All About Spread Betting

Arbitrage Spy is this week’s Dish of the Week, and it’s a little various from usual. Sure the distinctive marketing is there once again, though slightly much less ‘flamboyant’ in terms of product sales web page graphics. The ‘out of work actor’ voice over is there again – and this one’s awful! – as is the ubiquitous opt in form to ensure that the vending crew can perma-spam you forever after.

In fact, you really need to enter your e-mail address just to get to the sales letter! Having gone through the hoops so you can see what Arbitrage Spy is all about before giving your particulars personally, my headline summary is… do not bother!

A bit like the Grolsch ad where the guys break into the bank that’s nevertheless becoming built, only to be told by the foreman, “Shtop, this bank isn’t ready yet”… so Arbitrage Spy isn’t yet ready.

Basically, after signing up and purchasing (cost is £47), you’ll be sent through the normal Clickbank process (good simply because it indicates you are able to claim a refund, which I’ve done in this case)… Oh yes, sorry, I forgot to mention the upsell/downsell pages where they try to get much more money from you in the sales process… clicking the bottom website link on each page enables you to eventually arrive at the download web page.

This really is a piece of software for identifying arbitrage* opportunities on UK horse racing. It covers around 25 various bookmakers and the software goes off and checks the prices on an odds comparison website too as the current odds on Betfair, and finds arbs depending on your criteria. Sounds reasonable enough, right?

*arbitrage is the act of discovering back and lay bets on the same horse/team/outcome, which offer the identifier a risk-free wager, irrespective of the outcome.

But… Arbitrage Spy doesn’t have a user manual. There is NO advice on how to get it to work. I’m fairly savvy with software program resources and the like, however it wasn’t obvious to me what I was supposed to do (and nevertheless isn’t)… If it’s not obvious to me, then most people will struggle horribly with this.

It’s an unforgivable oversight to release a piece of software without a lot as an instruction video, and it will lead to the vendor receiving nightmarish admin calls. Not that they will necessarily respond to them (although I do not know this first hand, so I might be wrong)…

Moreover, when I came to log in this morning, getting bought it yesterday, it hadn’t remembered my login details, and there is no link to easily retrieve this information. In other words, the developer didn’t bother building in a security module and the username and password is hard coded. (Once again, this is an educated guess on my component, but I strongly suspect I’m right about that)…

In essence, this is nothing new, as resources for example Racing Synergy (aka Betting Automation) do the same point, only much better, and with infinitely much more instruction. (Some instruction as opposed to no instruction equals infinitely more instruction!)

My summary is that, as with a thousand betting systems we’ve seen off this – or a similarly anonymous – production line before, Arbitrage Spy is really a half-baked affair that could have been so much better… in fact, it could happen to be a useful tool for those who like their bets risk-free with lots of little gains.

But it is not. The lack of a user manual renders this useless for many will be arbers, and that in itself is just plain daft. Beyond that, I wasn’t able to test the software program in the morning (i.e. this morning) because I couldn’t log on. Yes, maybe I should have written down my credentials, but I expected to become in a position to easily retrieve them from my email address if required, like…. well like any sensible and finished software item would enable me to complete.

In case you like hotel rooms exactly where the builders are still drilling outside the window, or chips that taste like hard potatoes, then you might like this. If, like me, you expect your experience to be ready for you before you take the plunge, you should steer really well clear of Arbitrage Spy.

Readers that are looking for more information about retirement investing, then check out the site that was quoted right in this paragraph.