Betfair Professional
The following appeared on the Betfair forum recently.
One year as a professional gambler
The first week of March last year I left work to go full time, and
one year on, I’d like to put this thread up as perhaps some people may
find it helpful.
Being a gambler is not something I ever expected to become. The advent
of the Internet, and the exchanges, have changed my life (for now)
dramatically. I still can’t quite believe its been just twelve months,
but I for one have a lot to thank Andrew Black and Ed Wray for.
The twelve months started fairly badly after nearly being killed in a
car crash in Puerto Del Carmen, Lanzarote. That was a bit of a
disappointment. However, on return to the UK, I had two or three very
successful months, until suddenly I was hit by a double whammy. I had
originally been winning on three different types of market, and suddenly
overnight became a big loser on two of them. At the same time I had
been guilty of expanding my own lifestyle and expectations (in a very
human, but perhaps unwise way), and had also spent a third of my bank
buying (music) recording studio equipment – the one thing which I’d
always dreamed of having.
Losing half of my remaining bank in the space of a fortnight last June
left me in deep trouble, and it looked like I was in danger of having
made a massive mistake. There was one point where I had one final bet
(not a huge one though) where I promised myself if it lost to stop and
never bet ever again. It did end up winning. I asked Gamcare for advice,
who were very helpful. When gambling messes up your sleeping, as well
as your waking hours, it is a crushing realisation that you are in a
mess.
There are no evening classes, A-levels, or MBAs in gambling. There are a
small band of hardcore professional gamblers, nearly all of them at
least partially on Betfair, who are literally some of the sharpest minds
there are. Any amounts on any market above £100 are likely to be bets
placed up there by one of them. They are equally as talented at gambling
as a top barrister or doctor would be at their trade. Nobody walks into
a courtroom and decides to be a top lawyer for the day, nor operate in
theatre at the local hospital. The difference with betting is that
everyone can (and most do) have a bet. What can be much simpler than
having £10 on Manchester United to win a football match?
Last June (only three months after leaving work), I was in fairly heavy
trouble. I had a certain level of my bank which I had set as a level I
would try to never go below. When it reached that level, it looked like
taking the gamble on becoming a gambler was one I was on the brink of
losing.
At that point, the advice I received from another gambler changed
everything. I was in contact with a number of people, mainly originally
through Betfair’s forum, but one of them I hold my hat off to, and have
an enormous gratitude to, and respect for (you know who you are
guv'nor). I managed to cross over and adapt my skills across a wide
range of markets/sports, so that I had degrees of success in new areas. A
key part of remaining a pro is the ability to adapt to a constantly
changing market. You literally have to run to stand still to be
successful in as fiercely competitive an environment as Betfair.
Winning money through betting is paradoxically something I feel very
uncomfortable with morally. Are there people on the other side of these
bets who are risking more than they can afford to lose? All the money
originally deposited into Betfair has at some stage been earned in an
office, a factory, a checkout, forecourt or salon. Much of it has real
blood sweat and tears behind it. It makes me incredibly sad to read the
figures from the big 3 that they have around 200,000 customers a year
losing an average of £3,000 a year into FOBT’s, as reported on a number
of threads on the General Betting forum. One of my ex-girlfriends had
only come to England with her mother many years ago, after her father’s
gambling addiction took their family to financial and emotional ruin,
and her parents separated. There are real human beings out there who
become just further statistics to fall by the wayside in the current
pro-gambling British culture.
There’s always the hope that if you do win, it’s off a rich city trader,
who is punting silly money for fun. Betfair has a very small number of
seriously big winners (of which I am not one), but very few if any big
losers. It has a vast legion of small losers. A football match can be
more fun with a bet having been placed on it. The people who gamble for
entertainment (whether they win or lose), as an enjoyable hobby to
complement an already balanced life are perhaps the real winners. Given
to this group of its customers, it is the better value and accessibility
to a product they enjoy, that is perhaps Betfair’s greatest success.
For every 100 winners in a calendar year, many of them will fall by the
wayside the following year. One of the most famous posts on this forum
has been ‘The Story of Ster’, who went from being a big winner to
someone whose methods became horribly outmoded, and he found himself
deceiving his family about his gambling problems. According to his last
post he found happiness and support from his loved ones. For every
passage of time, past present and future, there will be a number who are
crushed through indiscipline/addiction/chasing/recklessness and/or
greed.
A year full time feels like a lifetime. Gambling is neither a hobby nor a
job, it is a lifestyle. One thread on here has had a user called TETO
setting a target of £50 a day, whilst another has a user called
‘Doubled’ seeking to make £25,000 a year. Everyone starts gambling with
£1’s and £2’s, and if they are good, that progresses to fivers, tenners,
fifties, and then hundreds. There are people who bet tens of thousands
of pounds per football match, horse or rugby team on Betfair, without
blinking an eyelid. If you have two gamblers, one of them 5% better than
the other, one could realistically make £20,000 a year from it, the
second one could make £70,000. The difference between earning £26,000 a
year in the workplace, and £32,000 a year could be four or five years’
hard graft and promotion. A small difference in gambling skill can make
an astronomical difference to the bottom line here though. The real
shrewdies who use Betfair make about 10% profit on turnover, with a
fairly astonishing turnover level by any layman’s standards.
There is no security in the future of any gambler, bar their own ability
to stash away whatever they can for a rainy day. I am 26, and I know
that when I do go back into the workplace (something I hope to do) it
will be at the bottom rung again. Each year spent as a full timer
doesn’t knock off a year of your real career at the bottom end of the
ladder, it knocks off one of the best years at the end of it. It is
quite a heavy burden for me, when most of my peers are doing well and
forging ahead as
consultants/analysts/bankers/lawyers/accountants/actuaries. Only
hindsight will let me know if I did actually make the right decision at
this stage in my life.
I’d like to put forward my own opinions of the kind of people who I
think would make successful pro gamblers. Every school boy wants to be
captain of the football team, or seeing the prettiest girl in the
school. I was neither, just a quiet studious swot who probably annoyed
people by continually beating everyone in the exams, as well as probably
other various nerdy and equally nefarious activities. Pets don’t win
prizes, geeks do. If you can remember the class genius/nerd, I don’t
think you’re cut out to be a winner on Betfair. If you were the nerd,
you have a chance. As I said before, nobody expects to turn up and be a
brilliant doctor or lawyer, but everybody likes to have a punt, and most
are happy to bet until they’ve done their cobblers.
I’ve personally written two specific programs/models which have proved
invaluable on certain markets. One has half a million variables. The
other I’m incredibly proud of, and wouldn’t sell for 30k. Winning at
gambling is extraordinarily hard to do consistently, and it takes an
armoury of graft, skill and discipline to succeed. The technical skill
and wizardry behind some of the API programming is itself several steps
up from a relatively small fish like me.
Nobody is ever a real winner from gambling until the day they cash in
their chips, and leave the casino. There are gamblers throughout history
who have won millions, and lost it all back. If somebody asked me if it
can be done, could I truthfully say ‘yes’? I’m not sure that I could. I
could easily be one of the hundred pros who whilst being successful for
the last year, may fall by the wayside over the next. There is no
tragedy in that – all that a man can ask for in life is the freedom to
live by the sword, and you can only do that if it’s possible to die by
the sword if you fail.
Starting out as a full timer is not something I would recommend to
almost any other person (out of a sense of moral responsibility, not
attempted protection of an imaginary part of some imaginary pot of
gold). It has been the most astonishing learning curve, and in my first
few months I experienced both sustained exhilaration and sustained
depression. Gambling success is a fickle mistress, with incredible runs
of both victories and defeats entwined illogically by fate. Value is
all-important – not winners. That’s the first lesson to any gambler, and
one which the majority don’t ever start to comprehend. The secret is
not getting more heads than tails, its winning more when a coin comes up
heads than you lose when it’s tails.
To be a real pro, gambling ends up becoming almost like a form of
accountancy, with a good staking plan, and calculation of value as and
when it arises. I no longer have any thrill whatsoever from winning or
losing a bet.
It has been an amazing twelve months, and I am very fortunate to have
been successful for now. I’m sorry if some of this thread comes across
as arrogant – it’s all genuine from this side. Some people reading this
will be thinking about going pro, and I’m sure other people will be
reading too. If you do go pro, then try to remember how much of a
rollercoaster emotionally it can be especially at first. Have a level of
your bank which you will not go below, and promise yourself you won’t
go below it. Then make sure you keep that promise. If I’ve learnt
anything its how unimportant money is, and how precious the people
around you are.
I hope some of this helps other people. There’ll be another geek out
there like me who is at the stage I was at a year ago. I hope everyone
finds fulfilment and happiness, which is much more than gambling in
itself will ever have to offer.
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