RebelBetting Review

Hi everyone! Keith here with the conclusion to my review of RebelBetting.

It’s now been 5 weeks since the review started and due to a 1 week holiday in the middle of it it’s now been 30 days of actual usage.

For those who haven’t read the intro RebelBetting is a sports arbitrage scanner with added functionality of a built in browser. It’s claimed to be the number 1 arbitrage software in the world from which you can expect to earn around 15% of your bank each month depending on the amount of time you give to it.

There are 2 questions this review has thrown up to me.

1. Does the software work as it says it does and can you make the return it says.
2. Is sports arbitrage actually viable long term irrespective of whether you use RebelBetting or not.

Lets start with the first question. Does RebelBetting work?

The simple answer to this is yes it does. The not so simple answer is of course not so simple so let’s see why.

RebelBetting currently scans the odds of 86 bookmakers although 5 of those have dual entries with specific entries for AU or UK, for example WilliamHill and WilliamHillAU so you could say 81 individual bookies plus 4 betting exchanges. The actual number of bookmakers you can use with RebelBetting will vary depending on where in the world you live.

As I am in the UK I have a total of 42 bookmakers and 4 exchanges to play with. Of course unless you are starting off with a large bank you won’t have money in all of them and so you can select or deselect the ones you want the software to show you arbs for. If your bank in 1 bookie gets used up you can unselect it so that you don’t get arbs involving that bookie until you have funds back in it. You can also select bookies that you have no funds in or no account with just to see how often they come up with arbs to give you insight on whether they are worth funding.

In reality the active number of “useful” bookies scanned is less than the total as I would imagine you will never see arbs at some of them simply because they are simply not very generous with their odds but they are there anyway.

There are a multitude of settings you can modify such as the minimum and maximum % arb you want to see, how close to the event start you want to see them, whether you want to see lay options, what sports and type of bets you want to see, a default total stake etc etc which are all explained in the manual.

Once an arb flashes up on your screen ( you can set visual and audio alerts for this ) it will show you all the relevant info like what the event is, what the selections are, which bookies they are at and the arb %. Highlighting the arb and clicking the “Bet” button will open up the inbuilt browser split into 2 or 3 panes depending on how may parts there are to the arb. Each pane will open up the relevant bookie and in theory log you in, enter the arb selection in a betting slip along with showing you the stake to then manually enter.

This is a little bit hit and miss which rebel do acknowledge. They do say some sites they can go all the way through including opening up a betting slip, others they can login to ( you set up auto login details in the settings ) but you have to do some manual navigation to the relevant event and others they can navigate to the event but not login. You do soon get to know which sites are which but it would be nice if Rebel produced a list of all sites and at which point there would need to be user input.

Once all the betting slips are filled in it’s just a case of checking all the details and placing the bets. This is of course where it can all go wrong due to odds changing or stake limits being imposed by the different bookies but in reality this isn’t the fault of the software but generic problems with arbitrage in general which I’ll come to later.

Assuming the bets are placed as required Rebel produce an excel spreadsheet to keep a record of your bets and account balances so that you always know where you are.

So given that RebelBetting state you should be able to make 15% of your bank per month how did I actually do over the 30 days ?

I started off with a bank of £800 ( increased from my intended bank mentioned in the intro to make money management easier ) originally split between 8 bookmakers and 1 exchange. As the month went on this increased to 13 bookmakers and the 1 exchange.

There were a couple of mistakes I made and a bookmaker voided bet which depending on how you see things should or shouldn’t be included in the figures as they were not mistakes by the software itself so I will give both sets of results.

The 2 mistakes I made were firstly not checking the rules of a baseball game with regards to starting pitchers, this meant 1 bet won and the other was voided due to the stated pitcher not starting giving an inflated profit. The second mistake was allowing an event to go in play after the odds of the second side of the arb changed after placing the first part. As we all know this is a bad idea, which I still did, and of course everything then went against me resulting in a loss greater than the previous inflated profit.

The bookmaker void bet was when William Hill decided after the event, and after temporarily paying out, that there was an error with the name of one of the teams they put on the coupon and voided the whole market. I did complain as I never saw an issue but we all know where that gets you lol

With user error/bookmaker void bet:

• Starting Bank = £800.00
• Finishing Bank = £1009.82
• Increase = £209.82
• Increase as % of Starting Bank = 26.23%

Without user error/bookmaker void bet:

• Starting Bank = £800.00
• Finishing Bank = £1108.21
• Increase = £308.21
• Increase as % of Starting Bank = 38.53%

Whichever figures you look at it that’s an excellent return over 30 days but remember we have to deduct the subscription costs which are mentioned below and is dependant on a couple of other things.

Time: If you are not at your computer when arbs come up then you can’t place them so the more time you are available the better. I work at a computer so although I didn’t spend any more time at it than I would normally do I was available quite a lot.

And then what brings us onto the second question of whether arbitrage is viable long term.

Bookmaker Account Restrictions: All the bookmakers will place a limit on your stake on a per event basis unless it’s someone like Pinnacle or SBObet which aren’t available in the UK so I can’t comment on them. Some bookmakers will tell you the max stake before you bet, some only after you bet and you want more than they will allow. This can be an issue if you place your first bet but the second or third bookie won’t allow you the stake you require.

Sometimes there are other bookies to use instead but other times there are not. This can make it very messy where you are trying to use an exchange to balance things up which isn’t always possible. ( when you have an arb where one of the bookies shows you the max stake before you place any bets always place the others first in case of a limit restriction with them so you can modify stakes if required )

Out of the 13 bookmaker accounts I have used with rebel I have had emails from 2 stating I am banned from future promotions and my stakes will be limited. ( I think this probably dates back to my matched betting days years ago and the fact I haven’t used the accounts since, Ladbrokes and Coral are the bookies, not surprising since they are owned by the same company, Ladbrokes isn’t a big loss as it doesn’t show many arbs but Coral had a decent number and now seems to be limited to a £5 stake no matter what the odds are.)

888Sport have also sent me a nice email saying I am banned from promotions but doesn’t mention limits, Bwin has limited me to £0.88 stakes on what appears to be everything ( but still sends me promotions lol ). Betsafe has generally restricted me to under £5 stakes but it does vary and isn’t known until after attempting to place a bet.

Marathonbet has a lot of £5 stake limits but I don’t think it’s a hard limit as some events are over £100 so event dependant. This can be an issue with a lot of the arbs being on some of the more obscure lower league football matches in Serbia for example which maybe don’t come with large stake limits. The fact we are testing this outside of the general European football season may have an effect on this.

This brings us to the question of is it worth it and are there enough bookies who are willing to continue to play the game at sufficient stakes ?

Of the arbs I have placed during this first 30 days review the average has been 1.81% of the total stake amount, so £1.81 profit if £100 is staked across the arb. If the stakes are limited to a low level then 1.81% isn’t a lot.

On the figures above I haven’t deducted the subscription costs as it’s not that simple due to the way Rebel charge.

I have been using the Pro version which has different subscription rates depending on the amount of time you pre pay for.

Rolling 1 month access = €129 per month but that reduces if you pay in advance to:

• 3 months = €349 ( 116.33 per month )
• 6 Months = €499 ( 81.17 per month )
• 1 yr = €799 ( 66.58 per month )
• 2 yr = €1099 ( 45.79 per month )

At the time of this review RebelBetting have a sale on which can make the cheapest subscription €34 per month if taking out the 2 yr upfront option. ( This is still €1099 upfront but covers 24 months plus a further “free” 8 months after which it reverts to a rolling month contract for €34 per month )

Which subscription you take out gives completely different profit percentage figures after the costs are taken off.

There is also a “Lite” version which cost a rolling €39 per month and is recommended for anyone with a bank of less than €1500, which is of course what I had so it could be argued that the Pro version wasn’t the correct version for me to test.

The main differences between Lite and Pro are:

• Lite only shows arbs that have existed for at least 30 minutes but do still exist, pro shows arbs in real time and therefore a lot more of them as most disappear before 30 minutes. It does mean the Lite version arbs are more stable and less likely to be quickly changed by the bookmakers while you try to place them.
• Lite does not include middles and cross-market arbs, betting exchanges or horse racing, these are pro functions only. Again this will cut down the number of arbs available.

Given that my current bank is still below the suggested limit for the Pro version I have arranged to try the Lite version for a month to see if there are enough arbs to actually make it a worthwhile starting point.

My conclusions are that I’ve enjoyed using RebelBetting despite the issues with bookmakers limiting stakes etc and it certainly does what it says it does although from the AutoSurf function the results vary. The support has been good from Hanna but the question marks would be on the pricing if longer term upfront subscriptions are not taken out and the long term viability and scaling.

Rebel do state that the expected percentage return as bank and stake sizes increase is not a linear increase due to stake limits imposed by the bookmakers which seems a reasonable comment. There are cheaper alternatives but as I haven’t used any of those I can’t comment on whether the extra cost of RebelBetting is justified or not.

Click here to find out more about RebelBetting.

Introduction: 1st May 2018

Hi Everyone! Keith here with my latest review which this time takes us into the realm of Arbitrage.

For anyone new to arbitrage, or arbs, it simply means backing all outcomes, or backing and laying an outcome, in the same event so that no matter what the result you still make a profit.

What we are going to be testing out here is RebelBetting.

RebelBetting started life in 2008 and claims to have been used by over 100,000 customers in over 120 countries so if that is the case and it’s lasted 10 years so far then anything that can last that long must be doing something right.

It will scan in real time the odds from up to 76 bookies & 4 exchanges covering 10 different sports and output the arb opportunities.

What could make RebelBetting stand out from the crowd is what they call Autosurf. Once you pick an arb opportunity Autosurf should allow you to simply click “Bet” and the built in browser will open the relevant bookies web sites, log you in and display the relevant market page so that all you have to do is check the odds and enter your stakes, which is all worked out by the software, and then place your bets.

Does Autosurf work? We’ll find out.

I’ll be using a small bank, by arbitrage standards, of £600 spread out over between 6 & 10 bookies to see if I can make the 10 – 15% of bank per month that RebelBetting claims.

There is a free version with limited functionality and 2 paid subscription levels, £39 & £129 per month, and I’ll give further info on the pros and cons of each in my next update in a few weeks time.

In the meantime, read more about RebelBetting here.