A market caught our eye this morning (Wednesday 11th December 2024).
William Hill are offering 4.50 (7/2) on the Benfica/Arsenal/Manchester City treble in tonight’s Champions League clash.
Whereas Betdaq are offering 4.30 on the same market
When looking at Pinnacles prices if you were to wrap these up as a treble at the time of writing it pays 3.80
Benfica are 1.49, Arsenal are 1.295 and Manchester City are 1.97.
This then presents a number of opportunities and talking points.
The 4.50 offered by William Hill presents what at first glance is good value. However, you are limited to how much you can put on.
If we look at the 4.30 offered by Betdaq this offers a small arbitrage opportunity when taking William Hills 4.50
This is quite a clever move by Betdaq as they know that the arbers will create the liquidity for this market by laying off at 4.30.
Now the 4.30 also offers a decent price for the value seeking punter who wants to put a substantial amount of money on this market. There is no way he will be able to get £1000 on at William Hill. However, by taking a lesser price that is still perceived as value the Betdaq customer can place as much in the market as the money waiting to be matched will allow.
This market priced at 4.30 will also attract scalpers. Hoping to back at 4.30 & lay at 4.20 or below.
As previously stated, arbitrage opportunities are excellent for the exchanges in creating much needed liquidity.
Jonny was one of the biggest arbers in the UK
Around fifteen years ago our Inplay football expert Jonny Grossmark was one of the biggest arbers in the UK.
Those were the days of the fixed odds coupons where the odds never changed. So, for example when the fixed odds coupon came out and Arsenal were Evens (2.00) to beat Spurs the price stayed at Evens right up until kick off despite what might happen with team news etc.
So many a time a team like Arsenal would be priced at 2.00 on a fixed odds coupon and available to lay on Betfair at 1.80
Jonny and his team would then go around each betting office placing two hundred pounds a time on Arsenal at 2.00 with the fixed odds coupon and then immediately laying off at 1.80 on Betfair.
On these types of matches Jonny would place around £6000 on each game. Meaning he and his team would have to visit around 30 bookmakers to get the money on. In the above example he could either leave the money on Arsenal or Green up for a guaranteed profit of around £666
In the above example of where Jonny was backing Arsenal at 2.00 in the betting shops and laying Arsenal on the exchanges. He always preferred Arsenal not to win as then he didn’t have to go around to each of the many bookmakers to pick up his winnings. Instead he could just draw out the money from his Betfair account from home.
Jonny used to do this until Betfair started upping their commission. Indeed, one month doing the above he had won £42000 on the exchange but the reality is that was not winnings as he had lost around £37000 at the bookmakers backing sides on the fixed odds coupon
So here he was being asked to pay a large commission on what essentially was his capital and not winnings.
Now imagine if it was the other way around and he won £42000 in the betting shops and lost £3700 on the exchange.
You would immediately be exposing yourself to affordability checks etc.
In someways by introducing the high commission charges Betfair discouraged the arbers and indeed in some respects the gambling commission are doing the same today.
Arbing opportunities as seen today breath life into the markets and should be encouraged.
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