How Long Do Arbitrage Opportunities Last? Feed Duration Data

According to OddsFantasy's arbitrage feed, the median listing duration was 1 minute among 60,182 pre-match opportunities observed leaving the feed between 16–20 October 2026, UTC. Of those listings, 77% disappeared within 5 minutes and 91% within 15 minutes; these are feed-observed durations, not measurements of how long bettors could execute every leg.

Key numbers

• OddsFantasy's arbitrage feed listed 60,193 pre-match opportunities across 2,307 matches between 16–20 October 2026, UTC, an average of 12,039 a day.
• Among the 60,182 opportunities that left OddsFantasy's arbitrage feed between 16–20 October 2026, UTC, the median listing duration was 1 minute.
• Among opportunities that left OddsFantasy's arbitrage feed between 16–20 October 2026, UTC, 77% disappeared within 5 minutes and 91% within 15 minutes.
• Among opportunities that left OddsFantasy's arbitrage feed between 16–20 October 2026, UTC, 1.0% stayed listed for an hour or more.

The practical finding is a short discovery window, not a countdown attached to each opportunity. If you need the underlying odds and stake mechanics first, read Arbitrage Betting Explained: Odds, Stakes and Risks. Here, the question is narrower: how long a qualifying price combination remained visible in the feed.

How OddsFantasy measured this

OddsFantasy's arbitrage feed lists a pre-match opportunity when the best prices for every market outcome, taken from different bookmakers or Polymarket, imply probabilities adding up to less than 100%. Between 16–20 October 2026, UTC, it covered 1xBet, BC.Game, BetPawa, Cloudbet, Kalshi, Matchbook, Pinnacle, Polymarket, Rollbit, SBOBET, Smarkets, SportyBet, Stake, Vave and Vbet. These figures measure feed listings before fees, with quoted return defined as profit divided by the total stake across all outcomes. Duration runs from first listing to removal; the feed refreshes every few minutes, so very short lifetimes are rounded up to the next refresh.

What do the median and duration thresholds tell you?

The 1-minute median identifies the middle of the observed listing-duration distribution, while the 5- and 15-minute figures show how much of that distribution had disappeared by each threshold.

In OddsFantasy's 16–20 October 2026 feed, 77% of completed listings were gone within 5 minutes and 91% within 15 minutes. Those cumulative shares answer practical questions about waiting: a check every 15 minutes does not track most listings throughout their visible lifetime.

The thresholds do not establish an exact 75th- or 90th-percentile duration. They show that the disappearance share had reached 77% by 5 minutes and 91% by 15 minutes, without locating every removal inside those windows. The 1.0% lasting an hour or more establishes a longer-lived tail, but does not explain why those particular listings persisted.

How does polling affect the measured lifetime?

Polling measures visibility at refresh times, rather than continuously observing every price change.

An opportunity can stop qualifying between checks and remain listed until the next refresh detects the change. Conversely, the feed's first observation does not establish the exact moment the underlying gap began. The reported 1-minute median therefore should not be read as one-minute monitoring precision or as a fresh minute available when you open a listing.

This distinction also matters when comparing datasets. The Odds API's historical data documentation describes ten-minute snapshots from June 2020 and five-minute snapshots from September 2022 for featured markets. Its endpoint returns the closest snapshot at or before the requested time, with previous and next snapshot timestamps. A requested timestamp is therefore not necessarily a newly observed price.

The paper Beating the bookies with their own numbers discusses arbitrage among betting approaches and reports historical simulations using closing and minute-to-minute odds. Neither source establishes the lifetime of OddsFantasy listings; they provide context for why the observation schedule must accompany any timing claim.

How do incomplete observations affect the results?

The duration statistics describe the 60,182 opportunities observed leaving the feed, rather than all 60,193 opportunities listed during the measurement period.

A listing without an observed removal has an incomplete duration: its eventual endpoint is unknown from that observation. Treating it as if it ended at the reporting boundary would substitute a cutoff for a measured disappearance. The completed-listing results also cannot establish how much longer a currently visible opportunity will remain available.

Do opportunities appear only just before kickoff?

No: the median opportunity appeared 14.4 hours before kickoff in OddsFantasy's 16–20 October 2026 arbitrage feed.

In the same feed period, 13% appeared in the final hour and 24% more than two days ahead. Time until kickoff and time remaining in the feed are different measurements: an early appearance does not establish a long-lived listing. These aggregate figures also do not establish which kickoff window had the longest listing durations.

Can alerts help you catch short-lived arbitrage listings?

Alerts can help with discovery by bringing a listing to your attention without requiring repeated manual checks, but they do not reserve its odds.

OddsFantasy's Premium Telegram plan adds arbitrage alerts to value-bet alerts; the Classic Telegram plan provides high-EV value-bet alerts through @OFalert1_bot. Compare those options on the pricing page. OddsFantasy does not place arbitrage bets automatically: the user places each leg at the bookmakers.

The arbitrage finder compares odds across 50+ bookmakers, prediction markets, betting exchanges and sharp books, with fees and commissions deducted first. It shows each leg's bookmaker, selection and odds, together with the opportunity's return. That broader product coverage is separate from the named coverage of this five-day measurement.

What should you check after opening an alert?

Check the current prices, matching market terms and stake split before treating a listed opportunity as executable.

1. Confirm that every leg refers to the same event and compatible market settlement conditions.
2. Check the current odds and available stake on each venue rather than relying solely on the alert.
3. Use the arbitrage calculator to split stakes using the prices you can actually obtain.
4. Recalculate if a price changes, and distinguish submitted bets from accepted bets before placing another leg.

Fees, commissions and changed execution prices can consume the quoted margin; acceptance of one leg does not establish acceptance of the others. For combinations involving prediction markets, Polymarket Arbitrage: Is the Price Gap Actually Tradable? explores that execution question further. The useful role of an alert is earlier awareness, not evidence that all legs remain available.