What is bet cancellation (obvious error)?

What is bet cancellation, also famous as "obvious error" in sports arbitrage betting?

Bet cancellation is something that bookmakers will do if you are betting on unusually high odds. They will cancel your bet or will decrease the value of the odds and keep your bet. In both situations, you will lose money. The one to blame usually is the bookmaker because it is his fault to display wrong odds, but you are the one who is betting on them and have to look twice before doing it. Yes, these high odds will lead to really high sure bets and are very catchy, so be careful before go after it. These unreal high odds are also known as "obvious error" and the unreal high value of the sure bets is a good way to recognize it. Example for this kind of situation you can see at the picture below:

In this picture, you can see an example of an obvious error made in the odds for Over 2,5 goals. This will lead to a sure bet over 30% but it is almost sure this bet will be void by the bookmaker. Our advice is to avoid such sure bets or bet them just in case the bookmaker lets it stand. It will be an extremely good value bet.

Example for obvious error could also be a wrongly displayed HandiCap. On the first picture there are normal displayed 1x2 odds, but on the second one you can see the wrongly displayed HandiCap:

Correct 1×2 Odds

Wrong given HandiCap

You can see that in the second picture there is something wrong. Look closer at the names of the HandiCap - the correct one is +1 Goal for Treviso and +1 Goal for Ascoli, but as you can see the HandiCap is messed up and the advantage is given to both home teams, which is obviously wrong. You can try your luck and bet on this wrong given HandiCap and hope the bookmaker won't notice it before the match starts, but we suggest you to avoid making sure bets with such odds.

How to avoid obvious error and what if it happens anyway?

Watch carefully such big odds before placing a bet on them. If you are betting on PreMatch you will have enough time to check if other bookmakers had such big odds for the same match and if not, this means that the current bookmaker has made a mistake while setting the prices. If you are betting on InPlay just skip these arbitrages in the beginning and later when you have a bigger experience you will learn how to recognize which is true and which is false with a single quick look. Also, bet first on the bookmaker that you think is the riskiest to accept your bet. This way you will minimize the risk of the second bookmaker to reject your bet.

If it happens anyway to bet on an obvious error and the bookmaker rejects your bet before the starting of the match (for PreMatch) immediately cover your bet on the other bookmaker. If the bookmaker rejects your bet while the match is playing (InPlay) try to cover your bet as best as you can. At the end, you will get out of it with a small loss of a few %, but it is better instead of risking to lose your entire bet. It is up to you.

Sometimes after the match is over the bookmakers rejects the bet because of wrong given odds and in this case there is nothing to do. Be sure that you won’t meet this problem with the big bookmakers like Bet365, Bwin and etc., but anyway, this is an extremely rare situation at all.

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What is moving odds and technical error and how to avoid them?