We've gathered together as many of the sports arbitrage questions that we get frequently asked and provided answers for your convenience. If you have another question that isn't answered here, please feel free to contact us.

Q: How much money do I need to invest - is there a minimum?
Q: How much money can I earn from sports arbitrage?
Q: How much available time do I need?
Q: Can I place arbs without a UK bank account?

Q: How does Arb Hunters find its arbs?
Q: How many arbs do you send out per month?
Q: How big are the arbs you send out?
Q: How long do arbs usually last?
Q: How long does it take to place an arb?
Q: What would I do if something goes wrong?
Q: Should I place stakes like £34.53 or should I round them?
Q: Is it an advantage to have broadband internet access?

Q: How do I join Arb Hunters?
Q: What services do you offer?
Q: How much does Arb Hunters charge?
Q: How do I pay for my Arb Hunters subscription?
Q: Can I have a free trial before I join Arb Hunters?
Q: Can I upgrade my Arb Hunters subscription once I've joined?
Q: What time of day are arbs usually sent out?
Q: If I use a web-based email account, will my arbs come on time?
Q: How long prior to a event starting are your arbitrage alerts?
Q: Do you provide staking advice for the bets?
Q: What do I do if I have forgotten my password?
Q: Is commission accounted for when using betting exchanges?
Q: Can you send SMS text messages to countries other than the UK?
Q: How quickly are the arbs posted into the Members Area?
Q: Do your arb alerts indicate the date of the sporting event?
Q: Do you bet on your own arbs?
Q: What period does my subscription run from?
Q: Can I get on the arbs if I just subscribe to the Members Area?
Q: How much information does each arb alert contain?

Q: How many bookmakers' accounts do I need to open?
Q: Should I open bookmaker accounts before I join Arb Hunters?
Q: Does it cost anything to open accounts with bookmakers?
Q: What credit / debit cards can be used with bookmakers?
Q: How long does it take to open an account with a bookmaker?
Q: Will currency conversions / credit card fees eat up all my profits?
Q: Is it profitable for US citizens to use arbs?
Q: Do bookmakers limit arb traders' accounts? Can it be avoided?
Q: How long does it take for me to get my winnings?
Q: How much can I invest in arbitrage opportunities?
Q: Will bookmakers always pay out?
Q: How quickly do bookmakers return my money (winnings)?

There's no minimum amount of money necessary to take avantage of sports arbitrage. Obviously, the more you invest, the more you'll make in return! It's best to have at least £500 to show a decent return on your money.

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That all depends on how much you invest, the size of the arbs, and how well you manage your money.

If you have £2,000 to invest and we sent at least one 2% arb that you can use every day, you could easily make £300 per month.

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It depends on what you want to achieve. Obviously the more time you spend on any activity, the more profitable it will be.

If you are going to rely solely on an arb service provider, you need to be available all day so that when they send an arbitrage alert out you are ready to bet on it.

If you learn how to find your own arbs, you could spend half an hour and make £100 or more.

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Yes. The most common way to fund a bookmaker's account is by credit card. Winnings can normally be paid back to this credit card, but you should consult each individual bookmaker's procedures for details.

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We use the "traditional" method of searching bookmakers' sites manually. This means that the common mistakes made by automatic "spider" programs are avoided and each arb is manually checked before being issued.

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We guarantee at least 25 arbs per month, but the actual figure is much higher. The reason we only guarantee 25 arbs per month is that the sporting calendar is sparse at certain times.

To see how many arbs we have found recently, please see our sports arbitrage results page.

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Our arbs range from small arbs (e.g. 0.95%) up to much bigger ones (e.g. 12.5% on 12th Feb 2003). The average arb is around 2-3%.

To see what size arbs we have found recently, please see our sports arbitrage results page.

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The bookmakers odds change when a significant amount of money is placed on one side of their book. If an arb is on a large tounament then the arb may last a long time. If it's only on a small event then it may not last very long.

We limit the number of members we have at any one time so that everyone has an excellent chance of using our arbs as long as the act upon the alerts promptly.

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Once you know what you're doing and are used to placing the bets it should take under 5 minutes to complete from the time you receive an Arb Alert.

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There is a small possibility that one price could change whilst you place your bets. There is a guide in our members area which tells you how to minimise the chances of this happening.

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When calculating how much to stake on each bet, arb calculators usually return figures such as £34.53 and £65.47, or £22.78 and £77.22. It is entirely up to you whether you want to place these "rough" figures. This would provide you with an exactly equal return.

However some people like to round their stakes to "normal" figures, such as £35 and £65, or £23 and £77.

It is generally believed that "rough" stakes alert bookmakers to the fact that you are an arb trader. Therefore we recommend that you round your stakes.

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Yes. Although you much it would help does depend on your own skill. Broadband means you can be connected permanently to the internet and could receive our email alerts instantly. Bookmakers’ websites would load faster and therefore you would have more time in which to place your bets. You could learn to find your own arbs and it would be easier with fast-loading websites.

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1) Go to our arb alert services page.

2) Choose the service you require.

3) Click on the "Join" button.

4) Follow the signup process.

6) You will recieve a conformation email informing you of your membership to Arb Hunters.

You can also sent cheques to our address which can be found on the Contact Us page. Email us and we will set your account up.

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We offer three sports arbitrage services:

- SMS & Email Arb Alerts
- Email only Arb Alerts
- Access to the private Members Area

Full details are available on our arbitrage services page.

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- SMS & Email Arb Alerts £50 per month

- Email only Arb Alerts £30 per month

- Access to the private Members Area £10 per month

Discounts are available, see our arbitrage services page.

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You need to set up a subscription via our arbitrage services page.

You may pay with your Visa, MasterCard, Switch, Solo, Delta, Electron American Express and Discover cards.

Payments may also be made via PayPal.

You can also send cheques to our address which can be found on the Contact Us page. Email us and we will set your account up.

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No, Arb Hunters does not offer free trials of our arbitrage alert services. We believe that to do so would unfairly disadvantage our paying subscribers.

However, the minimum subscription length is only one month and you are under no obligation to re-subscribe after this initial period. We will not automatically re-bill you, either.

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Yes. If you sign up for the Members Area, you can upgrade to the Email Only or the SMS & Email service. Just email us regarding payment and we will upgrade your subscription.

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Our arbs are manually sourced by our team in the UK. We are only human, so we need to sleep sometimes!

We usually sent arbs out any time between 8AM and 10PM GMT. Sometimes we'll send some arbs out earlier than this, and some will be a little later.

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Some people experience delays or blockages of our emails, particularly to web-based email services such as Hotmail.

There are two main reasons for this:

1) Hotmail and other similar services are extremely popular and therefore handle vast numbers of emails each day. Due to the sheer volume of email being processed, delays are sometimes experienced, although these tend to be short-lasting.

2) Due to the fact that our emails contain links to bookmakers' websites, many email systems such as Hotmail will mark them as spam and delete them immediately without them ever reaching your mailbox. The solution to this is to set your junk mail filters to a low setting, or if possible, add us to a "friends" list so that our emails get through.

Due to both these factors, we strongly encourage our members to use a POP3-based email service, commonly offered by ISPs.

If any members experience problems receiving our emails, we are happy to give them a POP3 mailbox on our own server free of charge.

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Typically arbs will be for events that are 24-48 hours ahead.

However we sometimes find longer-term arbs for events that are days or even weeks or more in the future. Some people feel that these are not worth tying your money into because it could be put to better use in a number of arbs occurring sooner. This is true, however putting your money into a long-term arb will generate more profit than any bank or building society account!

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We do not provide staking advice because everybody will have different needs.

However we have a number of stake calculators available that show exactly how much to invest on each selection.

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If you forget your password you can use our "forgotten password" feature that will lookup your password and email it to you.

Alternatively you can email us and we will retrieve your password for you.

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When a betting exchange is featured in one of our arbs, we always take the commission into consideration.

We work on the assumption that the maximum 5% commission will apply and take this into account when calculating profitability.

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Our text message provider does support sending messages abroad. We have sent text messages to foreign countries and have had no negative reports.

Please note however that we cannot guarantee that there will be no delays in the messages reaching non-UK networks.

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When we send an arb out it is automatically send out via email, SMS and also added into our Members Area. In other words, it's displayed immediately, there is no delay. (Of course the page needs to be refreshed to show changes.)

So what's the advantage to having email or text alerts?

Well for a start you are actually notified when an arb has been found. As arbs don't tend to last very long, you need to act quickly to place your bets, and notification of a new arb is key to this.

Can't I refresh the latest arbs screen every couple of minutes to check for new arbs?

No. The latest arbs are purely there for demonstration purposes and not for people to check every couple of minutes throughout the day. If you are serious about betting on the opportunities you need email or text alerts. It is against our Terms & Conditions to refresh our latest arbs heavily (i.e. every couple of minutes throughout the day).

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Most events occur within a maximum of a couple of days of our finding the arb, so we don’t give the dates. However when the event is further in the future, we do indicate the date that it is scheduled for.

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No. If we were to bet on the arbs ourselves it would mean more money going on the selections and so the odds could change even faster, meaning our members had less of a chance to place their bets. This would be bad for our members, and ultimately not good business sense for us.

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Your subscription starts as soon as you make your payment. It is an automated process and there is no waiting period.

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Yes. Our Members Area was intended as a means to let sceptics log into the website and see our latest arbs to prove that this stream of income really exists and we are finding all the arbs that we claim to be. We didn't intend that people would be able to actually place the arbs on our cheapest package. You would normally need to get the information delivered instantly to your email box or via text message.

However we have had a number of people who have said that whilst most arbs are no longer available by the time they log into the Members Area, they are able to bet on enough to recoup our fee and show a tidy profit.

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Our arb alerts detail the bookmakers involved (including links to the websites), the event and selections, the odds at which to back the selections, and the percentage profit to be made.

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To take advantage of every arb that we find you would need an account with every one of the bookmakers that we use. However, in practice a smaller number of approximately 20 bookmakers are used for the majority of arbs.

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It would be useful to have opened all your accounts first. This way you're ready to place your first bet as soon as you've subscribed.

See our Bookmakers page for a convenient list of links to bookmakers' sites that we use.

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No. They don't charge a fee to open an account. Some foreign bookmakers may require a deposit when you join. The important UK bookmakers do not require payments.

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UK bookmakers accept UK debit cards (Switch, Solo, Delta etc...) as well as credit cards (Visa and MasterCard).

Foreign bookmakers usually only accept Visa and MasterCard.

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Aproximately 5 minutes.

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They should not. To minimise charges you can keep your winnings in foreign accounts so that you don't need to deposit each time or you can only act on big arbs with foreign bookmakers.

Besides that, most of our arbs involve bookmakers that accept accounts denominated in GBP. You wont lose out too much by avoiding using foreign bookmakes.

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US anti-gambling laws passed in late 2006 mean that most of the bookmakers that we use no longer accept US clients.

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In theory, bookmakers should not care why you place your bets, as long as they make a profit. And given the chances that half of your bets with any given bookmaker will lose, some people say that bookmakers don't care if you're an arb trader.

However our many years of experience has shown us that bookmakers do care if you are an arb trader and they will limit or suspend your account if they find out.

In order to draw no attention to yourself, you should not consistently bet the maximum stake. This is the easiest way for a bookmaker to spot an arb trader. It may also help to round your stakes to "normal" figures, but this has still to be proved.

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Once an even has concluded, bookmakers settle bets quite quickly, usually within a couple of hours, and pay the winnings into your online account.

You must then log in and request a withdrawal. When withdrawing money to a UK bank account it takes a couple of days for the funds to clear, just like when paying a cheque in.

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Each bookmaker will have a maximum stake and this varies for each bet depending on the odds and the size of the event.

Unfortunately you cannot invest £10,000 in each arb and earn £250 each time!

The maximum stakes are usually between £500 and £5,000 but this varies greatly from each event and each bookmaker. On some bets you may be allowed £2,500 but on others only £50.

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As with every business, there is always the chance that a bookmaker can go bankrupt and take your money with them. However we only use bookmakers that are well-established and we trust them with our own money.

If you have a problem with a bookmaker who will not pay out (unrelated to bankruptcy) you may take your case to a gambling industry association such as IBAS.

In English law, betting agreements are not regarded as legally binding contracts (as it is historically not a legal pursuit) and so you cannot sue a bookmaker for breach of contract if they will not pay out. However using reputable bookmakers makes this largely unnecessary anyway.

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This depends on the bookmaker. Once the bet has been settled (within a couple of hours of the event finishing), the money goes into your online bookmakers’ account. You must then request a payout. The bookmaker may do this within 24 hours (or less) or it could take a couple of days.

When using a UK debit card we always allow around 5 days from the time of placing the bet until the winnings are back in your bank account.

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