Examining the Difference in Profitability Between Two Popular Sports Betting Strategies: Arbitrage and Positive Expected Value Betting

Through a case study analysis of the 2023 MLB season, I compare the profitability of two popular sports betting strategies: arbitrage betting and positive expected value betting. Neither strategy proved exceedingly profitable over the duration of my experiment; however, both proved to be more profitable than casual sports betting. Not only were both methods of sports betting less profitable than expected, but sports books also have intuitive strategies to counteract advantage players on their platform.