything when it comes to arbitrage betting.
That’s The Point
Those who have fired back at the professor point out that those who place arbitrage bets really don’t have any interest in the thrill of a game or the love of a team; these people are investors, pure and simple. In this case arbitrage betting is a sure fire method of earning, and as such it’s a better bet than using the stock market, the forex market, or a vehicle like a savings account, government bond, or CD. Losing bets can even be written off on one’s taxes if an individual makes enough money on arbitrage betting to consider it a taxable source of income. In addition to all this arbitrage bettors don’t even jeopardize a single book over any other, as they tend to place their bets on a variety of different books in order to make sure they have the best possible odds on any given event.
The argument, and one that is met with less and less ridicule, is that arbitrage bettors aren’t gamblers at all; they’re investors. While the thrill of risk and the pride in a team defines the old school way of looking at sport, these individuals see sports and the betting system that surrounds them, as a way to make a valid income stream. Whether it’s football or Olympic wrestling, the Tour De France or the NBA playoffs, if there’s a game going on there is going to be someone weighing the odds and figuring out how to make the most money off of it with the least risk.