Arbusers

Hey y'all,

I've started arbing a few weeks back and things were good. I kept track of my bets with an excel spreadsheet and, at least according to excel, I was making bank.
However, sometimes I noticed that excel told me I lost a couple of cents on what where otherwise good bets, even though betburger and rebelbetting both said the bets were profitable.

I started to dig a little bit and I think I have come to the bottom of it:

Betburger and rebelbetting are doing their calculations based on the comission value that you have entered in the settings. However, they deduct those 5% from the net winnings, not from the entire amount that you get back.

Heres an example of how betburger and rebelbetting calculate your profit


Bet1:
2,62 Odds*45$ stake=117,9$ winnings.

117,9$-45$=72,9$ net winnings

72,9$*0,95 (The 5% commission)= 3,65

117,9$ winnings-3,65$ commission= 114,25

Bet 2:
2.0*55=110$

Now, according to the calculations from betburger or rebbelbetting, your profit would be
114,25$-110$= 4,25$

Basically what they do is that they calculate the 5% commission based of your net winnings, not based on the net winnings+initial stake.

However, in reality I have found that almost every bookmaker that charges a 5% commission ("tax") does not operate like that. What they do is that they calculate their 5% commission based on net winnings+total stake.

So here's the same exampel, but with how the bookmakers calculate:

Bet1:
2,62 Odds*45$ stake=117,9$ winnings.
117,9$* 0,95 (the commission)= 112.01$

Bet 2:
2.0*55$= 110 $

If the second bet looses, your actual profit would then be 2,01$, and not 4,25$


To sum it up

Bookies calculate their commission based on net winnings+initial stake

Betburger and RebelBetting calculate the bookies commission based of just net winnings.

This leads to

1) Your excel spreadsheet being off and not always displaying the right amounts compared to what you have in your bookies accounts

2) You making less money than you think

3) You might acutally be loosing money without noticing.


Now, the question that I do have about that.

How do you all deal with this issue, if it is known to you and if you're affected by it.

Thank you.

Ive never heard of a bookmaker that charges a % on the winnings, let alone on your stake too.  Change soft books to ones that dont have this outragous policy!!

I am currently based in Germany and there's a federal tax on gamlbing, so there's really not much I can do about that. 99% of bookies here charge that tax; theres just a few  that don't and you really can't arb with just 2 bookies. I guess this marks the end of my arbitrage career then.

Jean. Most exchanges (Betfair, smartkets, betdaq) charge commission on net winnings. Are you using matchbook or other exchange?

Yeah I’m on matchbook as well

Matchbook is a strange case charging commission on losing bets. I think no calculators handle this case.

Jean45 wrote: I am currently based in Germany and there's a federal tax on gamlbing, so there's really not much I can do about that. 99% of bookies here charge that tax; theres just a few  that don't and you really can't arb with just 2 bookies. I guess this marks the end of my arbitrage career then.

Yes, arbing doesn't make sense if you always pay 5% on turnover as you are always at a big disadvantage to anyone else.

You can change commission type in Betburger from Win to Bet and it will be calculated correctly for your soft bookies.