Using betting exchanges will make your profit from sports arbitrages grow in a significant way. But, the biggest and best-known betting exchange, Betfair, increased their commission in 2014 to 5%, 6.5% or 7% – depending on the country where you reside. Is Betfair really so indispensable that they can afford to charge their customers such a high commission? The answer is no. There are other betting exchanges you can use to place sure bets. Every tenth of a percentage point is crucial in arbitrage betting. That is why smart arbitrage players can’t afford to pay Betfair‘s commissions.
“You don’t know how to calculate arbitrage bets with betting exchanges? You want to get familiar with lay betting? Great, we will show you all that in our Arbitrage Training course – you can check the curriculum here.”
The best alternatives, according to the ArbitrageTraining team, are Smarkets and Matchbook. These two bookmakers are covered by RebelBetting software, as also is Betfair. Smarkets charge a flat 2% commission to all customers – no matter where you come from! The problem with the smaller betting exchanges might be slightly lower liquidity. Comparing to Betfair, Smarkets has lower liquidity, but they are improving really quickly, and their commission is so good that they have been able to attract many arbitrage traders, and as we know arbitragers bring a lot of liquidity into the sports betting market.
Matchbook has a commission rate of only 1%! But this commission is calculated differently: Matchbook charges 1% of your net profit if you win, but also 1% from your stake if you lose your bet. Still, this is just 1%! In comparison to Betfair it is absolutely fantastic.
You can argue that there must be some way to decrease your commission with Betfair, but this might be quite time-consuming and unstable. As arbitrage traders we want to maximise our profits, and do not want to pay a higher commission than is needed – that is why the ArbitrageTraining team chooses Smarkets and Matchbook over Betfair these days.
