How & Where to Place a No Lose Bet Using Zero Risk Betting Strategies
Explore four key ways a punter can place football and other sports bets with a zero-risk betting strategy so the bet cannot lose. Learn how to bet without losing, get guaranteed winners, and increase your chances of regular payouts from the experience
Table Of Contents
- How To Bet Without Losing
- No Risk Betting Strategies for Football
- Where To Bet
- Why Do No Lose Bets Exist?
- Arbitrage Betting Explained
- Best Arbitrage Betting Software
- What Is Arbing?
- Starting Up a Zero Risk Betting Plan
- Types Of Arbitrage Betting
- How Much Can You Win?
- Using Software
- Which Sports Can I Arb On?
- What Can Go Wrong?
- Is It Legal?
- Other Types Of Sports-Based No Lose Betting
- Pros & Cons
- More Resources
- Betting Without Losing in Other Forms of Gambling
- Future Options
- Summary
- FAQ
Is it really possible to use a zero-risk betting strategy to bet without losing?
There’s a holy grail in any form of real money betting or gaming – the ability for bettors and players to play or bet on a game for real money where the betting odds dictate you can’t lose. There are very few gamblers who won’t have searched for a viable option using a method, website, or app that offered ways to place a no lose bet with less risk.
In most situations, we punters can get some entertainment from our picks and predictions even if we lose and as long as it’s not losing too much of our betting bank. Still, the real point is to find a risk-free betting strategy, system, or techniques that:
- Lessens the risk of losing overall even if every bet will not lose.
- Results in more cash in our betting accounts than we started.
- Locks in a consistent profit over some time.
- Keeps potential losses for bettors to a minimum and income to a maximum.
- Increases our chances of repeated wins and cash prizes.
- Maintains the liquidity of our betting bank and gambling funds.
- Generally reduces the focus on gambling and turns our bets into investments.
- Can be used strategically on any device from any country anywhere in the world, from Android to Apple iOS, desktop PCs or laptops and on websites or mobile apps.
- Is based on sound practical advice that can help beat the bookmakers.
- Adds to your overall enjoyment of sport betting.
It’s important to note that we’re not looking for a gambling system that never loses but a betting system or strategy and the chance of a regular risk free bet that turns the art of punting into a series of investment strategies. We’re looking to grow the likelihood of a positive return on what we’ve invested and consistent winnings, and there are significant differences between gambling and investing to understand to endure you get that win.
You might think it’s impossible to find a zero-risk betting strategy where there is no probability of suffering a loss, but the fact is there are a variety of ways to place a legal no lose bet with no risk where you win whatever the outcome.
It’s certainly not easy to bet without losing, and you’ll most likely need help from an informational website or app to supplement your betting knowledge. There are risks in any approach, and plenty can go wrong, not least because your bets may quickly be limited if you’re on a winning run. Getting your account limited for being too successful as a punter is very likely at sportsbooks like bet365 or 1xbet and most of their competing sites in the gambling industry.
It’s a near certainty that playing many of the real money games we’ve covered elsewhere on the site won’t work for no-risk betting, although we will look at the potential for betting without losing in other forms of gambling. There will be opportunities to build steady profit in some cash prize tournaments, notably by playing poker or video game contests that are growing with the increasing interest in esports.
You won’t find opportunities to bet without losing on casino games in casinos. With those games, you’re likely to lose your deposit. But betting on sports games does give some real possibilities to build up bet capital regularly – specifically around various forms of sports betting with sportsbooks, bookmakers, and exchanges on sports events like football games, tennis matches, and others like a horse race. Wagering on sport is how most professional bettors ply their trade.
Of course, football is the most popular team sport. There are solid reasons to focus on soccer betting, and we all have our favorite team or teams. We’ll see in a minute the different ways you might be able to place a no lose football bet using your preferred sports betting strategy for locked-in profit (or at least a guarantee of profit over time). And with some sports betting strategies, you don’t necessarily have to bet on either the underdog or the odds-on favourite.
In the rest of this article, we’ll explore the options and exact details for zero risk betting. We’ll see which methods and strategies you can use in the hope of betting without losing and ensuring the necessary long-term profits.
Note that our focus is mainly on zero risk sports betting, where the target is to place as many of your bets as possible so you cannot lose. Still, it’s worth noting that value betting and wagering in financial markets can give similar opportunities. The Butterfly spread options strategy will be one to investigate if finance-related spread betting takes your interest.
If you’re keen to get started on the road to betting profits, here’s a great example of a service that can help. It’s known as RebelBetting – an arbitrage and value betting service that we’ll explore deeper further on. You can access RebelBetting and discover its many features with a free trial via the image below.
How to bet without losing – 4 types of no risk betting
You might be regularly bombarded with messages from tipsters stating, ‘this can’t lose, and there are zero risks around this bet’. Surely you’ll see these on some tipster websites or by Twitter users boasting huge success with sports betting tips, but they’re rarely correct, and in general, tipsters are best avoided. In reality, there is only one gambling system that offers a true way to bet without losing but there are plenty of strategies that help you make money by betting consistently enough that you won’t lose over time.
The most successful way to make a bet that can’t lose any money is known as arbitrage – a term that refers to any bet strategy that can result in guaranteed financial profit whatever happens. Some Twitter tipsters work with arbitrage betting, and you could probably do a lot worse than following some of those as part of your football betting strategy.
Arbitrage isn’t the only method. It’s one of two that – if carried out correctly – can guarantee a locked-in profit from gambling at the point of striking the bet rather than relying on other influences, predictions, or systems. A third option depends more on what happens after you’ve struck the bet, and a fourth look more at guaranteeing a profit from your bets where some form of staking plan will be the best approach.
So our overall list of zero risk, no lose betting methods includes:
- Arbitrage – using discrepancies in the odds with different bookmakers to place bets on all possible outcomes to ensure a profit. Also known as sure betting.
- Value Betting – Recognizing that a number of your bets will lose and working out a way of using research to determine how only to bet when the odds are in your favour, such that you will end up ahead and in profit over a sequence of bets.
- No Risk Matched Betting – making money with free bet bonus or free betting cash offers to ensure a profit. It’ll be easy to find an online sportsbook with these types of matched betting offers and bonuses.
- Trading Odds/Back & Lay Betting – using movements in market odds after placing an initial bet to lock in a profit by trading out.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways to tip odds in your favour while still leaving yourself open to the luck factor. This may be by focusing on sports like ‘standard’ football betting where there are a reduced number of outcomes (i.e. win, lose, or draw in straightforward match betting), or even greyhound betting where there are six outcomes in win betting from which you can narrow down your bets with rigorous data analysis. It’s possibly worth looking into spread betting for some opportunities where firms like IG Group play a significant part.
It’s relatively obvious that betting on games with only two likely outcomes, such as tennis, will be the best option, though, and as we’ve seen, this can be done in football with Asian handicaps.
In gaming, you’ll almost certainly improve your prospects by playing games where the potential of winning is much higher than usual – cash prize skill gaming would be the one to focus on here, where at least your skill as a player in any given game can make a big difference and will increase winning probabilities.
On this page, we’ll focus specifically on sports betting arbitrage as the primary most likely way you’ll end up in profit, and explore what’s involved with learning how to place a bet that can’t lose via that method, including:
- The different types of winning arbitrage bets you can make.
- Why the zero risk betting opportunities even exist.
- Where you can safely find a sportsbook or bookmaker to make the bets while facing no issues in making deposits to a betting account.
- Which sports can you bet on (particularly how to never lose a football bet).
- Identifying a few places you can get free no loss betting tips.
- Learn about the risks and things that can go wrong when you think you have a winning arbitrage opportunity.
It’s doubtful we’ll find a way to win a bet every time because even with arbitrage, things do go wrong, but we’ll indeed have explored all the options. We’ll also touch on the other methods of obtaining a sure profit, though each of these will ultimately get its dedicated page.
What are the zero risk betting strategies for football?
We have already identified that football is the most popular target for any bettors seeking zero risk options. That’s not surprising given it’s the most-followed team sport worldwide with odds available on up to hundreds of individual matches daily, delivering a wide range of options for placing a no-lose football bet. Teams like Tottenham, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Leeds, and West Ham will be well-known to anyone betting in leagues. Similarly, any matches involving national teams like England or Denmark always attract plenty of interest at an international level.
It’s not surprising then to learn there is considerable interest on the internet around how to never lose a football bet. The good news is the strategies outlined throughout this page can be applied to football betting in all forms of competition to achieve a locked-in profit (or at least guarantee a profit over time), including matches in leagues or cup competitions.
In reality, soccer matches may not be the best target given that – in a straight win, lose, or draw bet on a match – there are three potential outcomes rather than the two that will occur in contests like tennis matches where nearly always the draw is not a deep consideration. Even with that, there will still be many arbitrage opportunities that apply to football matches, and all of the other methods of no loss betting apply as equally as they would in any other type of sports betting.
In addition to the arbitraging solutions, you may want to engineer the odds more in your favour by considering Asian handicap betting that effectively eliminates the draw possibility. Your bets become straightforward win or lose choices. There may even be ways to combine Asian handicap bets with all the other methods of no lose betting we’ve covered to improve your chances further and reduce any risks.
Finally, if all this information is a little too deep at this stage, it may pay to study some valuable football betting tutorials to get yourself a good grounding in the basics. The following video will get you off on the right track:
Why do no lose bets exist?
There are many bookmakers, and they rarely go out of business. Which unequivocally proves there’s money to be made as a bookmaker. They make lots of money. Consistently.
But competition is fierce. For the same reason that casino, bingo, or poker operators regularly offer betting promotions, sports bookmakers have to fight for Customers. They do that by either running their promotions or offering better odds than their counterparts.
This is where arbitrage betting gets its name. There will be – and are – opportunities to place bets with different bookmakers whose odds are out of line with their competitors. This might occur due to competition, errors in pricing or the market has changed, and one of the bookies hasn’t yet updated their odds.
Let’s take a look at an example. Liverpool versus Arsenal in the opening Premier League match of the 2014 season. It’s early in the season, there is no current tangible form to go on, and plenty may have happened with the teams between the end of last season and this match.
So the bookies are uncertain of how to price it up. One may go Evens Liverpool to win; one way go 6-4. If you can place one bet on Liverpool at 6-4 with one bookie, and another on Arsenal at 6-4 with another (both with a draw no bet option), then whichever way the result ends up, you end up in profit (or at least with your original stake intact if it was a draw).
This is a fairly extreme example, most often, the differences in odds won’t be anywhere near this big, but the example does show the theory. Similar examples could be found in major international tournaments such as Euro2020 or World Cup matches.
The Overround
Although bookmakers need to seek to offer better value than their counterparts, they still have a business to run and need to limit their risk exposure. This is where the overround comes in.
It’s a term that refers to the overall market the bookmaker is offering and how much profit they will make whatever the outcome. Whatever happens, they will shift odds depending on liabilities to make a profit.
What happens when the bookmakers work out what’s happening?
They already know. Arbing has been around for a long time. The reality is that bookmakers will always have to offer attractive odds if they want to attract or keep customers, and they have to balance their books, so they make money.
Some don’t like having arbers betting with them, but equally, there is a number that doesn’t mind. After all, their profits are already built into the odds they offer overall…and if you can find part of a no-lose bet on an online betting exchange, these are not even bookmakers. You are betting against other punters on betting exchanges, just like you.
Several betting operators frown on the practice. Still, the worst that can happen is that they’ll eventually close the account of anyone they suspect to carry out successful arbitrage. You shrug and move on to a competitor that will take the bets if that happens.
Arbitrage betting explained – a beginners introduction
Aside from understanding how no lose betting works, the trick is knowing where and how to find those no risk betting opportunities and then taking advantage of them quickly before they disappear.
The most profitable betting method with no risk is known as arbitrage or sure betting. It is defined as ‘the placing of wagers with different operators at odds which guarantee you a positive return whichever way the result goes.
This form of betting has been around for some time. It’s not easy, there are some pros and cons to be aware of, and you’ll need to work hard at it to be successful. But the rewards can be good if you can make it work.
We’ll see exactly how it works in a minute, but before we start exploring arbitrage and all its intricacies, there’s one name in particular that it may pay to be aware of – Rebel Betting……
RebelBetting – Zero risk betting solution
We’ll read more about the main methods of getting an advantage over the bookmakers further on, but if you want to know where to go for the two main ones of Value Betting and Arbitrage, then the RebelBetting website and its value or arbitrage betting software that helps in identifying and placing sports bets that cannot lose is the place to start on your quest for steady wins and long term profitability.
RebelBetting is a true no lose betting service that is the best of this type I’ve been able to find. It’s probably the best arbitrage betting software and has proven results.
With a promise to “turn gambling into investing and outsmart the bookmakers at their own game”, joining Rebel Betting gets you free trials and hundreds of arbs per day without any profit restrictions across different betting markets, all laid out in an easy to follow format. There’s cross-market support, too, that delivers advanced arbing by mixing different markets in the same arb.
On average, existing members double their starting stake money bank in three months with Value Betting, and the profits can compound from there onwards. You will be placing bets with a more significant chance of winning than implied by their odds. The RebelBetting blog also carries some good tips on how to get the best value from the data and information on the games.
Signing up with RebelBetting will also get you a free Ebook that explains every aspect of this form of risk-free betting that you’ll need to know. Once you’ve got the Ebook and fully understand how their solution works, you can sign up for the subscription and get the bets laid out for you without any effort needed on your part.
There’s also a guarantee made by RebelBetting that says…..
“If you don’t make a profit the first month, you get another month for free – again and again until you profit! We take the risk, and you can’t lose”.
What is arbing or arbitrage betting?
It’s worth noting that most successful arbers don’t look at their art as any form of gambling. To them, it’s a business and a form of investing, with a built-in guaranteed profit from their ‘work’ that can build a big bank over the long term. It’s not also known as ‘sure betting’ for nothing.
As a starter to understanding it better, here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on the subject:
”Betting arbitrage, miracle bets, sure bets, sports arbitraging is a particular case of arbitrage arising in betting markets due to bookmakers’ different opinions on event outcomes or plain errors. By placing one bet per outcome with different betting companies, the bettor can make a profit. As long as different Bookmakers are used for arbitrage betting, the Bookmakers do not have a problem with this. Each will still make a profit because they’ve baked their commission into their calculations.”
So basically, this means that to enjoy a no lose bet and get a guaranteed profit irrelevant to the final result, you will be betting on both outcomes in any match event. The bet will usually be placed with two different bookmakers, such that you win whatever the outcome. For example, this might be in a tennis match, a head to head golf match or a soccer match on an Asian handicap bet.
The same opportunities can be found in several other sports. By placing bets on two (or more) matches where the odds are high enough on both outcomes, you can cover all those outcomes and be guaranteed to win.
You should note, though, that aiming to place arbitrage-based bets that can’t lose is not for the faint-hearted – it’s a fast-paced process, and to do it successfully requires lots of focus, time, experience, dedication and the ability to keep your discipline. Plus plenty of cash in betting accounts to ensure you can place the bets when they arise.
What are the different types of arbitrage betting?
We’ve seen that it might be possible to back two opposing teams or players in a match at odds which guarantee a positive return whichever one wins. That’s the simplest form of no lose bet.
Another option, though, is to look for opportunities where you can bet one party to win and lose simultaneously, such that either result still gives you a profit at no risk.
In these cases, the profit is likely to be low, but finding one is like finding gold dust on the ground. You probably need to lay out pretty large sums of money to make it worthwhile. If you want an excellent example of buying money, though, this is it.
Back and lay betting, as this is known, will almost always take place on betting exchanges where you’re betting against other punters rather than traditional bookmakers.
One significant point to note with betting exchanges is that they charge a small commission on winning bets – which may be high enough to wipe out the small profit you might be making. For that reason, you’ll need to be cautious with these types of wagers.
Another possible problem is the bank size; you’ll need to cover the ‘bet to lose’ side of any wager struck. Although you’re not going to lose it in theory, you still need the cash there, or the Exchange won’t allow the bet to be placed.
Arbitrage and free bet offers combined
Taking advantage of a free bet offer in combination with an arbitrage one is well worth looking into, although it obviously can only be used sparingly and won’t offer a long-term opportunity since you usually only get free bets on initial account creation.
This opportunity works by gaining your free bonus bet by registering a first-time account, making a winning bet at reasonable odds, and then backing the alternative result separately – maybe on an exchange – so that you make a profit whatever happens.
The advantage here is that it can often be simpler to find a wager that offers a reasonable degree of acceptable loss instead of one that makes a profit – and leaves the option to make other bets at good enough odds to lock in your ultimate gain.
The enormous potential drawback is that free betting offers come with terms and conditions attached, typically meaning you can’t withdraw the cash until you’ve wagered the amount a given number of times. So, it’s not exactly free money, but there is some potential in using this approach.
Cross market arbs
It won’t have escaped your notice that in pretty much every sport you can bet on different markets, it’s no longer the case of betting win or lose (or draw), but you can bet on the number of goals, supremacy, and a whole range of other options.
So our term ‘cross-market arbing’ here obviously refers to no lose bets across different types of markets.
To explain, let’s take a look at an example football match:
Aston Villa vs Chelsea – with a standard arb bet on the market for over/under 2.5 goals
Back over 2.5 (Bet365) @ 6/4 – staking £39.91 for a return of £104.56
Back under 2.5 (Pinnacle) @ 37/50 – risking £60.09 for a return of £104.56
Total staked around £100 for a £4.56 profit
In a cross-market arb, it might look like this:
Norwich vs Chesterfield
Back correct score 0-0 (BetVictor) @ 10/1 – staking £9.81 for a potential return of £107.91
Back Norwich to score over 0.5 goals (Ladbrokes) @ 3/10 – staking £83 for a potential return of £107.90
Back Chesterfield to win to nil (Corals) @ 14/1 – staking £7.19 for a potential return of £107.85
So our example shows three bets on three different markets, all resulting in a profit whatever the result.
The good points to note about cross-market sure bets are that there are many more opportunities to spot and strike a wager, plus because of their nature, they may be harder to identify hence having fewer other arbers going for the same bet. This means they may stay available for longer.
Which sports can I arb on?
Because of the nature of arbitrage bets, they’re best placed on the outcomes of events where there are no more than three possible outcomes and ideally two. Football (and several speciality football bets), tennis matches, boxing, and golf matches are excellent examples.
With football, there are now hundreds of different betting markets, giving rise to many possible cross-market opportunities. An example of this may be spotting a betting opportunity that offers good odds on a team for the number of goals scored in a match, coupled with an arb opportunity by betting on the Asian handicap market.
Once you start moving into sports with more participants, such as horse racing, it becomes impossible to back all the possible winners unless you rule out all the outcomes. As soon as you do this, you introduce an unacceptable level of risk and bring luck into play.
What software can help with identifying zero risk arbitrage bets?
You’ll probably be aware that there may be thousands of events that you could place a bet on during any typical day, and finding the ones where you can’t lose will not be easy.
Unless you’re fortunate and stumble upon an opportunity, you’ll need help…and that’s where some types of software come in.
These can range from software that highlights bets where discrepancies in odds exist and tell you precisely what is on offer and with which betting operator.
Others are designed to place bets for you in superfast time as soon as they appear, given they might only be available for seconds or minutes before those odds change.
The software can also show calculations of potential profits and let you use filters that allow the choice of specific sports types, events, profit percentages, and specific bookies or sportsbooks.
Getting started
You can weed out the best no lose bet opportunities yourself, using your knowledge of the specific type of betting concerned and many hours of study and analysis to make an informed decision. Using an odds comparing service will be critical given how many different bookies are operating.
Even a limited number of websites list available arb bets for free – this one being a good example, and here’s another.
But unless you want to spend every minute looking through odds and trying to identify these no lose opportunities yourself (which will take too long and soon become impractical), or want the latest bets available as they appear, then you’re going to need help.
The best way of getting this help is through an arbitrage subscription service where the bets are identified for you. The best is the service offered by RebelBetting as noted in the section above, but there are others to consider.
Let’s say you’ve already completed the studying and determined which strategy or strategies you will follow. The next steps are fairly basic and will be obvious to punters with some betting experience. They centre around three main areas:
- Account registration and where to create an account and bet.
- Deciding how much capital to invest in an initial betting bank and in which type of currency
- How to make an initial deposit into that account or multiple deposits into several accounts
Which bookmakers allow arbitrage betting?
There are plenty of bookies that it’s worth having accounts with (and you will need several accounts across multiple betting sites unless you intend to focus solely on an exchange and trade odds). The list of bookies which allow arbitrage-style betting and will get you the best opportunities is pretty extensive, but there are around eight which are going to be the most important:
- Boylesports
- Skybet
- Pinnacle
- Betfair Exchange
- Paddy Power
- 22bet
- Bwin
- Unibet
- William Hill
- Bet365
In particular, you’re very likely to be using a betting exchange like Betfair at the core of your no-risk betting strategies. Still, there are dozens of other sportsbooks which should also be in any considered arbitrage list.
Exchanges are not like regular bookies and offer many benefits, including higher odds, back to lose options, a clear understanding of how much you can win or lose, and a great way to practice for low stakes. From the list above, Betfair is the most well known, but alternatives are Betdaq and Matchbook.
However, if you want to just take advantage of a great welcome bonus offer with a bookie that offers the option to bet on a vast range of sports, then Bet365 are well worth a look. You’ll need to be at least 18 to hold an account (or the legal age in the jurisdiction in which you live), and that jurisdiction will need to have regulations in place that allow online betting.
Bet365 doesn’t allow arbitrage betting, but their bonus is a good value that might set you up for a good run if you can find plenty of successful selections.
Remember that bonuses come with strings attached – you won’t be able to withdraw until you’ve played through the bonus and first deposit amount several times (read the Bet365 terms and conditions for full details).
Which bookmakers offer the best arbitrage bets?
Traditionally, Pinnacle was the leader, and they actively encouraged arbitrage bets for some time. In many instances now, it’s likely to be a combination of an exchange and a traditional bookie that delivers the best opportunities.
Either way – whichever bookie you use – there are a few key points to remember…..
- Check out all the bonus offers and take advantage of all current bonuses before registering.
- The number one base bookmaker you should have when sure betting is Pinnacle, followed closely by Betfair.
- Set yourself up with a secure VPN service to hide your betting activity for as long as possible.
- Make sure you study reviews of any sportsbook you intend to use and pay particular attention to customer support quality and strong reviews around customer service.
How do you build an initial betting bank?
The main question with betting banks is ‘how big is enough?’
The answer depends very much on what level of profit you’re trying to achieve balanced against your level of risk aversion.
If you aim to build up a small profit level over time, then a small bank of 100 or 200 £/$/€ may be enough to get started. It needs to be big enough to allow the placing of the size of bets you need to make to realise the profit target and at the same time the right size that you could handle some early losing bets or arbitrage attempts that go wrong without losing your entire balance.
If you’re going in head first with what appears to be either a low-risk investment strategy or one you unequivocally believe can’t fail, then a sizeable bank from which you can place the bets would be the best way to go.
Either way – as long as you’re successful – then compounding your profits over time and increasing the size of your bets appropriately will lead to a more significantly sized betting bank.
It’ll be worth paying some attention to the key principles of money management, particularly around staking plans and the size of bets compared to the bank you have available.
How do you make an initial deposit?
Bookmakers are vested in making the depositing process as easy as possible. I doubt there’s a single bookie or sportsbook where this isn’t the case, and there are always plenty of deposit methods to choose from. No bookmakers like bettors that don’t lose, but at least they will make it easy to bet.
So, when it’s time to make an initial deposit, the primary considerations focus more on other aspects of what’s involved rather than the actual act of getting money in.
The following items are all considerations you’ll need to take into account after first making sure it’s legal for you to use the intended service and ensuring there are no other issues around whether you should be holding a betting account, and determining the size of the deposit:
Bonuses – This is an area to be careful with. Bonuses give you extra cash to bet, play, or gamble with. But they come with some restrictions: mainly around how much you’d need to bet as a multiplier of your first bonus-earning deposit before you can take a payout.
Withdrawal options or restrictions – Check the terms and conditions of any bookmaker you use to make sure there are no restrictions around amounts you can withdraw at any specified time and that payout speeds are good enough to get you the funds in case they’re needed for betting opportunities elsewhere.
Depositing options – You’ll want to ensure that deposits can be completed in the currency or currencies that work best for you and whether there are any limitations to the size of those deposits.
What about the profits? How much money can I make?
This depends very much on how much time, effort, and risk you want to put into it.
Generally, each arbitrage bet can make you around 2% profit, occasionally going up to 5%, and rarely but possibly higher up to 20%. If you place enough bets, you could make around 15% up to 20% profit (of your starting bankroll) per month.
Of course, this is not as good as getting a big win from an accumulator or one winning bet on a high odds outcome, but as we’ve seen before, the best way to make consistent profits from betting is to do it slowly and carefully.
15-20% profit is much better than the few per cent you’d get in a building society or bank, and remember you’re placing no lose bets, which theoretically means it’s money for nothing.
What can go wrong when you are arbing? What are the risks?
It all sounds so easy. And if you keep calm and don’t get too greedy, it is possible to keep on winning.
But there are some dangers, drawbacks, and risks.
All or most of these can be negated or reduced with experience, but to get that experience, you must display commitment and invest time and effort. If successful, you might find the reward is around 10 per cent (often tax-free) profit each month – a gain that doesn’t come with risks you might encounter trading on something like the stock market.
They don’t last long
Arb opportunities sometimes last only a few minutes. Bookmakers change odds all the time. Before the odds change, you must be fast with placing your bets (this is where RebelBetting helps). The odds might change before you’ve had a chance to place both bets, potentially leaving you with a slight loss (depending on the size of your bets).
You can make each trade or bet quickly, but between making those bets or trades, you should have access to a computer running arbitrage software that will tell you of each arbitrage opportunity. No lose betting opportunities (or “arbs”) sometimes only exist for up to 10 minutes until the odds change, and the opportunity has disappeared. Having software that helps you place trades quickly helps.
You need to be ready – constantly
If you don’t prepare properly, there is a risk of making mistakes with your bets. It would be best if you took the time to study arbitrage betting thoroughly. The best way to do this is to spend at least a week performing ‘paper trades’. That is doing it without actually placing bets or very small ones.
You need to keep good records
There’s a risk of making mistakes in situations where you’re juggling lots of information. For successful sure betting, you’ll need multiple accounts and keeping track of how much money is in each will be necessary. Likewise, you’ll need to know what works and what doesn’t, which entails keeping good records of previous bets and their outcomes.
If you’re not quick – You can get bitten
No matter how fast you are, there always exists a small risk that the odds will change after placing your first bet and before you’ve placed your alternative bet. This could result in a slight loss.
Most likely, this will happen if a high number of bets come flooding in for the same result – something which will happen mainly if you’re using a subscription service. Think about all of your fellow punters all trying to take advantage of a bet that can’t lose all simultaneously!
There may not be enough liquidity
Liquidity is the term for how much money there is on offer in a betting market, and it’s particularly applicable to exchanges. For example, you may spot a bet where one traditional bookmaker offers 3 to 1, and exchange offers a lay at 2 to 1. That might look like a great opportunity, but if there’s only a small amount available to trade at that price with the exchange, you’ll probably want to avoid it.
The bookies may not like it
If you’re good at arbing – and show a profit over time – there is a chance that some bookmakers will eventually close your account. One possible way to overcome this is to place a small losing bet deliberately. If you are using different bookmakers (which you must), not all bets will win with the same bookmaker anyway.
Watch out for mistakes
If you’re using a subscription service to notify you of good bets, you won’t want to be risking a loss because of a mistake in the notification. This is unlikely to happen, but it is possible. Some caution is needed, and wherever possible, you should carry out your own checks to whatever extent is possible.
The same goes if you’re finding your own wagers. Under pressure, it’s easy to make mistakes and get the wrong market or match.
Make sure your internet connectivity is strong
With the small amount of time available to strike profitable bets before they disappear, you can’t afford to be losing internet connectivity. Make sure you have reliable broadband and a PC or laptop. Using a smartphone is inadvisable in most instances.
Bookies can cancel bets
Although this is bad business for a bookmaker – and may well result in poor publicity – the bookies can cancel or void bets if they believe something untoward is happening. They can even cancel if they’ve made a mistake.
Imagine the pain of not being able to complete one-half of a no lose bet and facing the liability you’ll already have incurred. It’ll be OK if it goes your way, but for the period the wager is running, you’ll be experiencing some exciting adrenaline flows.
And to add insult to injury, the bookie doesn’t necessarily have to state they’ve cancelled anything until after the event.
You won’t be hitting this potential problem often, if ever. The best advice is to stay clear of any arb bet that looks too good to be true to avoid it as far as possible. Big mistakes in determining odds in the bookmaking world don’t happen. The bookies are much too clever.
Stick with arbs that will return no more than 10% profit, and you’ll probably be safe. If you can stick with 5%, then even better.
You’ll Need To Bet Big
As an illustration, if you’re aiming for a 5% profit per bet:
To achieve this at a level sufficient to earn £100 per day, you will need to be staking around £2000 per day.
Have a big betting bank
Taking our last figure of £2000 per day, recognise that this doesn’t mean that’s all you need. You need access to that bank level consistently and across multiple bookie accounts.
You could stake everything on one winning opportunity, but if the following no lose bet comes quickly afterwards, you could miss out if there hasn’t been enough time for the wager to be settled and the cash to make its way back into your betting accounts.
Withdrawals of cash are seldom a problem, but they sometimes take days. The reality is that you’ll need cash in various accounts to make sure you don’t miss an opportunity.
You’ll need to consider disguising your bets
Where small amounts are concerned, the bookies are unlikely to notice your betting activity. But if you suddenly place a particular high-value bet (for example – £397.75) on the outcome of a match, this will most likely set off alarm bells and signal that you’re involved in arbitrage betting.
This won’t affect that current bet, but all eyes will be on you afterwards, and you’ll face the risk of account closure.
Consider rounding off any bets so as not to give the game away too obviously, and be careful betting large amounts with an operator you haven’t used for a while.
Remember all good things come to an end
It’s entirely possible to have a great run at no lose betting. If you’re clever and focused – plus take care of everything I’ve covered in this article – you might be able to build up a nice profit.
One thing’s certain, though, those bookies will spot you in the end. You’ll be forced to find other operators who’ll take your bets. None of which like losing, and ultimately will close down your accounts.
Setting up new accounts in different names is an option, as is building syndicates to spread the accounts. This last option will be particularly applicable if you’ve been successful. There will be no shortage of other punters that want to climb onboard.
The bottom line is to avoid being recognised as an arber and make as much money as possible in as short a time as you can safely do it. But only if you’ve first proved that you can hack it.
Watch out for currency fluctuations
To lock in guaranteed profits, you will need to make the best use of all options of where to place bets, and that means using different bookies. If you don’t stick with a single currency, you may open up a raft of potentially profit-reducing situations.
This can be caused by rapid exchange rate fluctuations or errors in calculating exchange rates.
Make sure you understand the rules around betting on any event
Bookie rules can differ, and you’ll need to ensure that any bets you place are all for the same event and have the same or similar rules.
An example might be that in a football match, one bookmaker may offer the odds for the result after 90 minutes and the other bookmaker offers the result for an event that includes extra time.
Keep an eye open too on rules around abandonments or uncompleted matches. These can also be different between bookies, and the best approach is to make any bets with those that run precisely the same approach.
Don’t leave a bet too long
Once you’ve identified a positive arbitrage bet, you’ll need to place both legs of it as fast as possible and at the highest/best odds available. There can sometimes be an inclination to wait a while after placing the first leg to see if you can get a more significant profit. This can be a mistake and leads you more into the realms of gambling instead of making an informed sure bet.
The intention is to make a profit, so do everything to ensure you do.
Is it legal?
The main question around any form of betting from a legality perspective is ‘ Is it legal for me to place any type of bet?’ rather than if no lose betting is legal.
If the country in which you live allows betting in general, and any bookmaker you want to use doesn’t expressly forbid it, then there’s no legal reason you shouldn’t use arbing as a profit generator. All you’re doing is taking advantage of the differences in a market from bookmaker errors, right!
In fact, in many cases of arbing opportunities, those same opportunities may have been deliberately created by a bookie in an attempt to balance their books.
What other types of no lose bets are there?
Aside from true arbitrage no lose betting, bookmakers regularly offer other ways that can sometimes be used effectively to guarantee a winning return.
They’ve not been the main focus of this page because although they can (and do) work, they’ll work only a few times at the most. You’re almost certainly going to need to place another bet to take advantage of them. You’ll already need to be in a winning position from the outset, or they rely on some intensive work to identify when odds are more in your favour than average. You can make a series of bets that return a positive value even though some lose.
The first option is to take advantage of bookmaker free bet offers or match betting as it’s also known, the second is in trading odds, and the third is known as value betting. Let’s take a look at these in turn:
Offers and promos – Using matched betting to land a no lose bet
These are ‘free’ promotional offers that the bookies make to attract new customers (and sometimes keep existing ones).
So how do free bet/match bet offers work? And how can you use one to give you chances of making that lucrative bet that you can’t lose?
Well. Let’s say a bookie offers new account holders a free $/£/€ xx bet if their first one loses. You sign up, deposit, place your bet, and it fails to win.
But you haven’t lost it. You get another try with the same value at another winning bet. If you’re lucky, the second selection wins, and you have a positive return.
These offers don’t necessarily involve you losing the first bet either. The bonus could be awarded regardless of whether you lose the first time.
Occasionally you may even be able to place an arbitrage-type bet by using your initial deposit stake on one wager and the free bet on a different opposing outcome in the same event. Opportunities for this are likely to be few and far between, but they are possible.
I’m guessing you’ve realised why I focused on arbitrage betting as the real true way to place no lose bets, but it does work, and you can read more about it here.
Free bets can be fun and maybe a reasonable offer to take up when you sign up with a new bookie for the first time – but they’re not going to give you any real long-term chances of filling your betting account with no risk profits. Plus, the free bet money is never actually yours – it has to be used to place a wager, and also, there will be rules around how many times you have to wager the value of the free offer before you could withdraw any winnings.
All in all, bookies offer free bets because they know that they’ll never lose money from them in the long run. They know they’ll make money from the vast bulk of losing punters.
Trading odds and back-to-lay
This betting method without risk needs you to be already in a winning position and is achieved due to shifting in the odds of your selection winning or losing. It’s essentially a form of short-term trading and can be referred to as scalping.
The idea is to make lots of trades resulting in individual small profits, all of which can add up over time to a big payback by reinvesting and building up at scale.
Take an example:
• You place a bet on a 10-1 shot to win, placing £10. You stand to win £100.
• Either before the event’s start or even during the event itself (in-running betting), the odds change to 5-1 (because the selection has attracted other punters money or has moved into an improved winning position somehow).
• You can now lay the selection to lose at slightly over 5-1, such that if it wins or loses, you now make a profit.
Sounds simple right? And in theory, it is.
But note you’ve already struck the potentially losing bet, so it starts with risk. It would help if you had odds to move in your favour to turn it into an arbitrage opportunity effectively, and to some extent, this is bringing luck into play.
This type of bet is typically placed on a betting exchange, but not always. Many punters will already have had some experience with these, and if you’re in the US, you’ll most likely be able to see what they’re all about once the first US exchange betting operation goes live. That will be for New Jersey residents at first, though success in the Garden State may well see other states opening up to the opportunity.
Always remember with back-to-lay bets that you’ll need to take any commission you might need to pay into consideration. This, of course, is especially applicable on exchanges.
Value betting
Although there is some value in trying any of the strategies we’ve covered – arbitrage, match betting, and trading – this last one is arguably the most likely to end up with long-term success.
It’s recently picked up the label of value betting but is a term that covers how you should be betting anyway. And that’s to be looking for good value.
So what is good value?
Simply put, it’s the act of finding and placing bets on anything where you think the odds on offer are wrong – or out of line – with the actual chance of the event happening.
An example may be a football match between two teams with a theoretical 50/50 chance of either winning, but the odds are 5 to 4 for one team and 4 to 5 for the other. The theory would be that if you bet every match of this type on the 5 to 4 shot, you will end up ahead over time.
The reality is it’s not that cut and dried, right? You will need to identify the opportunities using analysis of available data – the form, the conditions, the players, team injuries, etc. – and ultimately conclude what you think the actual chances are.
Find a bookie offering better odds than those chances, and you have a potential bet. If you can master this, then you don’t need to win every bet to make money in the long run.
For a more detailed explanation, try this page at ChurchOfBetting.com.
One of the issues is identifying the appropriate circumstances in which to place a bet. Fortunately, there is help available here, with the firm we identified above for arbitrage opportunities – Rebel Betting – also running a service that identifies value bets.
Pros and cons
The positives of betting where you can’t lose are apparent. It’s a dream situation for any punter. On the negative side – and especially if the thrill of betting to win is what drives you – then you may find that the focus of sure betting on cold, hard, small profits is not so exciting.
Let’s take a deeper look at the positives of each type of no lose betting to see which might be best, and we’ll highlight some of the negatives along the way.
Arbitrage pros and cons
As long as you take note of all the elements that can go wrong – and take steps to avoid them – plus you can identify the opportunities, there are very few negatives we can spell out around arbing. It’s all positive from a profit-making perspective, which is what it’s all about. Just be aware that it’s hard, focused work, and often you’ll be spending time making small amounts unless you can scale up.
Match betting pros and cons
For me, match betting just doesn’t match the potential of arbitrage. You’re just too limited in the number of times it can work, and the pain of spending excessive time registering new accounts – just to run out of new options eventually – just doesn’t cut it. On the plus side, if you have the time and the inclination, then match betting does work. There are plenty of websites that focus entirely on it.
Trading odds and back-to-lay pros and cons
Again this is not in the same league as arbing. When it comes to bets that you can’t lose – and there are risks – those risks are the most significant negative.
The positive aspect is that there are ways you can make it work, and studying strategies around odds trading may pay dividends.
Value betting pros and cons
The positives of value betting are apparent. It’s probably the best way to aim for long-term profit.
However, there are a couple of negatives to watch out for. The main one is that this takes intensive analysis and effort to identify the bets and then the strength of character to keep placing them even when you’re on a losing run. If you keep records of your bets, you should be able to tell whether you are making selections that will give you that long-term profit.
More resources
If you want more info, it’s worth looking at the pages and channels on any significant social networking or video sites. Youtube carries a series of videos related to no lose betting strategies, while there are plenty of Tweets around betting without losing on Twitter.
This section wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Reddit posts on no risk betting, and there are likely to be some useful ones in the list there.
On the subject of matched betting, you’ll likely find some value on this page by beatingbetting.co.uk.
This leaves us looking for an additional resource on odds trading, and this page carries a significant analysis of trading data over time.
How do you bet without losing in other forms of gambling?
It may be that betting on sports with zero risk strategies doesn’t grab your interest, and you’re keen to try some alternatives. The drawback here is it’s not so easy – we’ve already seen that betting on sporting events concerning only two teams like soccer present the best possibilities. But let’s take a high-level look at how no lose betting plays out in some other major types of gambling and whether there are indeed some chances for the successful application of some form of strategy.
Here, we’re explicitly looking for a gambling system that never loses, and as we’ll see, that’s difficult to achieve without at least some level of risk to your betting capital:
Zero risk casino gaming
You might be thinking this is an anomaly. We all know you can’t beat the house edge in an online casino without much luck, right? And when luck comes into the equation, it’s no longer an investment you’re making, but it’s real gambling in every word. Playing casino games is gambling, pure and simple.
But there are some fascinating aspects to betting in online casinos to come out with a profit that we should consider.
Take a game like roulette as an example.
In roulette, you can place evens odds bets that seem similar to the win or lose options you might find in an Asian handicap football bet – a bet on black or red or an odd or even number. You’re betting on an event that can go one of two ways and, in this case, has a 50/50 chance of resulting in one or the other.
Now, you might think this is an obvious way to lock in a consistent profit over time. Take a black or red bet. You’d expect that the number of times the ball lands on either colour over a sequence of wheel spins will be much the same. It’s a fundamental law of probability.
The problem here is that the distribution of where the ball lands on consecutive spins doesn’t fall evenly. It’s possible that, for example, there may be a run of nine reds followed by three blacks. You may think you could overcome this by using a systemic staking plan system like the Martingale System, which would work in theory. But if it were that easy, the casinos would already be out of business. The issue that affects players is the unavoidable losing run, where too many consecutive bets are losers resulting in an entirely lost or heavily depleted bank.
The reality is that casino games are to be avoided in any pursuit of systems where you can bet without losing. Perhaps roulette would be one to try for a bit of fun or an experiment, but certainly, any games based on pure chance, like video slots, will be useless for any strategic approach. Even table games where you can tip the odds more in your favour with clever strategy will never give a guaranteed profit because the house edge will always lie with the casino.
One way to potentially play casino games for a near-guaranteed profit
We come to a potentially exciting strategy that combines two aspects of no-lose betting that we’ve touched on many times – betting itself and investing. Arguably, this is the perfect approach to combining the two and involves the use of Cryptocurrencies.
You’ll have heard of Crypto investing and certainly will have heard of Bitcoin as the most well-known Crypto coin. So, how could we use the potential of increases in coin values alongside playing in an online casino?
There’s a surprising answer and one that would need to be tested out for its efficacy. It’s based on the expected return you may get from casino gaming balanced against the increase over time in the exchange value of the coins. Here are the steps:
- Identify a trustworthy Bitcoin casino with the lowest house edge you can find.
- Decide whether to accept a sign-up bonus. This will depend heavily on the terms and conditions around playthrough requirements.
- Create an account and make an affordable deposit using FIAT currency.
- Choose your games and play.
- Whatever you win that takes you over the initial deposit, you withdraw in Crypto to a dedicated gambling crypto wallet.
- If you go down to 50% of your initial bank, then withdraw the remaining balance to your wallet.
- Repeat at a different Bitcoin casino.
The theory sounds good. But I’ll have to make a disclaimer; I haven’t tried it myself. The idea behind it is that wins may come more frequently in young casino gambling accounts, and the natural increase in cryptocurrency value over time would act in two ways: on your withdrawn winnings and offset the losses wherever you’ve dropped to 50 per cent of the bank and taken a cashout.
It’s a long-term strategy for sure, but a fascinating one. And there are risks, not least the possibility that crypto values could fall in future. But given the provably fair nature of any casinos taking Cryptocurrency deposits and the low house edge you’ll encounter in many of them – allied to the fact that they’ve repeatedly been gaining in value over recent years – it’s without a doubt an exciting way of getting to play casino games for entertainment value while also getting chances to see your gaming investment grow.
No lose betting in online poker
Poker is one of the greatest skill-based real money games and gives any skilled player some excellent chances to make consistent profits. Many players have developed their skills over many years and thousands of poker hands and become known as ‘grinders’ – those who can grind out long-term wins by playing any poker hand with the correct strategy and attention to mathematical probabilities and expected values (EV).
If you’re not in this bracket – and it takes considerable time and experience to reach this level of expertise – then it’s unlikely you’ll be able to use poker games to achieve long-term profitability. The only way to get in a position in a poker game where you can’t lose in any single hand is to be holding the nuts – the hand that’s guaranteed to win based on the cards you’re holding and the cards that are showing on the table.
Is it possible to get a guaranteed win at bingo, lottery gaming, or playing scratchcards?
The outcomes of all of these gambling options are based solely on luck. There are no strategies you can use to influence those outcomes; hence for gambling without any risks to your cash they have no value.
The only way you could conceivably wager on any without that risk is if you have some form of inside information or are cheating somehow. Don’t even go there; these should be avoided for any purposes other than sheer entertainment-value gambling.
Future options
All of the strategies we’ve covered are well-known and tried and trusted. There don’t seem to be too many obvious possibilities that they’ll disappear anytime soon. New services could startup, of course, and bring improvements on what’s currently available to help identify potentially lucrative betting opportunities.
One very interesting service that would be great to see in future would be some form of a zero-risk betting app that offered cash prizes. This has been seen before in the form of Gameon, which offered a way for sports fans to compete in contests by making picks and predictions during live sports events. Sadly the current Gameon App seems to have refocused on a different type of service. Maybe a new one will step in to fill the void.
Summary
We’ve explored a few different strategies or systems for betting with zero risk of losing or, at a minimum, making bets where the risks of gambling and losing are at the minimum possible level. Never losing is impossible but while it seems unlikely, there are real ways to make a profit by placing a bet with no risk and where you cannot lose, each of which does offer true possibilities to do it successfully.
Each zero risk strategy has its benefits and drawbacks, but you’ll have noticed that sports betting arbitrage is the best way to get the desired result – more money in your betting accounts than you started with.
If you want to make the attempt at building a betting bankroll that’s accumulated from wins over a period of time, I’d suggest starting slowly with some trial accounts and making a start-up investment with a small bank and a low-profit target. That trial account can be created with well-known bookmaker sites that you’ve identified yourself – perhaps taking advantage of free bet offers, signup bonuses, or enhanced odds – or you can use a service that highlights arbitrage or value bet opportunities and that suggests the sportsbooks where those bets are available.
You’ll need to choose a target sport. Tennis, cricket, rugby, or NFL and NBA might all be on your list depending on where you are in the world, but it’s probably no-lose betting on football matches that are the most sought-after option and offer the best probability of a positive return on your wagers.
Remember not to take too much notice of tips from unproven tipsters – relying on your own knowledge and experience of sports betting will put you in the best position to identify the best candidates for your no lose bets.
Once you’ve learned how the processes involved with arbitrage betting work and all the bases are covered, it’s potentially only a short step to ramping up your chosen strategy and increasing the bet amounts and the resulting profits. Hopefully, you’ll be on the way to no risk betting success and can watch your investments grow courtesy of the bookmakers.
Good luck!
Author: Realmoneygames Steve
Last updated: 29th November 2022
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ)
We’ve covered many aspects of zero risk betting in our analysis and it’s probably time to try out some of the strategies for yourself. But before you go, we’ll finish up with some questions that are frequently asked by punters starting out on the road:
There are four main ways of betting without any risks attached - arbitrage, value betting, matched betting, and odds trading. Each is explored in detail throughout this page, with the key focus being on arbitrage.
If you lose every bet you place it will be because you are making wrong choices and do not understand the main principles behind betting in general, different types of betting across different gambling disciplines, and do not fully appreciate the laws of probability.
Matched betting focuses on the art of taking advantage of free bet offers from bookmakers and betting on single match events on different bookmakers such that whatever the result in your chosen event, the bet is successful.
There really is only one way of guaranteeing a winning bet before the chosen sporting event takes place. The strategy involved is known as arbitrage. It essentially takes advantage of odds direpancies between bookmakers on the same event such that you can bet on all outcomes and realise a profit whatever the result.
The most profitable betting strategy is one in which you can guarantee the bet wins while staking as much as possible on the outcome.
The safest betting strategy is to avoid betting completely. However, as we've seen throught the analysis on this page, it's successful arbitrage betting that is the safest overall.
The only way to win a bet every time other than by employing some form of cheating is via arbitrage-based bets based on true, real-time information on the arb being available.
A losing bet is a bet you've placed by staking something of value on an outcome of an event, where that outcome fails to materialise in the way you predicted.