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What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

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Rufus
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What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:31 am

I am sure every arber has made some mistakes, at least from the beggining of his career. I made my worst mistake so far yesterday - accidentally put both stakes on the same leg of an arb, and didn't notice until it was too late. Of course the wrong leg has won, and it cost me aprox. 40% of my monthly profit.

So what is your biggest ever mistake in arbing, that cost you most?
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arbusers
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:48 am

It is greed.
It can cost a lot, even everything, in depth of time.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:54 pm

That must have been bitter. Wasn't it possible to recover, at least a part, live?
Last edited by whitesnake on Sun Jul 07, 2013 4:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Sun Jul 07, 2013 2:50 pm

I bet on a volleyball match between Brazil and Poland on a world championship. A nice 3.5% arbitrage. But there where two different matches played by the same teams at the same time... men and women :-)
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:19 pm

I have 2k invested on an arb. The thing is the match starts in november. ARGH!
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Sun Jul 07, 2013 11:39 pm

[align=center]Image

We're human. Humans born to make mistakes!
:D

Even most experienced arbers can make mistakes sometimes so don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's important to learn from your mistakes though. Don't do same mistake twice!

Okay, here's my favourite mistakes!

2 December 2012, Parlaying arb bet with a 1,01 Favourite

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I was arbing Seattle Seahawks-Chicago Bears (NFL) game. In order to overcome maximum bet limit problem, I parlayed Seattle with a 1,01 handball favourite; Savehof. I picked Savehof Double Chance in order to make my bet more banker, more safe. Guess what? Savehof lost outright!
Lost 931€ total.

2 December 2012, Picking Same Team Twice

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I was arbing Baltimore Ravens - Pittsburgh Steelers game. Instead of picking Baltimore -7,5 and Pittsburgh +7,5; I picked Baltimore -7,5 twice! Of course, Baltimore lost outright, costing me -2327€!

It was a bad start to month (2nd day of month and you're -3100€!) but I'm so glad I did these mistakes since my motivation and ambition was skyrocketed. I was burning with passion to erase my reds. It worked! I worked like a bee and erased unpleasant 3100€ loss in a week. By 9 December, I was up 210€ and finished the month with 15.076€ profit.

Who knows, Maybe I would finish the month with a lessser profit if I didn't made these mistakes since these mistakes whipped me, boosting my ambition and enthusiasm.

3 November 2012, Even Pinnacle Limits can be low sometimes..

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You know Pinnacle has a good reputation for having big limits. Well, that's not really true for Turkish Volleyball League. I was so happy to be able to pick Yesilyurt at 1,576 for 3000€. Yes, I managed to place 3000€ on a Volleyball game. I was shocked when I checke Pinnacle page and saw "Max bet Limit 151€".

Hopefully, there was a massive line movement towards Yesilyurt, I was able to pick Nilüfer (other side) every 5 minutes. Picked some Nilüfer at 3,20; odds dropped to 3,00 then raised to 3,20 again. Picked some more and keep doing it 'til the start of game. I was able to hedge some % of my arb but not all. When the market was closed, my position was Yesilyurt 1,576 for 3000€ and Nilüfer 3,10-3,20 for 930€.

Of course, Nilüfer won and I lost approximately 1k!

Anyway, still it's better than losing 3k.

Lesson Learned! Always check Pinnacle Max Bet Limit before placing your arb.

Recently, Esbjerg-Nordsjælland
(Not a mistake actually, but it was too close!)


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Actually, it's not a mistake since I realized it before pressing confirm button, but it was too close! It was 2 or 3 days ago if I recall correctly, I saw an arbitrage opportunity on Esbjerg-Nords game. Over 2,5 was 1,80 while Under 2,5 was available at 2,52-2,53 at Pinnacle. Then, I noticed these two events are different! One was a friendly game starts after 30 minutes while other one was a league game, scheduled on 22 July! You could think these events are same since same teams are playing..

So always check start time/date of events!

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Finally, I like to share a CHECK LIST that stands on my wall.

* Always check Max Bet Limits for both sides.

* Check your bookie balance, specially Pinnacle/Sbo/IBC.

* Always cover your action, don't gamble.

* Always pick non-pinnacle side first. You bet first at softbook and then Pinnacle/Sbo/IBC/Betfair.

* Double check your bets and keep an excel, be organized.

* Be alarmed before holidays/weekends since banks will be closed. (No Swift, No Western Union)

* Always check bookie rules for specific sports such as tennis, baseball, oil wrestling etc.

* Ignore any betting opportunity if 2 minutes (make it 5 minutes if you're a beginner) left before the start of event.
You're more likely to make mistakes when you're in hurry.

* Check bookie maintenance hours, specially Pinnacle, lol.

* Check starting time/date of events. Same teams may face each other twice in a week. (League game, Cup game, Friendly game)

* Check if bets/odds are placed correctly in your betting ticket. Happened me once. I picked Player-1 but in my betting ticket, Player-2 was listed.
Then I picked Player-2 and saw Player-1 was listed in betting ticket. Contacted customer service and they corrected it.

Good luck![/align]
Last edited by Yngwie on Sun Jul 07, 2013 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Mon Jul 08, 2013 3:45 am

Yngwie wrote: * Always check Max Bet Limits for both sides.
how do you advice to proceed if at a soft bookie max bet is not displayed?

Currently I check how much it lets me stake and then I adjust the other stake(s) accordingly. This is taking additional precious seconds increasing the risk of odds changing.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Mon Jul 08, 2013 4:19 am

You should bet first on the bookies that don't tell the max stake.
Sometimes you can place a bet higher than your balance (knowing it won't be accepted) and the error message can indicate the max stake.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Mon Jul 08, 2013 2:18 pm

Yeah, we are humans, thanks for sharing Yngwie and everyone else. I made another two mistakes during weekend, so more mistakes in 2 days than I have done since I started arbing in May. Strange how things have tendency to f**k up all at once  :D

I bet DNB team 1 at bwin first, and was to cover AH 0 team 2 at betfair. Bam! Didn't have sufficient funds at betfair, so I end up with only partially covered abr. I didn't have more money to deposit, so I went to search AH 0 for team 2 somewhere else. Found it at SBO. I covered the remaining part of the arb with the rest of the funds I had at SBO. I was happy I managed to solve the situation. Then I realised it - SBO was offering AH 0 for team 2 for the first half!

So my situation was like this:  totally uncovered bet for AH 0 team 2 first half and only partially covered arb for DNB/AH 0 full time. So, now I had to save 2 wrong bets! My balances was at that time zero at most books, I had funds only at Pinny and WH. Went to check Pinny - Pinnacle was down! I was mad. Went to check WillHill. They were not offering odds I needed! I was even more mad. So there really was nothing to do, only left it as it was.

I was quite lucky - Team 1 won the first half and also the whole match. So I lost my stake at SBO, but won the "right" leg of the partially covered original arb, which left me with aprox. 3% total profit from these bets.

The second mistake also brings me to another rule: Do not take arbs on australian football with betfair if you do not have money transfered to "australian wallet" lol. My alert service showed me a super arb: 7% arb on over/under in aussie football between bwin and betfair. And it wasn't a pulp, I checked it.

So you konow the rule, bet always first at soft book. Well it turned against me this time. I placed a bet at bwin, and went to cover it at betfair. When I clicked selected match at betfair it changed its skin to "old appearance". It was suspicious, but I just thought there are some technical problems maybe. But it appeared that I can't bet on this match because I do not have money in my "australian wallet" and I can't transfer them, because I haven't fully completed KYC.

So I had to cover my bet on odds 1.85 with another 1.85 which is -7.5 % arb. Meanwhile the offer changed from u/o 174.5 to u/o 172.5, so actually I had actually middle there (over 172.5 to under 174.5). Of course there was no middle hit and funny part is that if I would have gambeled and left it uncovered I would have won. I hit it quite hard as you can imagine, when I saw 7% arb at first, so loss hurt.

Taking into consideration also another issue when bwin voided my winning bet (don't now why, waiting for customer support reply) which left me with another loss and also some personal problems I must say this was a a really really bad weekend. Something must have been in the air or I don't know  :D
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Mon Jul 08, 2013 2:32 pm

My biggest loss was on a Spurs FA Cup game when Muamba had a heart attack and the match was abandoned.

I had backed a team to score and layed it on an exchange. Unfortunately for me the team scored and the exchange settled it as a loser due to being unconditionally determined but the bookmaker voided because the match was not completed. Lost near £500 and was totally fuming. Made it all back inside a week after a lot of hard work and effort.
Last edited by BOOYAKA on Mon Jul 08, 2013 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Mon Jul 08, 2013 4:05 pm

whitesnake wrote:
Yngwie wrote: * Always check Max Bet Limits for both sides.
how do you advice to proceed if at a soft bookie max bet is not displayed?

Currently I check how much it lets me stake and then I adjust the other stake(s) accordingly. This is taking additional precious seconds increasing the risk of odds changing.
You always place your first bet at soft book ;)
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Tue Jul 09, 2013 9:55 am

My biggest mistake just happened :/ Placed a bet on odds 4 (first set winner) Ward A. - Fognini F. on A. Ward....and for mistake Layed Fognini on odds 3.5  .....i was on hurry and fucked up everything. Now if Ward win first set i win 540 euros....if Fognini wins first set ( big favourite ) i lose 525 euro.... If i cover the bet now it will be -300 euros each leg. I still cant decide what should i do... :/ losing 540 euros?....300 euros? or hopeing in an miracle..... :/
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:31 am

If it was me I'd take the loss of 300. It's on clay and Fognini is a top player on clay. This Ward chap I've never heard of, I googled his name and he's 382 in the world rankings.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:38 pm

Yes. Some people set wrong odds in purpose hoping some takes the bet by mistake in a hurry. And you did :) it's very common in markets with Low liquidity.
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Re: What's your biggest ever mistake in arbing?

Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:56 pm

i'm gonna leave this shit opened....miracles may happen sometimes..... lets hope this is the case....

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