If you used arbitrage scanner at least once, you’ve probably wondered how these services obtain the information so quickly.
In my today’s article I would like to tell you about main technicalities of arbitrage scanners.
How do they find arbs?
All arbitrage scanners obtain information from the bookmakers lines, analyze them and issue the result.
Thus, service programmers create so called parsers. Parsers comprise special scripts which collect data on events and odds in the form of program code. Then the code is being transformed in the readable format.
When the process of data collection is established – the arbitrage betting software compares the lines of different bookmakers according to the formula (S=1/K1+1/K2), where K1 — the odds of Bookmaker 1, K2 — the odds of Bookmaker 2. If the total result is less than 1, the arbitrage situation exists. In this case the software brings together the given data in one arb and shows it in the scanner.
It worth noting that some bookmakers share the access to the code for parsing. But it’s done not to assist arb scanners but to advertise the service, like MyScore. But arbitrage scanners do not miss the opportunity to use it 🙂
How do bookies feel about scanning?
Negatively, which is quite logically. Probably you’d also dislike if someone use the info you’ve published without your consent. Moreover you’d not get any price for that.
And, as a matter of fact, arbitrage betting software working for the good of professional gamblers. And as we all know, bookmaker don’t really like them. No wonder that admins are doing their best to trace and block similar parsers.
Obviously, leading arb scanners usually have backup channels to scan the information. But similar bookmaker blockings still occur. That’s the reason why some bookies are falling out of the scanner.
Major issues in arb scanning
Slow data scanning
Once I’ve mentioned a possible problem in the form of parsers, I should tell about other troubles that arise during the scanner work.
If you work with arbitrage betting software, you have probably noticed the fact that the odds sometimes are restoring slowly.
It happens because of several reasons. For example, the bookmaker has a ‘difficult’ site structure, and parser needs more time to grasp the needed information.
It’s a sure thing that programmers of the leading scanners constantly refine the parsers to speed up the scanning process. Unfortunately, this issue could not be eliminated completely.
Integration errors
You certainly have noticed that bookmakers name the teams on the line as they like. For example, Marathonbet can name a famous team Real Madrid, but Bet365 would give it like Real M. Therefore, the script should know that these are the same clubs. For this reason data base should contain name variants of different teams.
Everything would be great if all clubs are with different names. But it usually happens that there is a great number of clubs with similar names, and arb services may automatically integrate different names in one arb. So, before betting I recommend you to check up all the information.
Conclusion
Program search of arbitrage situations is not so easy as it may seem on the first sight. Creation and maintenance of this project requires huge investments, not only financial.
A decent team of programmers, system administrators, marketing and support specialists should always be ready to go!
All these people get their salary, and the owner also wants to have his profit. So it’s quite understandable why scanners are not free and have some certain price for the services they provide.
P.S.: It worth noting that some services have free subscriptions but with a limited access to certain functions.
