An arb involving bet365 is a relationship between its price and the best opposing price, so you need both sides, fresh, with real liquidity. Here's what makes the data usable, and why matched beats raw.
An arbitrage involving bet365 is not a single price. It is a relationship between bet365's price and the best opposing price, often an exchange lay or another book. So a scanner that wants to find arbs on bet365 needs both sides of that relationship at once, fresh enough to act on, with enough liquidity behind the opposing price that the position is real. The bet365 number on its own tells you nothing about whether an arb exists.
This is the data problem underneath every sure-bet tool. If you are deciding what bet365 data your arb scanner actually consumes, this is the spine of it. For the wider model, see how arbitrage data works.
It is two prices for the same selection that, together, leave no losing outcome. Usually that means bet365's back price set against the current exchange lay price for the same selection, or against another bookmaker's price on the opposing side. The signal lives in the gap between the two. A scanner exists to detect that gap and to know it is wide enough, and liquid enough, to be worth acting on.
Which means raw bet365 prices are only half the input. To detect an arb you need the bet365 back price, the best opposing price, and the implied position between them, all for the same selection at the same moment. Hold one side and you have a number with nothing to compare it to.
bet365 is included as standard in the OddsRelay feed, and it arrives already matched against three exchanges (Betfair, Smarkets, Matchbook). That is exactly the pairing a sure-bet scanner is built to read: the bet365 back price and the current exchange lay price, for the same selection, side by side. The matching step that turns two loose prices into a comparable pair is done before you receive the row.
Each row carries the bet365 back price, the paired lay price with its liquidity, a rating, and the qualifying_loss. Here is the shape of one row showing a bet365 price against the best opposing price (illustrative, not live data):
{
"event": "Brighton vs Newcastle",
"market": "match_odds",
"selection": "Newcastle",
"back": { "bookmaker": "bet365", "odds": 3.05 },
"lay": { "exchange": "matchbook", "odds": 3.00, "liquidity": 640 },
"rating": 100.8,
"qualifying_loss": 0.21
// ... region, feed_type and freshness fields elided
}The two sides are already joined. The rating summarises the relationship between the back and lay prices, and liquidity tells you whether the opposing side is real or a thin quote you could not actually fill. A raw bet365 endpoint gives you the back block and leaves the rest to you. The pairing is the product, and it is what your scanner reads on day one. The full envelope is in the bet365 odds data guide.
Four properties decide whether a feed is usable for sure-bet detection, and bet365 prices have to satisfy all four, not just one:
The last point is the one that separates a usable arb feed from a list of prices. An arb is only real if you can actually take the opposing side, and that is a question about liquidity, not just odds. We go deeper on this in what makes an arb feed usable.
The difference is whether the relationship is computed for you. With raw prices you receive bet365 numbers and have to source the opposing side yourself, join it to the right selection, model the liquidity, and keep all of it fresh. With a matched feed each row already carries both sides and the position between them.
| Raw bet365 prices | bet365 in an arb-ready feed | |
|---|---|---|
| Opposing side | You source and join it | Paired exchange lay, included |
| Liquidity check | You build it | liquidity on the lay side |
| The relationship | You compute it per row | rating and qualifying_loss attached |
| What you focus on | Plumbing two feeds together | Your scanner's logic |
None of this changes how rare arbs are. It changes how fast and how honestly you can detect the real ones when they appear, and how much of your engineering goes into joining feeds rather than into your product.
If you are building a sure-bet scanner, the deciding question is not whether you can get a bet365 number. It is whether you can get bet365 paired with the best opposing price, fresh, with liquidity you can trust, without owning the collection problem yourself. OddsRelay delivers that pairing, and it powers a leading UK matched-betting platform today. You can see what is covered right now on the live coverage dashboard, or pull the real feed with a trial key and point your scanner at it before you commit.
Written by
Founder, OddsRelay
James is the founder of OddsRelay — the odds-data feed behind matched betting, arbitrage and odds-comparison products: 60+ UK bookmakers with bet365 included, matched against exchange lay prices and delivered as one clean, documented API. He writes here about how that data layer actually behaves — coverage, matching, freshness and the trade-offs — from the side that builds and runs it. The same feed powers a leading UK matched-betting platform today.
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