Can you show me a working example of a sports arbitrage opportunity and how the investment would be staked?

A sports arbitrage opportunity is shown below:

A correctly staked investment of £1,000 guarantees a return of £1,050 no matter whose finishing position is better. That's £50 profit due to discrepancies in the bookmakers' odds guaranteeing a 5.00% profit on your investment!

The above information tells us that a betting market exists for a match bet between Kubica and Petrov 2010 F1 Hungarian Grand Prix. It also tells us that Blue Square have odds of 1.50 for Kubica to finish ahead of Petrov and that Coral have odds of 3.50 for Petrov to finish ahead of Kubica.

By applying a simple mathematical formula to those odds, we are able to calculate that we can cover both possible outcomes of the bet and make a guaranteed 5.00% return on our investment.

We would invest our money in proportion to the odds on each possibility. The amount to invest on each outcome is calculated using another simple formula. £700 invested on Kubica returns £1,050 and £300 invested on Petrov also returns £1,050.

£700 x 1.50 = £1,050.00
£300 x 3.50 = £1,050.30

Risk free profit = £50.00

Our members have access to several arbitrage calculation tools that automatically calculate the size of the arbitrage opportunity AND how much to stake on each selection!

Back to our sports arbitrage frequently asked questions.