What Sports Can You Arbitrage Bet On? A Sport-by-Sport Breakdown

Quick answer: In theory, you can arbitrage bet on any sport you can find a betting market for. In practice, however, the most popular sports are likely to produce the best arbitrage betting opportunities.

When you first hear about arbitrage betting, to many people it sounds too good to be true. A betting technique that allows you to lock in a profit, no matter whether your bet wins or loses?

Most of us are aware that bookies make mind-boggling profits every year, so how can it be possible to nab a slice of that profit yourself, without any significant risk of losing money?

But arbitrage betting does exactly that, and it really can be a fantastic profit-making strategy, one that many people use to make steady, ongoing profits that build up over time.

There are some important considerations to take into account before you dive into arbitrate betting, however:

• Are some sports better than others for arbitrage betting?

• Are there any risks to consider when arbitrage betting on certain sports?

• Are there any tools or guides that can simplify arbing?

We’ll cover all these questions in this article, so that you have all the information you need to embark on an arbitrage betting strategy, prioritising the sports that hold the most arbing profit potential.

What Is Arbitrage Betting?

If you’re reading this article, you probably have a basic sense of how arbitrage betting works already - but if not, check out our full guide to arbitrage betting for all the nitty gritty detail.

For now, we’ll just give you a quick reminder of the basic principles to make sure you have a good grasp of the technique.

In a nutshell, arbitrage betting involves placing bets on opposing outcomes, where the odds allow you to make a profit no matter the eventual outcome of the event.

In the UK, it’s most common to place two opposing bets, one with a sportsbook and one with a betting exchange. Your back bet (for a certain outcome) is made with the sportsbook, and your lay bet (against that outcome) with the betting exchange (for more information about how lay bets work, take a look at our dedicated guide).

If the back odds are higher than the lay odds, you’ll lock in a profit no matter what happens.

For example, let’s imagine you see a horse race where one particular horse, Bay of Brilliance, is listed at odds of 6 with William Hill, and the lay odds are at 5.3 with Smarkets. As the back odds are higher than the lay odds, you realise you have an arbitrage opportunity.

Using a Matched Betting or arbitrage calculator, you enter the details, and receive the following results:

As you can see, for a £50 back bet with William Hill, your optimal lay stake is £56.60 with Smarkets (the betting exchange), and you’ll make a profit of at least £6.60 regardless of the outcome of the race.

Alternative Types of Arbitrage Betting

While it’s generally easiest to place a bookmaker-betting exchange arbitrage bet within the UK, this isn’t the only possibility.

You can also place a bookmaker-bookmaker arbitrage bet, where you find an opposing back bet at another bookmaker, rather than placing a lay bet with an exchange. This kind of arbitrage bet is most effective on markets with only two possible outcomes, such as the winner of a tennis match. The difficulty is finding pairs of odds that will allow you to lock in a profit, which requires a lot of exhaustive searching.

It is also possible to place an exchange-exchange arbitrage bet, where you place a back bet with one betting exchange and an opposing lay bet with another. However, this isn’t recommended - betting exchanges are perfectly happy with bookmaker-exchange arbitrage betting, but they do not appreciate exchange-exchange arbitrage, and they may restrict your account or even ban you if they spot what you’re up to.

Overview: Arbitrage Betting Types

What Sports Are Best Suited To Arbitrage Betting?

In essence, an arbitrage bet is simply betting on opposing outcomes within a single event, so it’s theoretically possible to arbitrage bet on any sport at all, so long as you can find markets for those opposing outcomes.

That said, it’s much easier with some sports than with others, due to the nature of each sport, the popularity of each sport, and the types of available markets for each sport.

Data Insight

The UK Gambling Commission found that 12% of adults had placed a bet in the previous four weeks, making betting one of the UK's most popular gambling activities outside lotteries. High participation helps create the deep, active markets that arbitrage bettors rely on.

- Gambling Commission

Football

Football is the most popular sport in the UK (as well as in much of the world), and consequently there are masses of available markets open to sports bettors.

This makes football an excellent candidate for arbitrage betting - the more markets there are, and the more bettors, the stronger the chance that an arbitrage opportunity will crop up.

The popularity of football also means that your bets are more likely to blend in with other punters. This can be crucial to a successful arbitrage betting strategy, as bookmakers are likely to restrict or even ban bettors who they catch engaging in arbing.

Horse Racing

Horse racing is another hugely popular sport for betting in the UK, with horse races taking place every single day of the year, except for Christmas Day.

That means that the chances of finding an arbitrage opportunity on horse racing are pretty good, especially as odds can change rapidly in the run up to a race.

The chief downside of rapidly changing odds is that an arbitrage opportunity can vanish as quickly as it appears - potentially before you’ve had time to place both your back and lay bets.

Expert Insight

Many bettors focus on finding the biggest percentage return, but the most profitable arbitrage opportunities are often the ones you can execute consistently. A smaller margin that's completed cleanly is usually worth more than chasing larger arbs that disappear before both bets are matched.

Tennis

Tennis is another highly popular sport, which has the benefit of going on pretty much all year round (a schedule which is famously brutal for the players themselves).

Especially during major tournaments, there are masses of matches and markets available, and tennis consequently attracts an enormous volume of betting.

However, there is a significant downside for arbitrage bettors: retirement rules. If a player retires during their match, conceding defeat to their opponent (due to injury, as a rule), not all bookies and exchanges settle a bet in the same way. You therefore need to take great care when arbitrage betting on tennis matches, using a retirement guide to help you.

If you decide to arbitrage bet on tennis, it’s wise to use the bookmaker-bookmaker model of arbing, and to make sure that both bookies follow the same retirement rules to avoid any nasty surprises.

Cricket

Cricket may not have quite the same degree of popularity as football or horse racing, but major cricket events are still significant for sports bettors, which means there is arbitrage betting potential.

One major consideration is that test matches take a full five days to complete, which could mean waiting around for several days for your bets to settle, tying up liability in the exchange.

If you aren’t a particular cricket fan, it’s wisest to stick to the largest markets, such as the match winner, to ensure you aren’t accidentally betting on a market you don’t fully understand.

American Football

American football is, of course, most popular in the States, but it’s gaining an international following, and most UK bookies will offer American football markets.

Generally speaking, most American football markets are pretty self-explanatory, but one market that may trip up British bettors is what Americans call ‘the spread’, also referred to as a handicap market in the UK.

Unlike British spread betting, which works completely differently to standard fixed odds betting, American spread markets involve simply betting on the margin a team will win by. So long as you’re aware that these are two completely separate uses of the term ‘spread’, you shouldn’t go far wrong.

Other Sports

If you spot an arbitrage opportunity on another sport, say basketball, darts or rugby, you can certainly go ahead and snap it up.

Just make sure you understand the terms of your bets, both at the bookmaker and the exchange, and check carefully to be certain that you are indeed placing bets on opposing outcomes.

And if in doubt, it’s better to let an opportunity pass than to risk making a mistake and losing money.

Considerations When Choosing A Sport For Arbitrage Betting

Although most sports have the potential for arbitrage opportunities, there are some considerations you should always bear in mind when deciding which to bet on.

Range of markets

Some sports offer far more markets than others. Tennis, for example, often has a relatively limited range of markets, while football markets will number well into the hundreds, even over a thousand for the biggest matches.

The wider the range of markets, the greater the potential for arbitrage opportunities, especially on more obscure markets where the bookies might be slower to update their odds.

Of course, there are also downsides to obscure markets; you may stand out to the sportsbook if you place highly specific bets on obscure markets, so you risk being exposed as an arbitrage bettor.

Liquidity

Liquidity refers to the availability at the betting exchange for any particular set of odds, and is the maximum amount that can be staked at those odds.

Matchbook’s odds and liquidities for an upcoming horse race are shown in the image above, with the amounts listed below each set of odds indicating the liquidity for those odds.

If you happened to have found bookie odds of 15 for Birgham Dub, you might get quite excited when you spotted available lay odds of 14.5 on Matchbook for that horse. However, as only £10 of liquidity is available at those odds, you’d be limited as to the size of your stake - and there would also be a possibility of those odds vanishing in the time it took to work out your stakes.

It’s therefore important to ensure there’s sufficient liquidity available at the exchange for the bet you want to place when arbitrage betting.

Expert Insight

Liquidity isn't just about whether you can place the lay bet; it also determines how efficiently you can scale your staking over time. Successful arbitrage bettors often prioritise markets where they can repeat the same process reliably, rather than relying on occasional high-return opportunities.

Number of possible outcomes

When using the bookmaker-exchange model of arbitrage betting, this isn’t too much of a concern - your back bet and lay bet will directly oppose each other.

However, if you’re using the bookmaker-bookmaker model, the number of possible outcomes becomes very significant.

If you’re betting on the result of a football match, for example, you have three possible outcomes: Team A wins, Team B wins, or a draw. Simply placing one bet on Team A and another on Team B would mean that if the match ended in a draw, you’d lose both bets.

Similarly, most horse races involve more than two racers, meaning that you have to bet on a lot of horses to fully cover all possible outcomes.

It is possible to place a three-way arb (or even more!), but it can be very difficult to find different bookmakers whose odds are all favourable enough to produce a profit.

You’re therefore likely to be most successful if you stick to markets with two opposing outcomes, such as the winner of a tennis match, or on over/under markets if you’re keen to bet on football.

Popularity

Popular sports and popular markets are advantageous for a couple of reasons:

• With plenty of bettors getting involved, there should be plenty of liquidity at the exchange

• Bookies will expect to see lots of betting on their most popular markets, making it easier for you to blend in

• Bookies may offer price boosts, making for more arbitrage opportunities

On the other hand, there are also downsides to highly popular events:

• The likelihood of any outcome will probably be easier to predict, with more data to feed the bookies’ algorithms, so pricing errors resulting in arb opportunities may be less likely to occur

• Bookies will keep a closer eye on their odds, updating them more rapidly, and you’re likely to see less diversity in the odds offered by major bookies

You’ll need to balance these considerations when deciding which arbitrage opportunities to take, and how much to bet on them.

Data Insight

The UK Gambling Commission reported that participation in horse race betting rose from 4% to 7% between Wave 1 and Wave 2 of its 2025 survey, reflecting how major racing events attract substantially more betting activity and, potentially, more pricing discrepancies.

- Gambling Commission

Summary

Arbitrage Betting On Sports + An Outplayed Membership: The Perfect Pairing

There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to sports for arbitrage betting, and the sheer volume can be overwhelming, especially if you’re a newcomer to sports betting.

Fortunately, Outplayed is here to lend you a hand!

We’re the experts on all things smart betting, from Matched Betting to arbitrage betting to Value Betting, and we’ve got a range of powerful, market-leading tools to help you turn sports betting into profit.

For an arbitrage betting strategy, our most useful tools will be the following:

• The Oddsmatcher. This handy bit of kit is our fundamental Matched Betting tool, and is available with every Outplayed membership tier - but it’s also the perfect basis for an arbitrage betting strategy. The Oddsmatcher constantly tracks odds with bookies and betting exchanges, highlighting the best available matches for a range of sports, including football, horse racing, American football and golf. Anything with a rating of 100% or more on the Oddsmatcher is an arbing opportunity.
  
  Once you’ve found a likely arb, the in-built calculator will work out the optimal stakes to allow you to get the greatest possible profit from your bet.

• The Price Boost Tracker. Available with an Outplayed Diamond membership, the Price Boost Tracker takes your arb strategy to the next level, honing in on potentially profitable price boosts listed by bookies in the UK.
  
  Again, the in-built calculator tells you exactly the stakes you should use to extract the greatest possible profit from any price boost on offer.

We also have a range of tools, guides and calculators to make Matched Betting and Value Betting easier and more accessible than ever before, giving you the potential to make far more profit than you would from arbitrage alone.

No matter what sport you choose for your arbitrage betting, an Outplayed membership will make your arbing easier and more profitable. And if ever you get stuck, our experts are here to help!

Summary

Arbitrage betting can be done on pretty much any sport you can find a betting market for - but there’s no doubt that some sports are better suited to arbing than others.

If you’re a newcomer to arbitrage, your best bet is to focus on the most popular sports, such as football and horse racing, to get a feel for the process before you move on to other sports that might require more detailed knowledge or a more complicated process.

And whether you’re a newbie or an experienced sports bettor, you won’t go far wrong with an Outplayed membership, which gives you everything you need to start making profits from sports betting, whether through arbitrage, Matched Betting or Value Betting.

To find out more, check out our Beginner’s Guide to Matched Betting for all the information you need to get started.

Or if you’re ready to dive right in, take out our trial to make your first profits totally free!

FAQs

1. What sports can you arbitrage bet on?

In theory, you can arb on any sport. However, the most popular sports are more likely to produce profitable arbitrage opportunities.

2. What are the best sports for arbitrage betting?

In the UK, highly popular sports like football and horse racing are likely to produce the largest number of arbing opportunities. However, it’s always worth keeping a sharp eye out for arbitrage opportunities on other sports as well.

3. Is arbitrage sports betting legal?

Absolutely! All you’re doing is placing bets at the odds offered by the bookies and betting exchanges. That said, bookies aren’t keen on arbitrage bettors, and they may restrict your account or even ban you if they catch on to what you’re doing.

4. Can I combine arbitrage betting with other smart betting strategies?

You definitely can, and we’d recommend doing so. Using arbitrage betting techniques alongside Matched Betting, and even Value Betting (for more advanced bettors), can improve your overall profits while balancing the risks and benefits of each technique.

5. Do I need to be a fan of a sport to arbitrage bet on it?

No, there’s no need to be an existing sports fan to arbitrage bet. However, it is wise to ensure you understand how the betting market works for the bet you’re placing, especially for more obscure markets, to avoid making any mistakes.