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Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

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PTx
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Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Tue Jan 03, 2023 6:56 am

Hello everyone,

Really happy to enter the arb community, this is my very first post even though I have been reading this forum for a long time as a guest.

Today, I eventually finalised a programme which is to place arbs between Pinnacle and Matchbook. (Only soccer ATM)

Surprisingly, it seems that there are no arb opportunities...

I should be precise that I am focusing on live events.

Am I missing something? Too efficient markets? Am I too naive? Too many people have already thought of that and are already running the same kind of bots?

If this is a dead-end to find arbs, where should I look at? I mean, which sharp bookie or exchange?


Thanks for your time,
Hope I will soon be able to help in return
Last edited by PTx on Sat Mar 31, 2018 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Tue Jan 03, 2023 12:17 pm

First of all...this won't ever work because Matchbook bases it's odds on Pinnacle.  If you consistently take advantage of odds where they were just sliiightly behind Pinnacle to change their odds, they will simply ban your account after a while.  Matchbook is no true exchange in that sense, 99+% of their odds are placed there by their own odds makers and, while they will allow you to bet there if you win, you will not be able to screw their oddsmakers long term by doing what you plan to do.

On top of that, it's extremely difficult to program a bot to take advantage of arbs between sharps and exchanges.  The arbs are there for milliseconds only and it may seem simple, but there are a lot of difficulties involved that don't occur to you at first sight.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:24 pm

Thanks for the answer Alpha123,

I now understand that this is meaningless as matchbook is following the odds of pinnacle.

Aside from the technical difficulties,  will it be possible to do so with betfair ? Smarkets ? At least theoretically
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sat Jan 07, 2023 1:18 pm

You need a soft book to arb, as exchanges, especially matchbook copy pinnacles odds with a bit shaved off. (Then you have commission on top)

Sometimes there are differences between betfair and Pinnacle but not usually enough to make a profit after commission.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sat Jan 07, 2023 2:25 pm

PTx wrote: Thanks for the answer Alpha123,

I now understand that this is meaningless as matchbook is following the odds of pinnacle.

Aside from the technical difficulties,  will it be possible to do so with betfair ? Smarkets ? At least theoretically
Forget Smarkets, they will not allow bots and cannot really be called an exchange because they are several seconds late to adjust their odds.  They will kick you out very quickly.

It's theoretically possible with Betfair...but I suggest you don't spend countless hours on the project as many have tried.  By the time you have loaded the odds from 1 api, compared them and the program has written them all away and it finds and arb, that arb is no longer there in reality.  The api's do not allow you to access and refresh the odds quickly enough for it to work.  You cannot get the odds a few times every second so your data is always late no matter what.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sat Jan 07, 2023 4:07 pm

Thank you both for your insights.

Many people are successfully arbing. If I understand well, it is because of the following dilemma :
- If the bookmakers have an api, they will often also have the most accurate bets and most of the time the same odds between them. (automation possible but no arbs to find)
-If the bookmaker does not have any API, placing an arb is becoming really difficult, but on the other hand the odd pricing system is less efficient (events can be manually arbed)

crossing those two statements and we end up with a system that cannot be automated because of the soft bookie part...

In the end, automated arbing seems to be a dead end to me... (?)
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sun Jan 08, 2023 10:26 pm

PTx wrote: I am focusing on live events.
Please remember about asian's "DANGER ZONE". A lot of bet would be rejected and making a loss if your bot couldn't recognize this situation in time.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:27 pm

PTx wrote: Thank you both for your insights.

Many people are successfully arbing. If I understand well, it is because of the following dilemma :
- If the bookmakers have an api, they will often also have the most accurate bets and most of the time the same odds between them. (automation possible but no arbs to find)
-If the bookmaker does not have any API, placing an arb is becoming really difficult, but on the other hand the odd pricing system is less efficient (events can be manually arbed)

crossing those two statements and we end up with a system that cannot be automated because of the soft bookie part...

In the end, automated arbing seems to be a dead end to me... (?)
Not having an API is not a dead end for automation. There are other methods, fairly easy to implement (for instance using betslips for those who supports this). However, regardless of method, manual or automatic, you WILL be limited/banned at the soft, once you're deemed long term profitable. Automation may squeeze the last life out of your account, but you have to consider cost-effectiveness.

T&Cs of bookmakers usually have a clause against automation (including some of the asian/sharps), so this is something to be aware of, such as not running suspicious 24/7 bots. I think you're best off, if the bot imitates human behavior. I ruined my best bot (got banned), allowing it to bet 4 o'clock in the morning.
Last edited by VidaBlue on Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Fri Jan 13, 2023 5:56 pm

VidaBlue wrote: T&Cs of bookmakers usually have a clause against automation (including some of the asian/sharps)
Correct. Most (not all) of them have tis clause, but the real question is who is implementing it. I have never seen a case when Pinnacle, SBObet and alikes would block bot action. On the contrary, on a managerial and unofficial level most asians would welcome bot action.
As for the softs, you have to be gentle with them and everything will be fine.
VidaBlue wrote: this is something to be aware of, such as not running suspicious 24/7 bots. I think you're best off, if the bot imitates human behavior. I ruined my best bot (got banned), allowing it to bet 4 o'clock in the morning.
Very much correct again. Locusts were operating on a 24h basis refreshing pages 12 times per second in their accounts. They once again killed the cow that fed many.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Sun Jan 15, 2023 9:14 pm

Alfa1234 wrote:
On top of that, it's extremely difficult to program a bot to take advantage of arbs between sharps and exchanges.  The arbs are there for milliseconds only and it may seem simple, but there are a lot of difficulties involved that don't occur to you at first sight.
Not milliseconds for sure. I've seen arbs between Pinnacle and Betfair even these days, when we struggle with shite liquidity and it's not extreme rare, it happens, not every day but happens. I didn't care about that for few reasons: first, to take advantage od that you would need to have comission lowered to 2% or similar which is much lower than my current commision. Second, these arbs happens mostly if not only on obscure markets where limits are very low so I didn't bother trying to catch tiny arbs.

So yes, there are arbs between BF and sharps but small limits make them useless.
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Tue Jan 17, 2023 6:23 pm

My question is: why someone is trying to get a bet below sharps? Makes no sense to me so maybe someone can explain. Talking about abovementioned arbs. Niche, obscure markets. To place a bet there I would expect being someone who knows what is he doing. Not a mug. If someone is trying to exploit obscure markets I don't doubt he's got Pinnacle account so why betting below? I would understand if that would be huge amounts to avoid limits but these arbs are usually few hundred maximum so weird to me. Simply mistake?
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Tue Jan 17, 2023 11:13 pm

AlexNotman1 wrote: My question is: why someone is trying to get a bet below sharps? Makes no sense to me so maybe someone can explain. Talking about abovementioned arbs. Niche, obscure markets. To place a bet there I would expect being someone who knows what is he doing. Not a mug. If someone is trying to exploit obscure markets I don't doubt he's got Pinnacle account so why betting below? I would understand if that would be huge amounts to avoid limits but these arbs are usually few hundred maximum so weird to me. Simply mistake?
Many reasons, a soft book has out of line odds and an arber will be taking your bets as an arb, which you will be re-arbing.  Or inside info, or just mug punters taking shit odds creating arbs etc etc  many reasons
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Re: Arbitrage between Pinnacle and Exchanges

Wed Jan 18, 2023 11:24 am

Arbitrage between Pinnacle and exchanges was indeed doable some years ago, provided that you had really big balances in both Pinnacle and the exchanges. An other pr-requisite was a low commission rate in Betfair (2.5-3%), which was quite doable with our help.
Today, I believe this is not possible anymore. It is not only the exchanges, it is Pinnacle also that is different.

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