Arbitrage bets occur in almost every sport, and basketball is no exception. Some of these sure bets might be extraordinary profitable. They are called middles, and are usually placed on basketball matches on over/under and Asian handicap markets. You can find out more about middles in our Training. This article will not be about them, however. I would like to introduce you to some mistakes that you might face when placing arbitrage bets on basketball.
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I believe that you are familiar with 2-way and 3-way opportunities. The 3-way ones includes draws as well. So now imagine that you are not very well informed about this, and you place a 3-way bet on team 1, and a 2-way bet on team 2. At first glance this might seem to be a covered arbitrage bet, right? Team 1 and team 2 are both covered, so what could surprise you about that? Well, imagine what happens if this match ends in a draw? How is this arbitrage bet going to be settled by bookmakers?
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Your 2-way bet is going to be settled according to the overtime winner. So you might get lucky and win, but you could lose as well. But what about the 3-way part of the sports arbitrage? What do you think? Yes, I’m guessing you’ve already answered my question. It will be evaluated as a loss. From those three opportunities (1×2) the draw option would be the winning one. This is not an example of a correct arbitrage bet — but as a newbie, you need to check so many things at the beginning that you might not even notice this mistake, although it might turn out eventually to be a very costly one.
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If you want to bet and win every time, this is definitely not the way to do it. To find out more about arbitrages, their pitfalls and how to avoid them, visit our Arbitrage Training.
