Advice needed from those with proper experience in gambling.

[moggy]

Mmmmmmm !
I've been gambling for years but to make regular money, the best way is trading. The advent of the betting exchange has given the punter a chance to become the bookie ,
If you're a beginner to trading, I'd recommend laying the draw on a footy game then backing it in play.
Encapsulating a margin from your back bet and your lay bet.
Good luck

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Reminds me of those escaped goats

That was class. Above 'Pre-madonna', but that one still makes me chuckle.

 

[perseus]

The only two people I knew who took this line ended up in jail. In one case it was the company they kept.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Is this a Jimbo-esque private message/FAO Mr Tony Bloom?

I think you'll find that the young Mr Bloom spent his time at university studying mathematics ... very closely.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Definitely finish uni - It is far better to finish it now and not need it than to drop out and find you need it later in life (which is more likely).

 

[HseagullsH]

I think you'll find that the young Mr Bloom spent his time at university studying mathematics ... very closely.

I'm studying maths at uni, perhaps I should keep it up, focussing on statistics!


This thread has made me re-think it then. I was sure more people made a living out of professional gambling. If it is as hard as those on here say then perhaps I have been getting a tad lucky.

I'm certain I could profit from gambling, but to profit the amounts I hoped for may be a bit out of my reach.

 

[SNOOBS]

Wait for your student loan to come in at least, then you can use those funds for gambling. You should definately quit uni though. The time you spend studying there is time you can spend making money on horses.

 

[HseagullsH]

Wait for your student loan to come in at least, then you can use those funds for gambling. You should definately quit uni though. The time you spend studying there is time you can spend making money on horses.

I have a slight feeling this is a sarcastic post. If not, please elaborate. It's easy enough to say 'leave uni and win money on the horses' but do you have any advice towards the strategies you yourself use?

 

[SeagullTim]

Trollolololol

 

[Tummy Burger]

Basically I need some advice.

This summer I have spent the last two to three months focussing on gambing, trying to take it as professionally as possible.

In this time I have made £2300, £1940 of that from tennis.


Now I want to do this full time, whilst just working part time ( I have a small job) about 10 hours a week to keep money ticking over.

However I'm meant to be starting my second year at university next week.

What's your advice?

The family don't particularly like the idea of me spending so much time gambling but can't argue against my results so far. They want me to continue university and if I want to keep the gambling up at uni then that's up to me.

Personally though, I don't think I can juggle both. My degree and university life keeps my very busy and I think the betting will turn out as just a casual thing (which almost certainly leads to a loss)

Argh!

OK, I will bite.

Answer : NO.

Quite some time ago, I was of the same thinking, but instead of being stupid and losing all my money ( I am actually quite risk averse ), I did what you need to do.... and that is :

Get the Excel spreadsheets out and log all your bets totally honestly without actually staking your money. List everything, dates, sport, odds, returns etc, and then calculate your yield figure. Professional gamblers will know exactly what yield figure they are returning. Do this for a year and see if you can return a profit. If you do this through betting or trading, makes no difference, but you need to know where you are profitable and where you are not.

There are a huge amount of people who would all have thought the same as you and come unstuck. Don't make the same mistake. Check out punterslounge forum. you can find plenty of strategies for various sports. You will notice they always quote their yield figure.

You would be amazed at just how accurate the bookmakers are at compiling the odds. I now only bet for fun on the football. I could make your head spin with the stats I have on the footy from a betting perspective, and how the suggested odds compare to actual results etc. Taking into account the bookies overound, they really are incredibly accurate.

You are correct in one thing though. It can take up a massive amount of time. Of course it doesn't if you are just your usual punter chucking money on something they fancy. I would suggest for the tiny amount of people who make a living from it, it would be a full time job.

Remember, you may think you are a bit smarter than the next guy. But there are some TOP TOP mathmaticians in the world that know exactly what they are doing. And that is essentially all it is..... a numbers game.

If trading is your thing then, as I have mentioned before, I would recomend you pop along to Bet Angel, which is an excellent piece of kit.

 

[cloud]

It may have been possible a few years back to make ££ with the likes of Betfair, but with today's software you can just get the computer to suss out any differences.

If you've got a mathematical mind, why not just go into trading/currencies/hedging/futures and get paid sh1tloads for doing that stuff all day. Think big, rather than trying to make a couple of grand here and there.

If you do that you will get proper training in how it's all done rather than re-inventing the wheel yourself.

Then if you really are a genius at it, quit when you've made your first couple of million and go it alone.

 

[The Maharajah of Sydney]

I'm a profesional trader - stock index & bond futures .
I started out over 28 years ago . The first 3 years I honed my skills
whilst being a paid employee of a broking firm .
After 3 years I'd learnt plenty through prop trading and had the confidence
and "bank" (small , but large enough to get started & ride out any early losses) to go it alone as a " local " .
I have the odd bet on sports but would never consider it a viable option to make a living out of it .
It's too hard , and all that dedicated form studying is really quite boring after a while - it becomes a grind .
Like others have mentioned , the trading side of sports betting is your only real chance in life to have a
crack at independence through gambling & speculation .
If any of the major bookmaking firms run Propierty Trading Desks i"d be applying for a position there .
Learn it from the pro's , save up some funds and if you ever think you're ready to take on the market ,
maybe then resign and give it a go .

 

[Vegas Seagull]

Get a copy of yesterdays Business section of the Sunday Times : 'Rock' article may as well been written for you...

 

[Max Paper]

but all the bets you post on here you lose, have you not noticed this yet??

 

[Brovion]

HseagullH: I used to know a man (a friend of my Dad's) who was a professional gambler. He used to work on a 2% margin, e.g. if he bet £100 he'd expect a return of £102 (i.e. win £2). Obvously not a single bet, that would be his expected return on a series of linked bets. It was all on horse racing (this was back in the 1970s) and he did it by studying a mixture of form and prices. He had his good streaks and bad streaks, some days, or even weeks, his return would be higher than 2% but sometimes he'd have a month where he'd be down overall. However over the course of a year he reckoned on a 2% overall return.

You say you've won £2300. Working on this man's principle that means your total stakes for that period should have been around £100,000. If they have been, then fair enough, give it a few more months and if you can keep it up then it maybe a decent 'career choice'. If on the other hand you've only staked about £20,000 (or less) then all you are is a lucky punter. You may THINK you're clever and that you've devised a foolproof system - but you're not and you haven't.

One other thing - this man never bet for fun and he had no interest in horses outside of a racecourse. You must take your football losses into account otherwise you're just fooling yourself, a bit like someone who says they 'won' £20 from a pub fruit machine and it turns out they put £25 in the previous night!

 

[Garage_Doors]

On the other hand though, my "income" would not exceed the threshold if I was a professional gambler therefore I wouldn't need to pay these loans back I guess.

If you think your gambling will not nett you a profit of more than the basic threshold of having to pay back you student loan then the Uni is the way to go as it would mean you would almost be on minimum wage for the rest of you life, is this your ambition ?

 

[8ace]

Wait for your student loan to come in at least, then you can use those funds for gambling. You should definately quit uni though. The time you spend studying there is time you can spend making money on horses.

This.

 

[clippedgull]

Get a copy of yesterdays Business section of the Sunday Times : 'Rock' article may as well been written for you...

Boffins’ wager on The Rock

Gibraltar-based statisticians have enabled William Hill to offer innovative betting on who will score next while matches are taking place


It is a brave man who tries to tell Jeffrey Pollock that the past is no guide to the future.

The 22-year-old Scot has been painstakingly punching data from nearly 4,000 rugby matches into his computer in the hope that the information will help him to predict results at this month’s World Cup.

He may be a sports fan who follows the travails of both Andy Murray and Livingstone FC, but this is no nerdy obsession. It’s a vital task for his employer — bookmaker William Hill.

Pollock’s work will allow the bookie to offer odds on any number of different events, such as who will score the next try or penalty kick — all while matches are taking place.

The popularity of these “in play” bets is behind the recent success of William Hill’s online arm which, like many of its rivals, is based in Gibraltar for tax reasons.

Last year, the amount staked in William Hill’s online sportsbook rose 57% while its gross win — takings after winning bets have been paid — jumped 95%, outstripping many of its competitors.

Having been one of the first bookies to launch on the internet in the 1990s, William Hill lost ground in recent years to rivals such as Paddy Power, Betfair and Bet365. But it is now fighting back, and City analysts regard it today as one of the industry’s top performers.

This is in no small part down to the contribution of twentysomethings such as Pollock, one of a cadre of youngsters recruited by William Hill since it moved its online sportsbook offshore in 2009.

A statistics graduate from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Pollock had considered a career in pensions before deciding bookmaking would allow him to combine his twin passions for sport and stats. “It’s the perfect job,” he said.

Traditionally, bookmakers had teams of odds-setters who would calculate the likelihood of certain events happening, such as who would score first, which team would win, and so on. But with the advent of in-play betting, life has got a lot more complex.

Taking those traditionally generated odds as a starting point and using the mounds of historical data Pollock and his team create algorithms that will determine the probability of which team will win, when the next try will be scored, and so on — while the match is under way.

The result of all that mathematics is that punters can bet all the way through a match, with the odds changing according to how events on the field unfold.

It is fiendishly complicated. Pollock reckons that it took 1.3m lines of old match data to create the algorithm for the rugby world cup odds.

It is not the maths side of the task that Pollock finds daunting. He is able to call on a theory of probability, dissected as a student, known as “Bayesian inference” to help with the odds-setting. Obtaining old sports data can be far harder.

“With some sports, such as football, a lot of research has gone into them. You can have a stab at something like that relatively quickly, but with something like gaelic football — it might take a while to model.”

It may all sound a little geeky, but Henry Birch, chief executive of William Hill Online since early 2009, has tried to foster a culture in Gibraltar more akin to an internet start-up than a venerable British bookie.

“Moving to Gibraltar has been one of the key reasons for our success,” he said. “We’ve been able to create a separate culture, a separate ethos and identity distinct from old-school William Hill.”

At the same time, he has been careful not to go too far the other way. After all, there is a reason that the British bookie has endured.

The Gibraltar office — in a building overlooking the harbour and shared by the likes of Betfred and Betfair — might not be filled with beanbags, ping-pong tables and the other accoutrements of the dotcom boom, but there are plenty of bright young graduates.

“If they have got raw talent in terms of intellectual horsepower and an interest in betting or sports, we can use them,” said Birch.

William Hill's Henry Birch has overseen the company's turnaround by using new technology (HO) His latest recruit fits the bill exactly. Jonathan Blackledge, a 26-year old with a geography degree from St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and six blues in athletics and cross-country running, joined William Hill’s new product development team last week.

Having delayed starting a career in law to concentrate on athletics, Blackledge had been making ends meet by publishing his own horseracing tipsheet, rekindling an interest in the sport that had been sparked when his dad took him to race meetings. It seemed only natural that he ended up scrapping law to try and make it in bookmaking instead.

He says his experience running a tipsheet will help with the new job. “It’s all about knowing what customers want to get from a product.”

Another on the development team is Alex Rutherford, a 29-year-old with the ace of spades tattooed on his right forearm — the result of an over-exuberant celebration after winning back-to-back poker tournaments as a student.

A scholar at London’s prestigious Westminster school, Rutherford began working in betting shops to earn beer money while studying at Edinburgh university and has parlayed that experience into a career.

Jamie Hart, head of the development team, said that students working part-time in the company’s betting shops are a prime source of talent. He said: “We try to trawl the shops — a lot of the guys were maths students in Leeds [where William Hill has an office].”

The bookmaker’s online arm has not always been such a success. In its first few years, it didn’t even own the williamhill.com web address — that was held by a California winery with the same name.

Despite promise during the first few years of the millennium, Hill was left behind by rivals. Newcomers such as Bet365 and Betfair, as well as old foes Ladbrokes, all produced stronger internet offers.

Things changed after Ralph Topping, a 38-year company veteran, took over as chief executive, and realised the internet arm needed an overhaul. In 2008, he formed a joint venture with Playtech, which provides software for the company’s casino and poker games, and a partnership with betting software provider Openbet.

These two relationships have provided the impetus for recent success, so much so that critics have questioned how much of the credit should be attributed to the bookmaker and how much to its partners.

This will become a crucial issue in 2013 when William Hill has the right to buy out Playtech from the partnership.

In the meantime, Birch insists the bookie has made a great deal of the running. “All our partners have played a part in William Hill Online’s success, but many of our competitors use the same platform providers as we do, and have not performed as well as us, so much of the credit has to lie within William Hill itself.”

Analysts are inclined to agree, particularly on the group’s sports betting arm. “I think William Hill deserves a huge amount of credit,” said James Hollins of Evolution Securities. “They have really focused on what makes a great website — competitive pricing, in-running, live streaming and so on.”

David Loveday, chief executive of Openbet, said that the shift in thinking comes from the top. “Ralph really understands the technology. People saw William Hill as a stuffy old bookmaker, but it’s at the cutting edge of creative thinking.”

That creativity was in full flow last week. Hart and his team are working on trying to add Twitter-like features to the website.

This will see punters attract followers, the idea being that the more successful your bets, the more followers you are likely to draw. Those with the most followers might even collect a small slice of any winning bets placed by those followers, based on their tips.

Another development involves a Deal or No Deal-type set-up where punters with multiple bets can cash in their wagers early for a lesser payout if they want to quit while they are ahead. “We’re working on that with the algorithm guys,” said Hart.

It seems Pollock is going to have his hands full for a while.

 

[Gazwag]

Right so you have made £2300 in three months, £766 a month.

Your part time income I guess is what £260 a month, so that's a grand a month to live on.

OK whilst you live at home with mum and dad but that will just about pay for your rent and some food - hardly exciting - and that's when you are winning, what's going to happen during the inevitable losing streak.

 

[Jim D]

I have not met any pro-s who have made wedge on anything else other than Horses and Poker. Tennis seems flukey to me but if hes got an angle good, but if the bookies see it they will kill it.

I'm sure that Harry Findlay had his first big wins betting on Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. He caught Fed at the start of his big winning streak and just kept backing him - even at massive odds-on. He saw something in Tiger at one of the majors and had as much as he could get together on him at the next one - which he won.