Arbusers

So i used to make quite a lot of money with value betting software on softbookies. Now i'm obviously banned like most people eventually. I'm even banned in betting shops offline and it's a lot harder to be banned in them then online. But i kind of really pushed it to the limit LOL. Now either sharps are left for me or betting in other people their names. But i think i found a strategy i want to share to find practically unlimited value bets on sharps. Trading on exchanges will probably work better for this strategy.

First let's think about how this value betting software actually works and why, you have to understand the market mechanism behind it. Basically most of these tools: surebets, rebelbetting, donbest, etc. they look at the prices of different bookies. Then if a bookie has a much different price, it's assumed to be a value bet. So basically what you are doing is taking a market average, say for example the devigged average is decimal odds of 3. Then one bookie offers 3.2. What is the chance the whole market is wrong or just this bookie is wrong? Probably the last. Sometimes bookies know something the market doesn't but on a big sample size this strategy actually works. I know for a fact that it does and it makes sense. This is not really predicting in the traditional sense but more like trading. You try to make use of market inefficiencies and the wisdom of crowds. You assume the market as a whole is efficient with some small inefficiencies within it. Basically this makes use of the wisdom of crowds because you assume the market as a whole will show the correct odds. Bookmakers make money so they must be right over huge sample sizes. If the bookmaker margin is 5% and they would be wrong with more then 5% on average, they would lose money. So we can conclude they are often quite right, the odds being offered.

There have been done experiments about the wisdom of crowds. For example say if you ask a thousand people to make a guess how many gumballs are there in a jar. Then if you take an average of what all those people predicted, it will be very accurate. Even if some people would have been way off, the average will be pretty correct. That's why predicting is so hard, usually markets are right and if they are wrong it's usually not with a big margin. Or the market might be wrong on some select markets but then most markets are quite correct priced. So most people can't overcome the house edge and lose betting. Especially if you pay 5-10%, that's quite a lot actually. You need some big mistakes just to break even.

Now my idea is to find value bets but with charts. Usually markets only do 2 things, they either trend or make a counter trend move. The trend can be up, down or sideways. These charts often tell a lot of information that otherwise might have not been immediately obvious if you look at just odds alone. That's probably why charting on the stock market is a thing, technical analysis. I have no idea why it's not in betting markets to be honest. This could even be done without technical indicators, just price action.

I think there could be profit made doing something similar to how bookies operate. Basically trading on exchanges or betinasia. But if you are simply going to try and lay markets blindly that will be -EV i think. Because often these markets will trend, not just go sideways.
Basically i you want to back something you have to look for which side is trending down, more often then not it will even trend a bit further in the same direction it was trending. This tells you where the money is coming in on. But you want to position ideally on a counter trend move or at the top of a range. In theory you should beat closing line value more often then not if price goes your direction, which is kind of the whole point. But probably have to be somewhat tactical, smart about it. The longer the trend the better, but the most value might also gone out of it already. The big drops on a chart are usually smart money, the counter trend moves are probably usually because of people arbing. Small markets can be manipulated so this works better with bigger markets. Don't trade against the trend, always with the trend. For example if odds are mostly dropping you want to back at a good price, then you can later lay again for a profit. Don't just lay a market that's dropping. Vice versa, if odds just keep shooting up it's smarter to lay it first for a good price, then later on you can back it and close out position for a profit.

Here some random examples, maybe not the best ones but just to show the principe. You first establish a trend, then you know how to position based on trend. Now you find out what is the trading range withing the trend, try to back and lay at good prices. In theory this even has some advantages over value odds software. With the value software you are just looking at prices itself. Say bookies have odds ranging from 1.9 to 2.2, then the 2.2 is probably a good bet. But with a tool like surebets.com you don't know what the actual trend is. Because if the odds in general are just rising up it's not smart to back unless you know for a reason the market is wrong. Because it might have been a value bet in the moment, then 10 hours later price is even much higher, making it -EV.

The whole point of betting is getting a better price then for how likely it is to pay out. So you generally want odds to drop after you buy, or rise after you lay. The problem is say you would just blindly start to back and lay bets on exchanges. When prices move, like usually in a 1x2 market one side of the market will even trend down lower, the others up. So the orders will be hit on the sides you kind of don't want, or it will be hard to get action on both sides.

There are risks to this strategy, like a market might have been intentionally manipulated to bet on the other side. Or some surprises can happen. You need a certain volume to be even sure enough of the trend.

I wonder how is this much different then the "dropping odds strategy?". Usually if odds drop on pinnacle then you can still bet at softbookies and make a profit at higher odds. If you don't have softbookies anymore, i think the same concept could work. Put in limit orders, orders on exchanges hoping to get hit. Even trading is probably +EV, that's how bookies make their money. But i think for it to work you need to know where the money is coming into. Because those odds are likely to further drop. So by anticipating this market movement you should be at the right side more often.

No idea if this is all crazy? In my mind it makes sense. I'm trying to see it more as a bookmaker or like how you would trade stocks. I think it's quite the same thing in the end. How do bookies even make money? I think they mostly just look at where the money is coming into then try to take their spread and position correctly themselves. If you don't have access to this order flow data you can kind of tell by the charts imo. These odds themselves give price information.

I actually found some reddit discussion today that kind of goes about this. So took some screenshots because i thought it was interesting.
How do bookmakers make money? They do by taking bets at both sides and taking some margin. This is not really a difficult concept. But then how do they make all these odds? The probably buy in odds or have some analysis system themselves. But i think that bookies mostly actually don't know and move prices based on money coming in.

For the past 12 years i have been into financial markets with ups and downs, but made more then i lost over the years.

Usually you have either fundamental analysis or technical analysis, i would say it's the 2 main ways to approach markets except for maybe quantitative analysis.
Fundamental analysis is things like discounted cashflow models, macro analysis, etc. This would be the equivalent of having a betting model that can output probabilities. Usually this approach is more for long term investing since short term fundamentals don't matter much.

Then there is also trading. For many years i wondered what is trading and how to do it. Because there is a lot of snake oil. For example i don't think elliott waves actually work, markets are too random to just count waves. Or things like head and shoulders patterns, in my experience they like work or fail half of the time really so it's a pure coin flip.

The only traders i seen make money are pretty simple systems. Like moving averages, bollinger bands, rsi. But you have to know when to use them or when.

But maybe financial markets are much more reflexive then betting markets. Still i think there might be some alpha in purely getting the trend right on betting markets. I kind of see it as a momentum trading approach. The whole value betting on softbookies thing is kind of similar.

Thanks for thought provoking information.

Sure, you can try to bet solely on prediction of market movements and trade on (assumed) trends. But there is a lot of manipulation out there. Or put it differently betting markets can be "directed" much easier than stocks and all the smart guys know, that some other smart guys try to predict there moves. The game is a bit different than on stock markets, at least from my experience. I am not saying it wont work, but i assume you really need to go deep into the particular markets, otherwise you will run in one trap after another.

Let me put it simple why i think this is not the last step in climbing the smart betting ladder. Most approaches (surebets, steambetting, value betting in the way you described it here) follow in one or another way smart money. Its much better to develop methods to be the smart money.

schollionär wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 06, 2025 7:11 am

Sure, you can try to bet solely on prediction of market movements and trade on (assumed) trends. But there is a lot of manipulation out there. Or put it differently betting markets can be "directed" much easier than stocks and all the smart guys know, that some other smart guys try to predict there moves. The game is a bit different than on stock markets, at least from my experience. I am not saying it wont work, but i assume you really need to go deep into the particular markets, otherwise you will run in one trap after another.

Let me put it simple why i think this is not the last step in climbing the smart betting ladder. Most approaches (surebets, steambetting, value betting in the way you described it here) follow in one or another way smart money. Its much better to develop methods to be the smart money.

I understand.
My idea was to only do it for big games anyway. For example NFL, NHL, EPL, NBA, ...
I think the market prices themselves are quite right on such games. Even if you build some fancy prediction model, i don't think you will make double digit gains. Maybe a few %, but that's just my assumption. It's the same with value betting on softbookies, if you want juicy value bets it's always going to be some soccer game in Poland nobody is caring about. You are not going to find big arbs, value bets generally on the NBA. Unless some exotic prop bets.
So i think there might be more profit in acting as a bookmaker on such games then actually trying to predict. In theory you can even get mostly out of the market before the game starts.
Polymarket nowadays even has free transaction costs, they probably will eventually start charging users but for now they do this as a growth strategy. With no transaction costs it's pretty much a zero sum game instead of negative sum. Because on betinasia sometimes the spread is pretty big, which makes it probably hard to do the same like bookies do. Then you need the same prices like they do. But my idea is mostly to try and trade them and keep at the right side of the market. I think this is why just blindly laying on exchanges fails. Because prices don't go sideways forever they will usually trend in some direction.

"Let me put it simple why i think this is not the last step in climbing the smart betting ladder. Most approaches (surebets, steambetting, value betting in the way you described it here) follow in one or another way smart money. Its much better to develop methods to be the smart money."

I don't disagree i'm interested in prediction modelling but don't even know where to really start. Then i also think simple models don't work anymore nowadays, it's probably not that easy.

Sometimes odds might even drop because news came out some player is injured or the team is not complete. Then the model might not have taken that into account initially or at all.

https://www.onlinebettingacademy.com/bl ... l-analysis

https://optionshawk.com/project/sports- ... -the-same/