Start here
What this product is for, what to do in your first week, and what every number on it means.
Which of these do you want?
Most people should start with the first one even if they came for another — it pays for itself before you have risked anything on a judgement call.
Money that does not depend on winning
You want the most certain money first. This is where almost everybody should start, including people who eventually do something else — it pays for the subscription before you have risked anything on a judgement call.
Turns a sportsbook's bonus into cash at a known conversion rate. A $100 bonus bet is not $100 — it is usually $60-$75 once you hedge the other side, and the optimizer finds the pairing that keeps the most of it.
Two books disagreeing enough that backing both sides locks a profit whatever happens. Small and infrequent, but the outcome is not a probability.
Both run out. Signup promos are once per book, and arbitrage gets your account limited if you only ever bet the outlier price. Treat this as the bankroll that funds the next door, not a career.
An edge that pays over a season
You are willing to lose individual bets and be judged on hundreds of them. This is the door most of the product is built for.
Bets priced better than the market's own consensus of what they are worth. Each one is a coin flip weighted slightly your way; the money comes from repetition, not from any single bet.
Not optional here. A +EV strategy that is not tracked is indistinguishable from a losing one for months at a time.
Variance is larger than people expect. A genuine 3% edge can be down over a hundred bets. If that would make you abandon the method, this door is not for you — and knowing that now is worth more than the edge.
To trade rather than to bet
You think in prices and liquidity, not in teams. Exchanges and prediction markets are the venues where that is possible.
Real depth at each price, so you can see what size a move will actually absorb rather than what the headline price implies.
The markets where the books' combined margin is thinnest — the cheapest places to take a position at all.
Exchange liquidity is thin outside the biggest markets, and commission changes the maths on every trade. Check the depth before assuming a price is available in your size.
Your first week
One thing a day. Opening six screens on the first evening is how people bounce off this product.
Make the board tell the truth about you
- 1.Set your state. Every price, link and availability answer on the site depends on it — a board showing books you cannot legally open is worse than a shorter one.
- 2.Mark the books you actually hold accounts at. The 'My books' filter then hides edges you cannot take, which is most of them.
- 3.Read 'What a bet is actually worth' below. It is the one idea the rest of the product assumes you have.
Collect the certain money
- 1.Open the Promo Optimizer and enter one signup offer you have not used.
- 2.Take the pairing it suggests and read the conversion figure — that is what the bonus is really worth in cash.
- 3.Place it if you are comfortable. If not, place nothing: the point of today is understanding the number, not the stake.
One real bet, end to end
- 1.Pick a single +EV or arbitrage opportunity at a book you already hold.
- 2.Bet small. The purpose is the mechanics — finding it, placing it, logging it — and a small stake teaches all three.
- 3.Log it in the Bet Tracker before the game starts, while the reasoning is still in your head rather than reconstructed from the result.
Let it come to you
- 1.Create one alert rule narrow enough to be worth interrupting you — one sport, one bet type, a floor you would actually act on.
- 2.Keep logging every bet, including the ones that lose and the ones you talked yourself into. The tracker is only useful if it is honest.
- 3.After about thirty bets, look at closing line value rather than profit. It tells you whether the method is working long before the money does.
Every number, explained
Each one is worked through with real arithmetic. If a term on any screen is unfamiliar, it is defined here.
Fair price
What a bet is actually worth, before any book's margin. Every other number on the site is measured against it, so it is the one to understand first.
A price better than +152 on that side is worth taking; worse is not. Removing the margin is called de-vigging, and it is the whole trick.
EV% (expected value)
How much of your stake you expect to keep, on average, if you made the same bet forever. Positive means the price is better than the bet is worth.
You will still lose this bet 58 times in 100. EV is a statement about the price, never about the outcome.
ARB% (arbitrage)
Two books priced far enough apart that backing both sides pays more than it costs. The percentage is your locked return on total stake.
Both bets must be placed before either price moves, which is why arbitrage rewards speed rather than judgement.
Hold
The book's built-in margin on a market — how much over 100% the two sides add up to. Lower hold means a cheaper market to bet into.
Hold is what you pay for the privilege of betting. Shopping for a lower one is the simplest edge there is, and it requires no view on the game.
CLV (closing line value)
Whether you beat the price the market settled on. The single best early signal that a method works — it shows up in dozens of bets, where profit takes hundreds.
Positive CLV with negative profit is normal and is not a problem. Negative CLV with positive profit is luck, and it will stop.
Kelly fraction
How much of your bankroll a given edge justifies risking. Bigger edge and shorter odds mean a larger bet; it is a sizing rule, not a prediction.
Almost nobody should bet full Kelly. It assumes your edge estimate is exactly right, and a slightly overestimated edge at full Kelly is how bankrolls die. Half or quarter is the normal choice.
Stake split
How a total stake divides between two sides so both outcomes pay the same. Used by arbitrage, hedging and every promo conversion.
Uneven on purpose. Splitting evenly leaves you with a position on the game rather than a locked result.
Middle
Two bets on different lines that both win if the result lands between them. Usually a small loss; occasionally a large win.
The small loss is the common case. A middle is worth taking when the gap is wide enough that the rare win more than pays for the many small losses — which is what the middle's EV figure is telling you.
Limited (account)
A sportsbook cutting your maximum stake because your betting looks profitable. Not a ban, but often the practical end of that account.
This is the real cost of pure arbitrage, and it is why the product shows you mainlines and ordinary bets too. An account that stays open is worth more than any single edge you take with it.
Ready for more depth? The go further on each idea — how arbitrage gets accounts limited, why middles lose small most of the time, and what closing line value actually proves.