Arbitrage traders, or arbsters as they're known, make serious money, risk-free, from exploiting the price differences between bookmakers. Roland de Wolfe reports on this wiliest of betting strategies.



Serious gamblers should always be on the look-out for new ways to profit from their passion and if you haven't yet got into sports arbitrage trading, now is the time to give it a try. If you know what you're doing, you literally can't lose.



Arbitrage trading has been around as long as bookies offering competing odds have been around. It involves using a number of bookmakers to take prices that differ so much that you're able to bet on several outcomes and turn a profit irrespective of the result.



In its simplest form, an opportunity for an arb arose in the betting for the last US presidential election, when George Bush was 6/4 in the US and Al Gore was 6/4 in the UK.