What to Expect
If you want to make a lot of money with sports arbitrage trading, that is well within the realm of possibility just understand that it doesn’t happen overnight.
However much money you have to invest, it’s always a good idea to test the waters with smaller investments, to gain some experience before shooting for the stars. If you’re doing it right, of course, sports arbitrage is a zero risk investment, but the typical arb trade will only net a 2-5% profit. You don’t really want to be putting big money into arb investments until you know how to execute them accurately & efficiently.
I’d always suggest that you start out by putting just put a modest amount into your sports arbitrage trading project. You’ll at least make your investment back but if you follow the guidelines suggested on this site and take full advantage of the bookmaker bonuses you’ll gain as you open your new accounts, you should complete your training period with a healthy (over £1000) profit.
More importantly, however, you will have gained some extremely important personal experience and confidence. It’s this that you will benefit from continuously in the future.
Once you know what you’re doing arb trading becomes a series of zero risk investments, just know that there is such a thing as human error, and you will almost certainly make mistakes and it’s better to make these novice errors with small stakes.
And, again, arb trading not a get rich quick scheme. Arb trading can be an excellent source of income, and many people even use sports arbitrage as their primary source of income. Just… start out with realistic expectations.
Getting Started
1- Download the appropriate software
There’s something to be said for “wingin’ it” when you’re doing something just for fun. But it’s a lot smarter to work through some arb trading software which will find and report great trading opportunities automatically.
There are lots of programs available these days and many of them offer a trial edition so you can get familiar with how it works before buying the full program. Of course, I’d recommend ArbAlarm! We’ve spent hundreds of hours in research and development of ArbAlarm and the entire TraderZone suite and I expect that you’ll agree that it’s the state-of-the-art once you’ve used it. But in all fairness, I would recommend that you experiment with every free trial you can access so that you can be sure you end up with the solution that works best for you.
Remember, if you use the trials efficiently, you could make enough profit to pay for the full version.
2- Open a new bank account and new credit cards
These will be your arb trading accounts. It’s best to keep trading and personal transactions separate, if only to avoid confusion.
3- Create online wallets
An online wallet account is an important part of the bookmaking process. Since you’ll be doing business with people in various parts of the world, you need accounts with Neteller & Moneybookers which make online transactions a snap.
4- Create your bookmaker accounts
How many you open depends on how ambitious you want to get with your arb trading career. Just a few to start out with, and more as you want to invest more and more money into arb trading. Having a lot of accounts means that you will find more opportunities.
Make sure that you take full advantage of the best bookmaker bonuses here.
I’d also recommend that you download the free ArbSurfer Pro Preview. It’s designed to automate the tedious task of signing up for multiple accounts at bookmakers. It will also remember all of your usernames & passwords and log you into your accounts automatically whenever you visit them.
It’s guaranteed to save you a lot of time and frustration.
5- Distribute your funds amongst your bookmaker accounts
Put your money into your accounts. This way there’s very little delay between finding out about an opportunity and seizing upon it without having to transfer money from account to account first. This part of our minicourse provides some suggestions as to how to decide exactly which accounts to put funds into
Guarding yourself against common mistakes
The main mistake that newcomers to sports arbitrage tend to make is simply miscalculation. If you don’t add everything up just right, you may not make a penny, or you may even lose money.
Of course, most arb newbies don’t make this mistake these days, simply because of the widespread use of arb software like ArbAlarm. By using an arb calculator to do the maths for you, the margin for human error is significantly reduced.
Another setback that some experience would be cancelled bets. The bookmaker can cancel a bet if he has made a ‘palpable’ error. For example, transposing the prices between two players/teams. These types of errors are easy for traders to spot. The point is that you need to stay on top of your arb trading activities. Don’t just set up some bets and go on auto-pilot, keep your eye on your bets, pay attention.
With some experience, you should be able to avoid bets and bookmakers with a high probability of cancellation.
These potential pitfalls are the main reason that you should only invest small amounts at first. Once you’ve got some arb trading experience under your belt, there is little to no risk of making any of these fumbles. Even for a beginner, it’s very uncommon to mess up and lose your investment, but it is possible.
When you do it correctly, when you use the appropriate software, do your homework, and you understand how arb trading works, there is zero risk of losing money on the actual trade itself.
You may wind up having transfer fees scrape off a significant portion of your profit. This is one more reason to cast a wide net and have a lot of options. Not only to seize on opportunities immediately, but to have options when the time comes to move your winnings around.
Can I make a living with sports arbitrage?
The short answer is yes.
The longer, more sensible answer is… yes, as long as you have adequate time, capital and commitment, but you shouldn’t quit your day job right away.
Once you have enough money circulating through your arbitrage trading accounts, you should be able to reinvest half of your profit and live on the other half.
But again, it doesn’t happen overnight…
The short list
Here are the basic things that you need to keep in mind if you want to jump into arbitrage gaming…
- Read up on sports arbitrage trading
- Get the right sports arbitrage software
- Make the correct preparations before jumping in
- Trade with small stakes
- Internalise the lessons you learn
- Trade with larger stakes
- Accumulate your profits
Will arbitrage gaming make you a millionaire? Extremely unlikely, or at least not anytime soon. The average arbitrage trader uses this system to live more comfortably, to provide themselves with supplemental income, or to build a nice retirement fund. If you want to get really ambitious, it’s not impossible to generate a 6 figure annual income through arb trading alone, but remember that this isn’t a get rich quick scheme.
Arb trading is a solid, smart, entirely safe way of turning money into more money.