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OddsAndBets 3 Day trial conclusion

Posted by Aegist on June 8th, 2006

Here are three screenshots I took last night while I was comparing the two programs. What I primarily want to demonstrate with these pictures is that both programs find and remove arbs at almost identical times. There is no real distinctive difference between the tow service providers. I point this out because I have read a previous review at sportsarbitragereview.co.uk by a supposed ‘Alan Seymour’ who states that SurebetPro was 4-6 minutes behind other programs. This is clearly not the case in these examples, and as I trial more and more software I will continue to make these sorts of comparisons.

http://www.sportsarbitrageguide.com/picts/…pcomparison.jpg
This first image shows 4 new arbs found by O&B (highlighted orange), and two older ones. All 6 of these arbs have also been found by SBP, and none of them are new, however as you can see by the countdown on SBP (57), this screen shot was taken 3 seconds after a refresh, so SBP probably only found them in the previous refresh. The extra arbs seen on SBP are all less than 0.5%, the point at which O&B stop reporting arbs. I have chosen to have SBP show all of its arb for the purpose of this comparison, although if you want you can select to screen those sorts of things out by choice.

http://www.sportsarbitrageguide.com/picts/…comparison2.jpg
This second image shows 3 new arbs found at O&B at the same time that the same 3 arbs were newly found with SBP (highlighted yellow in SBP).

http://www.sportsarbitrageguide.com/picts/…comparison3.jpg
The final image here shows a very high percentage arb created due to an error by 5Dimes. Both O&B and SBP found this arb at the same time and both reported it without any ‘warnings’ about it. I don’t think any software ever do physically warn you about potentially dangerous arbs, but I have heard some say that “Such and such should warn you not to place that arb” etc. In my experience though, each service provider will tell you this sort of information beforehand, and in each scenario it is up to you to decide whether you trust it or not.

In this case, 5Dimes’ odds were clearly out of line with everyone elses, but internally, they had sensible odds (2.7 and 1.5 on this game). Whether that would be retracted as ‘obvious human error’ or not, is only something 5Dimes will decide, and then we wil be bound by their decision. Is the large profit worth the risk? I think experience is the key to knowing this: I have already learnt that Canbet will definitely cancel anything which was in anyway a mistake. I didn’t place this arb, so I don’t know whether 5Dimes cancelled it. If you did place a bet on these odds, can you please post a message here telling everyone of the outcome?
Thanks

Shane 3:45am GMT 4/4/06

The second night now, its 1am AEST, and I have another screenshot, this time showing both SBP and O&B showing the same erroneous odds for linesmaker. I get the impression this has something to do with linesmakers behind the scenes odds displaying techniques. I will need to find out one day how it is that SBP and O&B go about collecting odds from the bookmakers, because I beleive that will explain why this happens sometimes (and its always with the same bookmakers in my experience with SBP). With Ladbrokes for example, it is easy to see problems because over night (GMT) sometimes ladbrokes will creat ean arb by not updating odds since they don’t seem to have anyone working over night. When the betting reaches an imposed betting limit, I assume some software automatically suspends betting on those odds without removing the odds from the site. This fact has many times led to me removing Ladbrokes from my inclusion list just to shut the alarm up until someone comes into work the next morning (GMT) and changes the odds for them…

In this image however, it is clear to see that the moneyline has simply been removed from Linesmakers website, and the pointspread odds had simply changed, yet the feed to SBP and O&B both said that they hadn’t….
http://www.sportsarbitrageguide.com/picts/…comparison4.jpg

This went on for about 10 minutes before they both stopped reporting it.

In other news, I emailed O&B and asked about what other features i could play with, and basically there isn’t anything in the trial period you can use, in the paid system you can pick and choose your bookmakers I am pretty sure…but I don’t know if there is really anything else you can change. There is an audible sound every refresh which brings up a new arb, however I have found two things. 1. It doesn’t work in Firefox, which is why I didn’t know about it in my first post (they are working on this) and 2. In Internet Explorer, you can’t hear the noise if the window is minimised. If it is simply in the background it works, but if you minimise it, the sound stops. and 3. each refresh doesn’t always get rid of the ‘new’ highlighting, and so you can often hear the ring several times in a row for the same arb. This is a bit annoying when on the trial, however I imagine when you are actually interested in every bookmaker, you don’t mind being constantly reminded that there is an arb there that you actually want. (No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!)

You know, I think O&B mightneed to review their trial policy. So far most of the negatives actually come from the fact that this is only a trial, and in this trial they give you access to everybookmaker. You would think that having more bookmakers would be better, but I know I would prefer to be able to restrict it to just the ones I am interested in. In order for them to give a real impression of what it is like to use their software, they would probably be better off either making you choose 5 (like their entry level product) or allowing you access to all 70, but you pick which ones you want at the begining. I can’t imagine that being too much work for them, and it will allow people to get a better idea of it for themselves. Although I can also see their desire to show brand new people that they do in fact find a LOT of arbs with this software, and there is no way to show someone how many arbs there are when you only have a few bookmakers available….

Shane

OK, the final post from my review here. After the trial ended I talked quite a bit with someone from OddsAndBets about their service. They were incredibly helpful and their response time was very quick, so its nice to know you are dealing with a company who is there to help.

A couple of points came out of the conversation with regards to points I raised above. Firstly, the audible alert going silent when you minimise the Internet Explorer window is something they can’t help: its a feature of IE (makes sense, I hate those websites which play music at you of the best of times. Its good to know you can shut them up by minimising them). So if you want the audible alert to sound upon finding new arbs (I highly recommend it) then you simply need to keep the window open. It doesn’t have to be on top, just don’t minimise it. They are also currently working on making the audible alert play in firefox. Of course IE is the most commonly used browser still, so they have optimised O&B to run in IE, however they realise that mroe and more people are using Firefox (particularly amongst arb traders, because the Tabs really help) so they are working on this and will contact me when it is working.

The other strong advantage that O&B do have which I forgot about: operating from a website makes it accessible anywhere. So if you work in an office in front of a computer all day and then come home to sit infront of your home computer, than O&B caters perfectly for that. SBP can only be installed on one computer, so SBP is stuck either at home, or at work (if you can do that!) or on a laptop which comes with you everywhere. This is a big annoyance for many people who use SBP. ArbAlarm offers downloadable software which can be installed on multiple computers, so it needn’t be as strict as SBP, and I suggested that perhaps O&B should consider making a software download optional since operating the arb alert system through installed software allows for better interactivity, and features like the pop-up window in SBP. So thats out there, but asking a company to go to all the trouble of writing a software package just to cater to a few more people who probably don’t necessarily even need it is a big ask, and I doubt they will think it is worth their time and money to develop.

I also discovered that you can select your bookmakers on the trial however you can only take an email alert trial instead of the website trial with this option. When you request your trial, give them a list of bookmakers you want and you will receive alert emails whenever arbs come. They include all bookmakers because most people taking the trial are first timers who don’t know what bookmakers they will want to use, and so they use the trial period as a chance to evaluate which bookmakers are good.

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In summary the whole trial has been a good experience. They find a lot of arbs and i have confidence the company will keep growing to include more bookmakers, more sports, and more betting types. The customer service was great in my experience as they always replied quickly with all of the information I asked for. The website refreshed regularly and was very easy to use.

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Originally published in the original Sports Arbitrage Guide forum on the 4th of Arpil 2006.

Shane

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