Surebets, valuebets and BetOven

BetOven is the software: a Windows application that looks for surebets and valuebets across bookmakers and places the bets on your own accounts, to the settings you choose.

BetHunter is the brand behind it — we sell BetOven, we set you up, and we run a free academy that teaches how the whole thing works. Over 1,000 people have used BetOven across Spain, Italy and the UK.

A bookmaker (or «bookie») is a company licensed to accept bets at odds it sets itself. BetOven is not one: it holds no accounts and takes no bets. It operates your accounts, with your money, at bookmakers you choose.

Not sure which to open first? Which bookmakers to start with.

When two bookmakers disagree enough about the same event, you can back every outcome at different bookmakers and the numbers add up to a margin in your favour — whichever way the match goes.

That margin only materialises if both legs are actually matched at the odds you saw and neither bet is later voided. When one of those two things fails you are left with an open position, and that's where the losses in arbitrage come from. Anyone describing surebets as risk-free is skipping that sentence.

More detail: Surebets and how they work.

A bet where the odds are higher than the real probability of the outcome — the bookmaker is paying more than it should. You are not covering the other side, so any individual valuebet can lose.

Over a large number of bets the edge is supposed to show up; over a small number, variance dominates and losing runs are normal, not a sign that something is broken. Valuebets have a higher ceiling than surebets and a much bumpier ride.

More detail: Valuebets and how they work.

Because bookmakers price independently and constantly. Each one moves its odds with its own model, its own exposure and its own customers, so at any given second two of them can be far enough apart for the combination to favour the bettor. Those windows are usually seconds long, which is the whole reason this work is automated rather than done by hand.

Yes. You are placing ordinary bets, with your own money, at licensed operators. What you are not doing is anything the law prohibits.

Separate from the law: bookmakers are private businesses and their own terms let them restrict or close an account whose betting pattern they don't want — including arbitrage. That is a commercial decision, not an illegal one, and you should expect it to happen. See the section on limitations below.

The ones that cost real money, in the order you'll meet them:

• An unmatched leg. Odds move or a market disappears between the first bet and the second, and you end up exposed on one side instead of covered.
• A voided bet. An injury, an abandoned match or a palpable odds error, and one bookmaker cancels while the other stands. Their rules on this differ from each other, which is exactly what creates the gap.
• Restrictions. Sooner or later a bookmaker limits your stakes, and that account stops being useful.
• Not enough balance spread across accounts. The most common reason a trial shows nothing: the software can't act on what it finds.

These are infrequent per bet and inevitable across hundreds of them. The operation is built on the rest of the bets covering them — which is also why judging it over a handful of bets tells you nothing.

A limitation is when a bookmaker caps how much you can stake, while the same market stays open at full size for everyone else. Bookmakers want customers who lose over time; when your pattern says otherwise, they reduce you rather than ban you.

It is the single most common frustration in this operation and the thing to plan for from day one, not something to be surprised by. More on limitations.

Nothing dramatic: send the bookmaker whatever verification documents they ask for, withdraw your balance, and move that capital to another bookmaker BetOven works with. The operation is spread across accounts precisely so that losing one doesn't stop it.

What not to do is open a second account in someone else's name. That's fraud, it's how people lose balances they can't recover, and we don't help with it.

Usually identity checks. Bookmakers are obliged to verify who holds an account and to shut down account trading, so a block is often just a stalled KYC step rather than a decision about you.

Send them the proof of identity and address they request and it typically reopens. If they've closed rather than blocked it, withdraw and move on.

Someone who has never placed a surebet or a valuebet by hand, someone who can't leave a computer running, and — above all — someone funding this with money they need. The software amplifies an operation you already understand; it doesn't teach you one from zero, and it doesn't turn a small balance into a big one.

Start the free trial and we walk you through it: you get your login details by email, we message you on WhatsApp, and the trial gives you £25 in points to run the software with. No card is required to start.

Start the free trial · Download BetOven

A scraping layer reads odds from the bookmakers in real time, a server evaluates and ranks the opportunities, and the application on your computer places the bets on your accounts within the limits you've set. You choose the sports, the stakes, the bookmakers and the hours.

It needs the computer switched on and running: it acts on opportunities as they appear, and the longer it's up, the more of them it sees.

Yes. It runs on your machine, so no machine means no operation. If you'd rather not leave a computer on, a server with BetOven pre-installed runs around the clock and you connect to it from your laptop, phone or tablet. How to hire one.

Stop the software first. Not because it's forbidden, but because two things logging into the same bookmaker at once causes avoidable problems.

Placing your own bets from time to time isn't a bad idea if you know what you're doing: a pattern that looks entirely mechanical is easier for a bookmaker to spot.

No — your own bets are outside the calculation, neither for nor against. The points BetOven consumes are based on the profit BetOven itself generates. Still, stop it before you bet by hand.

One placed in several pieces. When the reference bookmaker caps your stake, BetOven splits the bet into a series of smaller ones until it reaches the intended total, instead of abandoning the opportunity. Longer explanation.

Yes. BetOven works with your own accounts at the bookmakers you hold them with, and if you need to connect through a different location it includes an automatic proxy, plus a ProxyApp application for Android.

Configure your proxy · ProxyApp for Android

They're encrypted with a password you create the first time you open your profile, and that password is not stored on our servers — which means we cannot read your credentials, and also that we cannot recover the password for you. If you lose it, the only way forward is a new profile. Keep it where you keep important things.

On the points side: winnings that come from a bookmaker promotion aren't counted as BetOven profit, so they don't consume your points.

On the bookmaker's side: promotions carry their own terms, and plenty of them exclude arbitrage, cap qualifying odds or restrict stake patterns. Read the offer before you use it — breaching those terms is how people have bonuses and balances voided.

We won't give you a figure, and you should be wary of anyone who does. It depends on how much capital you spread across bookmakers, how many accounts stay unrestricted, how many hours the software is running, and how the variance falls — and only the first three are under your control.

This is why the trial exists in the form it does: you get the full product, on your accounts, with your money, and you judge it on your own numbers rather than on ours.

The opportunities don't run out — they exist because bookmakers price independently, and that isn't going to change. What does erode is your access to them, as accounts get restricted one by one.

So the long-term question isn't «do surebets still exist», it's «how well do you manage accounts». That's the part the academy spends most of its time on.

It works on points, not a monthly subscription: you buy a package of points and the software consumes them from the profit it generates. If it generates nothing, it consumes nothing.

Packages vary by market and by the time of year. Ask us and we'll tell you exactly what applies to you — we'd rather quote you than have you read a number here that's out of date.