The 6th entry in the Arbitrage Hunter series. To view the last entry, click here.

The NBA is back, and March Madness is nearing.

While the last two weeks were slow for my fellow Arbitrage bettors, basketball season is heating up, and the daily opportunities for guaranteed profit are skyrocketing.

With 11 NBA games today, there will be Arbitrage bets aplenty. In case you missed it, the Pickwatch Arbitrage Bet Finder is also tracking NCAA Basketball now, and there are also 21 college hoops games on the betting slate.

This packed schedule with 30+ basketball games in a day will be par for the course over the next few weeks (speaking of, keep an eye out for Golf Arbitrage bets in the future).

Back to basketball, though — there will be hundreds of Arbitrage bets to take advantage of. Some will be more lucrative than others, and some will appear and disappear faster than others.

Moving forward, it will be important to have a gameplan involving discipline, patience, and not being too greedy.

More on that in a bit.

BetSmart Subscription Package

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While I have struggled with sports betting in the past, Pickwatch has tools like the Arbitrage Bet Finder, which has helped me find opportunities for risk-free, guaranteed profit nearly every day.

If you're interested in trying BetSmart and reaping the benefits, you can get a 14-Day Trial for FREE today.

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Arbitrage Betting: Percentages, Discipline, Patience & Greed

Once you become more experienced with Arbitrage betting, you'll likely become enamored with your best wins.

With over a month under my belt, I've had quite a few awesome wins, where I was able to cash in some quick and easy 6% and 7% Arbitrage bets without much stress or ugency. On some occasions, I've even locked in some Arbs of 10% and higher.

Because of these easy memorable wins, it has often become tempting to stare at the screen, press Refresh over and over, and simply wait for more of those lucrative opportunities.

While these opportunities do come around often, it's important to remember that they sometimes only last for about 30-45 seconds before one of the sportsbooks change the odds or line, or lock the market.

It's also important to remember that while you're looking for these gems and hoping to lock them in, you're missing out on some Arbs that aren't as profitable, but are safer and more reliable.

Arbitrage Percentages

Before I talk about some of the more disciplined wagers I've been trying to take lately, I wanted to go back to the basics for those who may need it, and explain Arbitrage percentages.

While it's a clear and obvious number to experienced Arb'ers, it's a bit confusing to those who are starting.

The Arbitrage percentage is the percentage of the Total Payout you are guaranteed to win from one of the sportsbooks if you place the correct stake on both sides.

For example, a 5% Arbitrage bet means that if you are wagering a combined $190.95 across both sportsbooks, you are guaranteed to profit $10.05, which is 5% of the $201 guaranteed total payout from one of the sportsbooks.

Here's a detailed example and the betting breakdown of a 5% Arbitrage bet:

Sportsbook 1 Odds: +101
- Wager Amount: $100
- Potential Total Payout: $201
Sportsbook 2 Odds: +121
- Wager Amount: $90.95
- Potential Total Payout: $201

Here's the betting breakdown of a 10% Arbitrage bet:

Sportsbook 1 Odds: +100
- Wager Amount: $100
- Potential Total Payout: $200
Sportsbook 2 Odds: +150
- Wager Amount: $80
- Potential Total Payout: $200

The guaranteed profit if you wager $180 combined would be $20, which is 10% of the $200 guaranteed total payout from one of the sportsbooks.

Arbitrage Betting: Patience and Greed

To be clear, 5% or more Arbitrage opportunities don’t just grow on trees.

On any given day, you likely won't be able to lock in a bunch of these. There will certainly be several opportunities, but you'd have to be glued to your phone and/or computer waiting for them, and ready to act instantly each time.

Now that I'm more experienced, I'm understanding it's important to not get too greedy. Don’t think of yourself as too good for the 3% or even the 2% Arbitrage bets, especially as your bankroll grows.

Now that my bankroll is growing from weeks of Arbitrage wagers, I’m now ready to just start accepting the 2% and 3% Arbs.

It's important to be patient, but don’t just sit around waiting all day for the perfect Arbs, while missing out on the smaller ones.

It's also important to be disciplined, and not start firing away on regular wagers with profits too quickly. Keep building bankroll.

Arbitrage Bet of the Week - Normal Powell Total Steals

While this wasn't my largest Arbitrage win of the week, I think it was an important one to highlight.

I had to "risk" $355 for this Arb to win only $10.30. It was just over a 3% Arbitrage bet.

Obviously, "risk" is in quotations because it wasn't actually a risk. So while many will say that wagering $355 total for only $10 in profit is ridiculous, there is zero risk, and these small wins stack up. It was a guaranteed profit with a small chance of something out of the ordinary happening with Powell, and both wagers being voided, resulting in me just breaking even.

I felt this was important because I wanted to reiterate the importance of discipline, and not getting greedy. As much as I sometimes want to just keep waiting for the perfect Arbitrage opportunities, sometimes it's best to just keep stacking small wins.

Additionally, as much as I sometimes want to place the exact amount needed to get the maximum payout, I want to be careful about not getting my account flagged and potentially limited by sportsbooks for Arbitrage betting. This was a concept I discussed in the 3rd Entry of Arbitrage Hunter.

If I wanted to win the maximum possible amount of $11.04, I was supposed to bet $124.25 on the second wager. Instead, I bet a more normal amount of $125, and ended up profiting $0.74 less.

Anyways, here are the wagers:

Arbitrage Hunter Series

While the official posting schedule has changed a bit, the Arbitrage Hunter series will continue weekly. Keep an eye out for the latest posts featuring lessons learned, highlights of my best Arbs each week, and more.

And remember, you can claim your FREE 14-Day Trial of BetSmart today, and get instant access to the Arbitrage Bet Finder and several other valuable sports betting tools.