Anyone interested in splitting the zero-risk-arbitrage BetAlerts?

[Jesse Kidd]

Anyone interested in splitting the BetAlerts on ZRA.com?

[craig]

Is this spam? I can't tell at all.

craig

[ImNew]

not spam, but arbitrage is a waste of time. Too much effort for too little money.

[Jesse Kidd]

Craig,

Not spam, sorry if it looked like it.

You really don't think its worth it? Shoot, if I could get 2%-3% returns even per week, that seems pretty good (I play poker for a living, so I'm near a computer anyways). Is this really just a load of crap?

Jesse

[Mr_J]

It's not a load of crap, as you can make decent money off it, but it's no way to get rich. In short, there are better methods in making money at sportsbetting. This is a good way to start though, particuarly if you are scalping bonuses at the same time.

[BobJoeJim]

I'm confused as to what the "BetAlerts on ZRA.com" are, or why you want someone to split them...

[WaimanaloSlim]

I actually saw a sampling, and many of the arbitrage opportunities seem to come from online British sportsbooks, most of which don't allow American residents to open accounts with them.

[tech]

[ QUOTE ]
arbitrage is a waste of time. Too much effort for too little money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. Arbitrage (scalping) is the way that many successful sports bettors make a LOT of money. You have to have a decent-sized bankroll to do it, but it is clearly not a waste of time.

[BobJoeJim]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
arbitrage is a waste of time. Too much effort for too little money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. Arbitrage (scalping) is the way that many successful sports bettors make a LOT of money. You have to have a decent-sized bankroll to do it, but it is clearly not a waste of time.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've been thinking about this a bit, and doing some math on it. The data I'm missing is this: How often can you find scalps if you take the time to look, how big do they tend to be, and how many books do you need to have in order to make those frequencies the case?

My reasoning is essentially as follows: If your scalp is on a spread (rather than a moneyline) then you have about a fifty percent chance of winning, and you have to risk $2.10 to win, so an 8 cent scalp has an EV of about 2 cents per dollar in your bankroll, if you put everything on it in the right ratio. An average 2% return, if you could find just one a week, could cause your bankroll to grow very quickly indeed, but is that plausible?

Also, since scalps often disappear quickly, it seems like you wouldn't tend to have time to put more money into your account on the appropriate book before betting, you'd just have to ride with however much you have available, which means the lesser of your two accounts on the two books. So if you're only betting scalps you'd want to keep your bankroll evenly distributed among your books. Therefore if you have five books, each with 20% of your roll on them, then that 8 cent scalp earns its average of 2% of only the 40% of your roll on the two involved books, meaning less than 1% return on your bankroll, which becomes much less exponential.

So average scalp size, how often you can find them, and how many books you use are the determining variables in how profitable betting scalps is (as opposed to, say, putting your money in a mutual fund or something, and generating some minimal revenue with no work at all).

Anyone have any numbers for me?

[Jesse Kidd]

I don't know if putting websites is appropriate for the forum (I am in no way affiliated with this site), so I'll leave it to the moderator to remove this if it's not acceptable. The program I was referring to is on www.zero-risk-arbitrage.com and seems to have gotten some good reviews through my searching of google. If the site is to be believed, 2-3% arbs would be available quite frequently. I have a bankroll of around $8000-$10000 to play around with this, and I think it would be worth it if the product is as advertised.

The main problem - The poster above referenced European sportsbooks that do not allow US bettors. This is certainly a problem, but I was able to make a list of 25 books that the website uses that do accept them. I would have to filter the arbs down to my sites, so I wouldn't have as many opportunities as others. I still think I would have enough to show a solid profit, but this will be what the free trial is for.

You don't want to be placing max bets, or anything else that could eventually get your betting max limited or red flag your account, so I would think $500-$750 per account would be fine, with a good amount of floating capital in Neteller. The exception was pointed out above, that you'd always want to max out the bonuses as well. Some of the arbs only last for 5 minutes or so, so the quicker you can get the email, and make the bets, the better, obviously.

Jesse