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- Traditional pro-gamblers aim to find a value price, try and get 300 pounds on a horse, get told they can have 3 pence on, miss the price then drive themselves insane because they have missed the price. I look how horses trade from their Betfair SP compared to how they trade in running.
Professional gambler – two words that typically conjure up images of a sexy lifestyle, wads of cash and few working hours. The reality however, is much different. We tracked down UK based professional gambler Alex King (featured in the Racing Post) to get his take on what it takes to be successful, what shape the industry is in at present, and where it is headed.
Obviously, betting limits are a gripe for any successful punter and are the single biggest factor that can cap betting income potential. If you can beat Pinnacle you are elite, they are the most diligent, sharpest bookmaker around and due to that, they have the ability to absorb losses from profitable bettors. Our final tip here is very simple, and one that we urge you to follow. Sports betting should always be fun to some extent, even if your ultimate goal is to make money. Avoid sports betting becoming more of a chore than a choice by taking regular breaks. Being part of the team that helped bring sports betting to Pennsylvania, Atif actually took the first legal sports bet in Pennsylvania. Expertise: 'NFL is where I spend most of my time studying.' Advice to Beginners: 'Don't always default to just taking the better team. Taking teams plus points is more often a winner than a loser.
SBO:Hi Alex. How long have you been betting professionally?
AK:About 7 years.
SBO:Which sports do you mainly focus on?
AK:I focus on 2 sports; boxing and racing. Predominantly horse racing and a little bit of boxing. I think it is a fatal mistake to try and bet on too many things. You should be an expert in one field rather than try and split your focus on too many things. I would say two sports at the absolute max. The only reason I bet on boxing and racing is because boxing is relatively easy to keep a focus on. Splitting your forces is a big mistake and work/life balance is important.
SBO:What does your daily routine look like?
AK:I try and get up early and I will focus on 2 meetings a day tops. Traditional pro-gamblers aim to find a value price, try and get 300 pounds on a horse, get told they can have 3 pence on, miss the price then drive themselves insane because they have missed the price. I look how horses trade from their Betfair SP compared to how they trade in running. In layman's terms I'm looking to back a horse at say 3.00 on Betfair, in the expectation the horse will hit 2.00 and then either have a free bet, or take a guaranteed profit on the race. I'm treating horses like individual share prices now and what I am trying to do is to just predict how the market is going to go once the race goes in play. This saves me having to chase non-existent prices and call bookmakers who are unwilling to lay a bet because they are no longer confident that there pricing horse racing up correctly.
SBO:Where do you bet? Course/exchange shop/home etc.?
AK:I'm betting from home all the time now. I can concentrate and I don't lose research time through travelling. I keep in contact with others pro's over skype and email during the day. It's a little solitary, which is why it is so important to have good social connections outside of this game.
SBO:As we know, most punters fail to turn a profit, what would you say your edge has been to win consistently for so long?
AK:First of all I wouldn't recommend professional punting to too many people, unless you have a real flair and/or a huge desire to do it. As a very famous pro-punter told me once: ‘Gambling is the only business in the world where the better you get, the harder it is.' It's so true. Most punters fail to make a profit because of a number of factors. A lot of people are experts on racing, but ask them if they think a horse has a 50% chance or 30% chance of winning – they simply couldn't tell you accurately. You have to be able to evaluate a price better than the people setting the odds. You must also have a solid staking plan in place. If you can't get those two factors right, then you are in big trouble. You also need to be able to keep a cool head and not start gambling beyond your limits. If you really want to be a pro punter you have to be ready to put some serious, serious work into it. Success takes time. I have worked in the business for such a long time and have such a good grounding in it which has helped me more than anything. I also talk on a daily basis with pro-punters and that has helped to keep me in front. But I would honestly tell people to think very, very hard before embarking on this. If I had children and my son/daughter said they wanted to do this as a profession, I would do everything in my power to dissuade them.
SBO:Do you think the betting exchanges have had a positive or negative effect on being able to turn a profit?
AK:It's been a double edged sword. Firstly the idea of betting exchanges is a great one. Bookmakers hate them because they have made the market more competitive. Horse racing markets on Betfair are trading to 100.5% to 102%, which in terms of overround is a lot lower than fixed odds bookmakers. Bookmakers hypocritically bemoan the exchanges – I say hypocritically because you can't have accounts with the exchanges and still moan about them – because exchanges have smashed the bookmakers' monopoly somewhat. Exchanges have also given the punter the chance to be the layer, which is a service that only spread betting afforded you in the past. My criticism of Betfair, is that they have been allowed to monopolise the exchange market. This is completely against the interest of the consumer. There are several fixed odds bookmakers, if anyone of them decided they were going to impose a 'premium charge' then you simply go to another one. Exchanges are good, we punters just need more of them.
SBO:In ten years' time, what does the horse racing betting landscape look like for professional punters?
AK:I think it's bleak to be honest for several reasons. Firstly the generation that are into horse racing are a dying breed. Bookmakers are taking less and less money on the sport because the younger generation want to bet on football, golf and other sports. Racing is just not bringing in the big money for the bookmakers now. It' so hard to get bets on now, what will it be like in the future? If the government, correctly, takes the decision to heavily regulate the accursed fixed odds betting terminals – better still ban them, then the bookmakers will be forced to close shops. This will make it harder for the pro-punter as getting on in the shops is really the only way to get on nowadays. This is why I am taking my modus operandi away from the traditional methods.
SBO:What job would you liken being a professional punter to?
AK:I would say it is the poor man's stock exchange. It can definitely be likened to financial trading.
SBO:What would you change about the game?
AK:Have you got 10 years?! Very simply I would nationalise the entire betting industry in this country. You can argue against the nationalisation of the railways or energy suppliers, but I see no valid reason why the betting industry could not be nationalised and run effectively, with the profits going back into the public purse and not in the hands of private shareholders. The whole business has become a zero sum game for the punter. If the punter wins his accounts are closed down, if he loses he can do whatever he wants. So the bookmakers are running a service whereby they can only win. This would not happen if UK gambling was run along the same lines as the Tote system in France. Why should private shareholders, many of whom are using offshore tax havens, get rich from the sport when the profits could be going directly back to the public? This would also make sure that pro-punters could get their bets on without being restricted. I would also ban FOBTs (fixed odds betting terminals)
SBO:Would you ever consider going on the other side and becoming a bookmaker?
AK:Yes. But I would want to be a really old school bookmaker. Not one who is sitting there laying 2.75 when I can back a horse back at 3.00 on the exchanges. If I was going to be a bookie I would like to be one of those who were made from different cloth. Like Stephen Little, Bill Chandler, William Hill or a Freddie Williams. Bookmakers who were willing to stick a price up and live or die by their judgement. That appeals to me, but realistically I can't see myself with going that way.
SBO:How would you advise punters to improve their punting skills, specifically with horse racing?
AK:I believe in the validity of the saying: 'There is none so wise as the experienced.' I believe you should try and learn from people who have trodden this path. It may well be that in the future I will run some seminars and I have also written a book which is currently being considered for publishing which will be called: Betting on horses in-running. This isn't a self-serving plug on my behalf, but from my own experiences I learned first-hand from people who trod the path that I want to go down. If at all possible try and do the same. Talk to pro-punters and try to learn from them whether that be me, or someone else in the same business.
Gambler X is a professional sports bettor who makes his living betting legally in Las Vegas. He has agreed to share insights and experiences in the betting industry but prefers anonymity to keep his edge against the sportsbooks.
I am a professional gambler in my mid-30s, based in Las Vegas. Although I dabble in a variety of gambling ventures, sports betting is my bread and butter. For the past five years, it has been my family's main source of income, fed and clothed my children and allowed my wife to go back to school to finish her education. It has given me the type of personal and professional freedom that I try not to take for granted.
The life of a professional sports bettor is filled with worry. Imagine busting your butt all day, only to have the difference between a winning and losing day decided by a two-point conversion in a preseason game (that happened to me a couple of times this year). Sometimes those bad days turn into bad weeks, which turn into bad months .. which turn into bad years. It's impossible to not go at least a little crazy from time to time. It's basically a job requirement.
The worst part of it is that the day-to-day variance isn't my main concern anymore. What really keeps me up at night is the fear of losing my edge. I've been asked many times what my biggest fears are for the future of sports betting, and my answer is always the same: change.
Nevada was a bubble, and it was nearly impossible for a U.S. citizen to make a living betting sports (at least legally) unless he or she lived here. But with legalized sports betting now in five states (and counting), that change is here.
And I'm not happy about it.
I was 18 years old when I made my first sports bet. It was with a bookie (gasp) in the small midwestern town where I grew up. I was spending most of my days grinding away in an underground poker game, in which the only thing more common than a bookie was a broke degenerate trying to place a bet with him.
It didn't take me long to figure out that all the bookies were doing was adding a few points to all the local teams, just locking in value. But if you tried to take the other side, they would cut you off after a few bets. What's a young man trying to find an edge supposed to do?
My answer was to start taking bets myself.
I undercut the market by offering the same numbers as everyone else but not charging juice. By offering all my bets at even money, I quickly became the favorite bookie of every casual bettor in town.
It was a worthwhile venture, but it didn't make me rich by any means -- and I still didn't really understand much of anything about sports betting. I did understand that being a local bookie was a terrible way to try to make a living and that moving to Vegas to try to make a living being a professional gambler was probably not my best idea. But it had to be more fun than spending the rest of my life in a dreary midwestern town. And I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try to make it in Sin City.
My big break was that the one guy I knew who lived in Vegas had a similar idea and was already way more successful than I could ever dream of being. I was lucky that he was willing to show me the ropes and that I picked it up quickly. My earliest memory of being a pro sports bettor in Vegas is driving 40 minutes north of The Strip to pick off bad numbers at the then-independent Aliante sportsbook -- nearly every single afternoon.
Being a professional sports bettor is a lot more than just picking winners. It's about getting action down with casinos that actively go out of their way to deny your bets or ban you from the sportsbook entirely. It's about getting five figures on a game and not moving the line. It's about finding an edge and pushing that edge hard enough that you make a great living but not hard enough that the sportsbooks figure out where they are screwing up.
All of that might sound easy -- and to a certain extent it is in Vegas, where there are so many casinos and gamblers that it's easy to stay anonymous -- but it takes time and plenty of patience. And it has gotten harder in Vegas.
The number of sportsbooks here that offer mobile apps has basically tripled. And while my bet sizes have quadrupled, my edge has decreased. It's well documented that most books are banning winners, but my edge has decreased for other reasons. As much as everyone wants to make fun of them, sportsbooks are getting sharper. They are making fewer and fewer egregious errors and doing a better job of staying in line with the sharper overseas markets.
I used to be able to see a bet that was out of line with the market, hop in the car and go grab it with ease. Those days are long gone -- and will never come back.
Now that legal sports betting has spread to other states, there are more variables and more information to learn.
Legalization means more places for sharp bettors to sneak bets through without moving the market. More casinos sharing liquidity and information to stay one step ahead of bettors. More jurisdictions and hodgepodge shops where one is the majority owner, but lines are set by another, and software is provided by a third. It's just more stuff to make my life miserable.
And it means I've been traveling all over this summer on fact-finding missions.
I've visited Delaware, New Jersey and Mississippi to see how things are run. I traveled all over to test out the new markets. I pushed them hard. A lot of bets at max limits, just testing every place over and over again with the idea of trying to find some place outside of Nevada that would be sustainable for a professional bettor longer-term. I haven't been particularly impressed.
Pro Sports Gamblers
Take Dover Downs in Delaware, for example. The book is owned by the state lottery, and William Hill sets the lines and decides what bets to take for a very small percentage of profits. This strategy leads to dealing one-way lines, on which they are taking action on only one side and then banning anyone William Hill in Las Vegas deems likely to win money. If the State of Delaware is the primary beneficiary from the sports book, then shouldn't it be required to offer a fair system in which anyone can play?
In Mississippi, I mostly targeted MGM properties. The staff were friendly, and they took big bets with no issues. But as I suspected, they mostly mirror MGM Las Vegas' lines, so there is no real opportunity for me.
Professional Sports Gambler Advice Articles
And New Jersey? It was supposed to be the golden goose, but there have been several hiccups. Don't even get me started on the recent FanDuel fiasco.
For me, independent books that set their own lines and manage their own risk are the lifeblood of my business. They mean more chances to pick off bad lines, opportunities to arbitrage and more places I can go fire the same bet at the number I want. Of all my travels to the new states, the most disheartening thing to me was how few of those opportunities were out there.
AK:I think it's bleak to be honest for several reasons. Firstly the generation that are into horse racing are a dying breed. Bookmakers are taking less and less money on the sport because the younger generation want to bet on football, golf and other sports. Racing is just not bringing in the big money for the bookmakers now. It' so hard to get bets on now, what will it be like in the future? If the government, correctly, takes the decision to heavily regulate the accursed fixed odds betting terminals – better still ban them, then the bookmakers will be forced to close shops. This will make it harder for the pro-punter as getting on in the shops is really the only way to get on nowadays. This is why I am taking my modus operandi away from the traditional methods.
SBO:What job would you liken being a professional punter to?
AK:I would say it is the poor man's stock exchange. It can definitely be likened to financial trading.
SBO:What would you change about the game?
AK:Have you got 10 years?! Very simply I would nationalise the entire betting industry in this country. You can argue against the nationalisation of the railways or energy suppliers, but I see no valid reason why the betting industry could not be nationalised and run effectively, with the profits going back into the public purse and not in the hands of private shareholders. The whole business has become a zero sum game for the punter. If the punter wins his accounts are closed down, if he loses he can do whatever he wants. So the bookmakers are running a service whereby they can only win. This would not happen if UK gambling was run along the same lines as the Tote system in France. Why should private shareholders, many of whom are using offshore tax havens, get rich from the sport when the profits could be going directly back to the public? This would also make sure that pro-punters could get their bets on without being restricted. I would also ban FOBTs (fixed odds betting terminals)
SBO:Would you ever consider going on the other side and becoming a bookmaker?
AK:Yes. But I would want to be a really old school bookmaker. Not one who is sitting there laying 2.75 when I can back a horse back at 3.00 on the exchanges. If I was going to be a bookie I would like to be one of those who were made from different cloth. Like Stephen Little, Bill Chandler, William Hill or a Freddie Williams. Bookmakers who were willing to stick a price up and live or die by their judgement. That appeals to me, but realistically I can't see myself with going that way.
SBO:How would you advise punters to improve their punting skills, specifically with horse racing?
AK:I believe in the validity of the saying: 'There is none so wise as the experienced.' I believe you should try and learn from people who have trodden this path. It may well be that in the future I will run some seminars and I have also written a book which is currently being considered for publishing which will be called: Betting on horses in-running. This isn't a self-serving plug on my behalf, but from my own experiences I learned first-hand from people who trod the path that I want to go down. If at all possible try and do the same. Talk to pro-punters and try to learn from them whether that be me, or someone else in the same business.
Gambler X is a professional sports bettor who makes his living betting legally in Las Vegas. He has agreed to share insights and experiences in the betting industry but prefers anonymity to keep his edge against the sportsbooks.
I am a professional gambler in my mid-30s, based in Las Vegas. Although I dabble in a variety of gambling ventures, sports betting is my bread and butter. For the past five years, it has been my family's main source of income, fed and clothed my children and allowed my wife to go back to school to finish her education. It has given me the type of personal and professional freedom that I try not to take for granted.
The life of a professional sports bettor is filled with worry. Imagine busting your butt all day, only to have the difference between a winning and losing day decided by a two-point conversion in a preseason game (that happened to me a couple of times this year). Sometimes those bad days turn into bad weeks, which turn into bad months .. which turn into bad years. It's impossible to not go at least a little crazy from time to time. It's basically a job requirement.
The worst part of it is that the day-to-day variance isn't my main concern anymore. What really keeps me up at night is the fear of losing my edge. I've been asked many times what my biggest fears are for the future of sports betting, and my answer is always the same: change.
Nevada was a bubble, and it was nearly impossible for a U.S. citizen to make a living betting sports (at least legally) unless he or she lived here. But with legalized sports betting now in five states (and counting), that change is here.
And I'm not happy about it.
I was 18 years old when I made my first sports bet. It was with a bookie (gasp) in the small midwestern town where I grew up. I was spending most of my days grinding away in an underground poker game, in which the only thing more common than a bookie was a broke degenerate trying to place a bet with him.
It didn't take me long to figure out that all the bookies were doing was adding a few points to all the local teams, just locking in value. But if you tried to take the other side, they would cut you off after a few bets. What's a young man trying to find an edge supposed to do?
My answer was to start taking bets myself.
I undercut the market by offering the same numbers as everyone else but not charging juice. By offering all my bets at even money, I quickly became the favorite bookie of every casual bettor in town.
It was a worthwhile venture, but it didn't make me rich by any means -- and I still didn't really understand much of anything about sports betting. I did understand that being a local bookie was a terrible way to try to make a living and that moving to Vegas to try to make a living being a professional gambler was probably not my best idea. But it had to be more fun than spending the rest of my life in a dreary midwestern town. And I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try to make it in Sin City.
My big break was that the one guy I knew who lived in Vegas had a similar idea and was already way more successful than I could ever dream of being. I was lucky that he was willing to show me the ropes and that I picked it up quickly. My earliest memory of being a pro sports bettor in Vegas is driving 40 minutes north of The Strip to pick off bad numbers at the then-independent Aliante sportsbook -- nearly every single afternoon.
Being a professional sports bettor is a lot more than just picking winners. It's about getting action down with casinos that actively go out of their way to deny your bets or ban you from the sportsbook entirely. It's about getting five figures on a game and not moving the line. It's about finding an edge and pushing that edge hard enough that you make a great living but not hard enough that the sportsbooks figure out where they are screwing up.
All of that might sound easy -- and to a certain extent it is in Vegas, where there are so many casinos and gamblers that it's easy to stay anonymous -- but it takes time and plenty of patience. And it has gotten harder in Vegas.
The number of sportsbooks here that offer mobile apps has basically tripled. And while my bet sizes have quadrupled, my edge has decreased. It's well documented that most books are banning winners, but my edge has decreased for other reasons. As much as everyone wants to make fun of them, sportsbooks are getting sharper. They are making fewer and fewer egregious errors and doing a better job of staying in line with the sharper overseas markets.
I used to be able to see a bet that was out of line with the market, hop in the car and go grab it with ease. Those days are long gone -- and will never come back.
Now that legal sports betting has spread to other states, there are more variables and more information to learn.
Legalization means more places for sharp bettors to sneak bets through without moving the market. More casinos sharing liquidity and information to stay one step ahead of bettors. More jurisdictions and hodgepodge shops where one is the majority owner, but lines are set by another, and software is provided by a third. It's just more stuff to make my life miserable.
And it means I've been traveling all over this summer on fact-finding missions.
I've visited Delaware, New Jersey and Mississippi to see how things are run. I traveled all over to test out the new markets. I pushed them hard. A lot of bets at max limits, just testing every place over and over again with the idea of trying to find some place outside of Nevada that would be sustainable for a professional bettor longer-term. I haven't been particularly impressed.
Pro Sports Gamblers
Take Dover Downs in Delaware, for example. The book is owned by the state lottery, and William Hill sets the lines and decides what bets to take for a very small percentage of profits. This strategy leads to dealing one-way lines, on which they are taking action on only one side and then banning anyone William Hill in Las Vegas deems likely to win money. If the State of Delaware is the primary beneficiary from the sports book, then shouldn't it be required to offer a fair system in which anyone can play?
In Mississippi, I mostly targeted MGM properties. The staff were friendly, and they took big bets with no issues. But as I suspected, they mostly mirror MGM Las Vegas' lines, so there is no real opportunity for me.
Professional Sports Gambler Advice Articles
And New Jersey? It was supposed to be the golden goose, but there have been several hiccups. Don't even get me started on the recent FanDuel fiasco.
For me, independent books that set their own lines and manage their own risk are the lifeblood of my business. They mean more chances to pick off bad lines, opportunities to arbitrage and more places I can go fire the same bet at the number I want. Of all my travels to the new states, the most disheartening thing to me was how few of those opportunities were out there.
Professional Sports Gambler Tips
The manager at every sportsbook I visited is underqualified and doesn't make a move without checking with the bosses in Vegas first. They aren't really aware that for someone who does this for a living, one tiny mistake or moment of complacency can cost big time.
Best Sports Gambler
There are a few lucrative spots in these other states, but the cost to exploit them is so prohibitive that I'm better off crawling back to the desert and trying to gather the facts about the new and ever-changing environment.
Professional Sports Gamblers
That's just the glamorous life of a sports bettor.
