Soccer Betting System: Arbitrage Bet Against A Draw
By Adam, Soccer Handicapper, Predictem.com
Any soccer match has three possible outcomes: Team A wins, Team B wins, or it is a draw (tie). Since there are three possible outcomes, the betting lines on wins for each team can be and often are both positive. These are the best games on which to use the following betting system.
First off, the money line represents the amount that is paid out for a win on a $100 bet. If the money line is +120, you win $120 on a $100 bet, and if you lose you lose $100. Negative money lines represent the inverse, in that a -120 money line means you win $100 on a $120 bet. If you lose, you lose $120.
That said, we need to discuss arbitrage calculations. Arbitrage, in its usual sense, represents a riskless opportunity; i.e. it is a bet that guarantees a profit. Usually when you hear the term arbitrage, it refers to betting across multiple betting sites due to the money lines being skewed in such a way that you bet on one team on one site, bet on the opponent on the other, and no matter what, you win a set amount. What we are doing with this soccer system, as you will see, is we are treating the money lines on opposing teams as an arbitrage, but only in the sense that we calculate how much we must bet on each side to return the same amount of profit, regardless of who wins.
Now, since there is a third option, a draw, this is not arbitrage in the normal sense because the risk we will incur is that there is a draw. The reason, though, that I use the term arbitrage is that we need to use an arbitrage calculator (found on many sites on the internet) to make our bet.
An arbitrage calculator allows you to input your betting unit (say, a dollar), and the money lines of both teams. It will spit out the amount of units you need to place on the opponent (compared to the $1) in order to return the same amount of money regardless of who wins. It will also spit out how much of a return that amount is as a percentage of your total bet.
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An example will best illustrate this concept. In a soccer match, Team A has a money line of +180. Team B has a money line of +160. We input $100 as our betting unit, and we also input these money lines, in that respective order (meaning +180 is our first bet). The result says that we must bet $100 on +180, and $107.69 on +160. The total bet is $207.69 and the return is $72.31, which is a return of 34.8%.
Now, the idea of betting both sides of a soccer match in this manner must take into account the chance of a draw, in which we will lose both of the bets we have placed ($100 on the team with a line of +180, and $107.69 on the opponent whose line is +160). So, if we placed that bet, we get a return of 34.8% as long as EITHER team wins, but we lose when the match ends in a draw. As logic would have it, we are in essence getting a 34.8% profit if there is no tie, and thus, to be profitable, if this game were played 100 times, we would need there to be a tie less than 34 times.
Luckily, we have history on our side, and soccer matches fall somewhere in the 20-30% range in terms of how often they end in draws. With this information, you can argue that whenever you plug opposing teams money lines into an arbitrage calculator and get a return over 30%, it is a good bet over the long haul.
The fun part of this betting system is that you actually do not need positive money lines on both sides. Here is an example. You have two teams: Team A has a money line of +500. Team B has a money line of -100. Using an arbitrage calculator, we can bet $100 on Team A and $300 on Team B, for a return of $200, which would be a 50% profit on our $400 total bet. This would be an excellent game to use the betting system on because we are getting good odds on our bet that is, in essence, betting against a tie. So, since ties occur about 30% of the time, if we got 50% profit on outcomes that are NOT ties, we are essentially in a positive expected value situation.
So, always check those soccer lines, plug them into arbitrage calculators, and find the games whose lines return more than 30%. It is a fun way to bet and as a betting system is concerned, it is as good as any because it does not matter who wins; we just want a winner.
Good luck and as always, thanks for reading.