Troubleshooting

Why am I losing money if my bets are +EV?

Positive expected value is a long-run statement, not a per-bet guarantee. Any single +EV bet can lose — that is normal variance, not a sign that the edge is wrong. What SmartStake surfaces is a modelled average: a 3% EV bet returns roughly three cents per dollar staked across a large enough sample. Over twenty bets or fifty bets it can look like nothing is working. Over several hundred bets, a genuine edge becomes visible in your profit curve.

If you are early in your sample and sitting at a loss, the most useful thing to do is check the Bet Tracker to confirm your bets were actually +EV at the time you placed them. If they were, stay the course. If you are concerned about the math behind expected value, Expected value & +EV betting walks through why the long run is what matters.

The edge disappeared when I clicked through to the book

Odds move fast. SmartStake scrapes prices approximately every four seconds, but the line at the sportsbook may have already moved by the time you open the book. A very large EV — one that looks too good to be true — is almost always a stale line: the sharp market moved and the book has not caught up yet, or it has caught up by the time you arrive. This is documented in the Positive EV table guide.

If you arrive at the book and the price has worsened, you have two options: accept the new odds if they are still +EV according to the fair price shown, or skip the bet and let the feed refresh. Never place a bet at a price worse than fair just because you already have the tab open.

Only one tab opened when I clicked the arb button — or neither opened

The "Open Both Books" button (labeled 2X) calls window.open on both sportsbook URLs at the same time. Browsers block this behaviour by default. If only one tab opened, or neither opened, your browser's pop-up blocker is the cause.

To fix it in Chrome, click the blocked-pop-up icon at the right end of the address bar and select Always allow pop-ups and redirects from smartstake.app. In Safari, use the browser window button at the right of the address bar to manage the setting. Once you have allowed pop-ups for SmartStake, the button opens both tabs in a single click as intended. SmartStake also displays a step-by-step dialog automatically if it detects that a tab failed to open.

For a full walkthrough of placing each leg quickly once both tabs are open, see Placing both sides.

A bet graded wrong — how do I fix it?

The autograder covers moneyline, spread, total, player over/under, and combo props like PRA. Occasionally it produces the wrong result — because the book graded you differently, a dead heat applied, or you accepted a cashout.

You can override any wager manually. Open the wager options and choose Settle Manually. Enter the correct result (Won, Lost, Push, or Void) and the net profit. A manual override is sticky: the autograder will not touch that wager again. If the error looks like a data problem rather than a one-off book quirk, use Flag as Incorrect (desktop) or Report Incorrect (mobile) to submit it to SmartStake for review. Use the manual override in the meantime so the wager settles correctly while the issue is investigated.

Full details on statuses and overrides are in Bet grading & outcomes.

The data looks stale — prices are not updating

SmartStake scrapes odds approximately every four seconds, with Pinnacle refreshing on a slightly longer cycle of around twenty seconds. The UI auto-refreshes approximately every 2.5 seconds in live mode. In pregame mode, the refresh cadence is configurable: you can set it to manual, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, or 60 seconds in the settings panel.

If the feed looks frozen, check whether you are in manual-refresh pregame mode and have not yet triggered a refresh. If the stale appearance persists across a full browser reload, it may be a connection issue on your end. A hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac) clears any cached state.

I am not seeing any bets — the feed is empty

An empty feed almost always means the filters are too narrow. Common culprits:

• Sportsbooks filter — if you have not selected any books, or your selected books are not active in your current location, no bets will appear. Open Choosing your sportsbooks to confirm your book list is set and matches your state or province.
• EV floor too high — if the minimum EV slider is set aggressively, there may simply be no qualifying bets at that threshold right now. Lower the floor and see if bets reappear.
• Filters too tight — a narrow market or league selection combined with an EV floor can easily produce zero results. Temporarily widen your filters one at a time to find the bottleneck.
• Wrong location — your location setting controls which books are even visible to you. If your location is set to a state or province where you do not have accounts, the book list may be mismatched.

The Positive EV filters guide covers every filter in detail. If you have verified your filters and still see nothing, check whether you are on a free account — some books and live odds require a Premium plan, described in Free vs premium.

A bet looks wrong — how do I report it?

If an opportunity on any bet tool looks off — the price is stale, the selection or line is mislabelled, or the bet is no longer at the book — you can flag it for the SmartStake team. Every bet card carries a flag icon in its action row. On desktop it also appears in the quick-action popover that shows when you hover a card; on mobile it sits alongside the other actions when you open the bet's detail view. Tapping it opens the Report bet form, which works the same way across Positive EV, Arbitrage, Smart Money, Insiders, and Fantasy.

Pick the reason that fits:

• Odds are delayed — the price shown lags what the book is actually offering. This is the same stale-line effect described above; report it if a book seems to be consistently behind rather than a one-off.
• Bet is wrong or incorrect — the selection, line, or market is mislabelled.
• Bet doesn't exist — the bet is no longer available at the book.
• Other — anything else. A short description is required here so we know what to look into.

You can add optional details on any reason. Submitting sends the report — along with the full details of the bet you were viewing and the tool you found it on — to the SmartStake team. You will not get an automated reply, but every report is read.