RebelBetting Day 13
30th May
Hi Bloggers,
A very quiet day, probably because I’ve had to de-select the two most frequent bookies who have restricted my bets! I’ve got just one arb which doesn’t play today, so I’ll add it onto the next report.
Meanwhile I’ve had some feedback.
ClaroBet, the authors, replied:
“We’re a bit surprised by the lack of tennis arbs as well. It doesn’t look like we’re missing anything (the odds are just too low and/or too similar), but we will monitor more closely this weekend during the next tennis event.
Yes, it’s probably the worst time of the year to arb 🙂
Being limited on 3 bookmakers early on isn’t unusual, some are notorious for limiting fast and their only use is to get as much bonus as possible.”
This is a fair point – I’ve made about £50 in bonuses from these three bookies.
On the one bookmaker in particular, where I had made the most profit, I was “mug punting” to reduce my profits which had been approx £200 on £300 deposited with them. The madness of their restricted stakes was demonstrated when they would only allow me to stake £8 on a 3.50 outsider but would let me stake £45 on the 1.33 favourite! So the insanity is they preferred me to bet on the more likely outcome!
They have confirmed:
“We believe you are possibly arbing.”
I tried explaining that it would be better to let me try to lose the small profit, by allowing me to bet on, otherwise I would just withdraw my original deposit plus the profit.
They replied “I agree your profits are not high but as a gaming company we do not encourage arbing”
So they chose to lose my business!
Interestingly, there appears to be a cartel amongst certain bookies where they agree to restrict arbers irrespective of if they make a profit. Another bookie has restricted me, even though my arb bets have made a loss with them!
A third bookie has restricted my stakes, even though I have lost over £2,000 with them (by trading off the back bets with laying on Betfair). However once I started placing relatively small bets with them on obscure football markets, they have restricted the size of my stakes, despite the fact they have made a large profit overall from my bets!
The only conclusion is that some bookies have an agreement with each other to restrict those who arb, whether or not the punter makes a profit with them! This is a cartel, fixing things so that their customers cannot win across multiple bookies!
Some readers will not be surprised and I’m not either, except I am surprised it has happened so quickly, especially with the bookie with whom I am a big loser!
The RebelBetting manual does say this will happen and one just moves on to other bookies, but I do think the choice of events available at this time of year has hastened this restriction. Would I have been spotted if I had been placing £50 on Chelsea to win at home in a Premiership match? I don’t think so!
This is the sort of thing that this review is set up to find out. We would never have found out the extent of this problem if I had only paper-traded. The question I am trying to answer with this review is “Can a profit be made from arbing?” So far, my answer would be – in the short term – definitely. In the long-term – maybe.
I may have to suspend the review until the start of the new football season – we’ll see how things go over the next few days. I certainly expect my opportunites to be fewer and hence the profit will be less.
Here is yesterday’s spreadsheet of balances:
| Type | Amount | % |
| Total Deposits/Withdrawals | 2000.00 | 83.50% |
| Total in Play | 0.00 | 0.00% |
| Total Bonuses | 106.36 | 4.44% |
| Total Arb Profit | 288.94 | 12.06% |
| Total Bankroll | 2395.30 | 100.00% |
This profit includes the extra (mistake) profit of 112.32 from 21st May. But without this mistake, I’m still in profit by £176.62
Cheers,
Sgt Rich
