Bran David Ionel Presentation

Football Sure Bets (Arbitrage) Project – Real-World Evaluation

This project is a fully functional football sure bets (arbitrage) scanner that monitors multiple bookmakers, matches identical events across platforms, and calculates arbitrage opportunities using real odds.

The system does work in practice. Real sure bets have been detected (including cases with reverse odds below 0.99), proving that arbitrage opportunities do exist.

What the Project Does Well

• Scrapes real-time odds from multiple bookmakers
• Matches games across sites despite naming differences
• Calculates reverse odds accurately
• Provides a UI with filtering (e.g. by reverse odds threshold)
• Demonstrates real arbitrage cases, not theoretical examples

Main Problems & Practical Challenges

While the technical solution works, real-world profitability is heavily impacted by external factors, especially in the Romanian betting market.

• High capital requirement:
  To generate meaningful profit from sure bets (usually 1–3% per opportunity), a very large bankroll is required. In practice, profitability starts to make sense only when consistently rotating €5,000+ over several months.
• Entry and exit fees:
  Deposits typically incur ~2% fees, while withdrawals can take ~4% of the total withdrawn amount, resulting in a ~6% loss simply for moving money in and out.
  This alone exceeds the profit margin of most sure bets.
• Mandatory wagering (rulaj):
  Bookmakers such as Betano and Casa Pariurilor do not allow withdrawals unless the deposited funds are wagered at least once, even when no bonus is used. This forces additional risk and breaks the pure arbitrage model.
• Market limitations:
  Romanian bookmakers offer fewer odds discrepancies and react quickly, making high-margin arbitrage extremely rare.

Where This Project Makes Sense

• Professional betting environments:
  Users with pre-funded accounts, high liquidity, and long-term bankroll management can leverage this system effectively.

In conclusion, the project successfully proves that sure bets exist and can be detected technically. However, real profitability depends far more on market conditions, regulation, and capital scale than on the correctness of the algorithm itself.