Well not quite,my work contract expired 2 months ago ( biomed2 at hospital) had worked there for the past 3 years, so i was left with the horrible prospect of looking for a job in these suspect times. I worked as a locum for a couple of weeks but didnt fancy the travelling. So officially as of the start of this month im umemployed or selemployed whatever way you wish to look at it !
after carefull consideration for about a week and long convo's with close friends and guys in business im going to give gambling a try strictly as a job and not pleasure. I have set myself guidelines basic rules if you like to be honest most of which work on a strict bankroll quite similar to ones i used when i played poker a while back. After 2 and a bit weeks i have made a profit no where near to what i would have made had i been working but my theory and goals are such that im not in a race to make profit at that level. I can say with some confidence that i have really found it though going over the past two weeks now i dont know if thats down to a dramatic routine change the inate psychological effects of knowing that money wagered and outcomes needed to make money,i keep myself ocupied by waking up at a similar time to my usual work hours and go to the gym for 2-hour work out, eat healty and have taken up tennis and golf at my local clubs.
Over the next couple of week i'll let you guys know what iv been getting up to and give you some of my main bets that im taking during the week.
Cheers chaps !
o and please wish me the best of gunna need it.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: kassahype,
You're a better gambler than me to want to make a living out of it - I'm comfortably in my zone betting C-notes, there's no way I could handle bigger bets!
Make sure you do stop by and update the thread with your trial, tribulations and successes - I'm sure many would find it intersesting and illuminating !
I found myself in pretty much the same situation back in January. I used to work in financial and media research and but decided to work as a sports trader cos it seemed fun. It was fun even if I had to take a substantial pay cut. But late last year I lost that job (traders jobs were just about the hardest ones to keep in Q4 2008) and found myself with a lot of thinking to do over the Christmas holidays).
I came back to the UK from my native France in January and started looking for jobs but the market was terrible!! So instead of sitting on my arse waiting for the phone to ring and see my reserves of cash dwindling, I decided to play poker for a living. In fact it wasn't really a decision at this stage, since I was winning as a recreational player I though trying to make a few bucks from poker was the natural thing to do. So just like you, as a result of losing my job, I de facto became a pro player.
I still did a bit of temping in January but since I booked 6K in profits that month, I gave up doing or even looking for any outside work and concentrated on making money at the poker table from February.
And looking back at the fun I've had, I think I made the right decision. I really enjoy the challenge as well as the flexibility and independence it provides.
The flip side of it is the depression of the inevitable downswings, the sedentary lifestyle and the social isolation that comes with being an online grinder. As a punter it won't be as bad but you'll likely experience something similar.
Money management and motivation are key here. There are days where you don't wanna work but you know you should. Also there's no more gambling here. As a recretional punter or poker player, you can gamble all you want and have fun, as a pro you can't gamble!!
To fund my student days I began betting seriously mainly on Football, but also horses and Tennis. Had about a 12% yield p/year, which isnt the best but was enough to pay the rent and a few good nights out.
I got some techniques and tips from an absolutely fantastic book (recommended by Goonersguide.com I seem to recall) its called 'The definitive guide to betting on sport' heres the amazon link:
Its written by a guy called Bruce Millington who gave up a decent job in finance to become a professional gambler. I'd highly recommend it as an easy to read, no-nonsense approach to winning money.
yeah best of luck mate! Good to hear you are more than aware of the main things like discipline. You can no longer bet for fun because it has to 100 percent serious, unless you can allow yourself a side bankroll for fun. I have always wanted to be a pro gambler but gambling for fun is something that would halt it fast. I just enjoying watching games with bets on them, obviously i would LIKE to win, but never do i NEED to win. Best of luck once again and keep us posted, and if it gets tough you have some mates here to have a chat with. Peace mate
Posts: 190 | Location: Australia | Registered: 28 August 2009
Cheers lads thanks for the support, well this week has been fairly good for me i made combined profit of more than the intial two weeks total. I try not to watch the games anymore at first i figured it would be benifical as i might me able to figure out form etc.. so i decided to invest in a large lcd so i could link up to my pc and watch most of the sport events online.. but to be quite honest i feel exhausted after watching so much tv so now i just check the results at the end of the day.
My best return was from the Patriots v Buccaneers match Pats on - 15.5 @ 1.91
For my next bet probably the only one until the next round of weekend football fixtures :
India v Australia 2nd ODI --- India to win @ 2.10
Nagpur has usually been a good venue for the indians and plus with news coming in that the aussies hav a few injuries coming into this match Brett lee is a concern and Mitch johnson twisted his ankle in the first game but carried on bowling at lower speed's. In reallity the aussies should have won comfortably in that match but the indian tail managed to push the game to the limit partly due to shane watson's horrible last spell, the indians will get confidence from that game It's the perfect time for the indians to bounce back straight away.
In 2007 series v Austrlia at this ground the aussies won by 18 runs even with a few players missing out of this indian team they still should be considered slight favoutites here.. Yuvraj should be back and they will probably opt for Munaf Patel instead of P kumar who was terrible in the first game.
From my calculations anyone wanting to clear 20,000 profit a year with a respectable roi of 5.0%, needs to have an annual turnover of 400,000 which breaks down to about 8000 per week, or if you can find 2 good bets per day about 600 per bet.
Don't forget to keep note of everything, records, why you took certain odds, opening lines and odds, closing lines and odds, market overrounds, etc, that knowledge will be unvaluable in the future.
Posts: 226 | Location: Portugal | Registered: 08 September 2009
Not wanting to be a doom and gloom merchant but ...
There is now way you can make any dependable income from betting unless you have an angle.
That is just a fact.
To do so you have to basically be able to judge probabilities better than the market. With the advent of betfair, and its effect of straightening out anomilies in prices, you are talking about you having better knowledge and judgement than pretty much the sum of all the betting public.
If you dont have an angle (ie advantage knowledge or jusgement) then its worse than a toss of the coin as markets are not even 100%.
Added to that, it is stressful, zero security, absolutely no "life enhancing" side benefits, lonely, etc etc.
Good luck all the same but I do think you will waste years of your life before you realise its not practical.
Sure, bet away if the difference is between a holiday in the Bahamas or a holiday in Cleethorpes or new TVs and whatnot .. but long term and to depend on it ... it will end in tears unless you have either an angle in certain markets or a lot of luck.
This seems very harsh from natrass but it is also very true and realistic. Some years back I did just under 100 bets in 10 months or so and was very disciplined betting only on home win singles with average odds of around 1.7. At first my yield was pretty high but (as suspected) it want down as time passed and when I stoped at bet ninety something, due to extreme boredom and lack of discipline, it was around 12%.
Of course I am not a professional punter and 100 bets in a year is not very much but I think this still gives a clue about how difficult it is acheving a good yield betting only on soccer. Mind you, I have no idea what you can get by betting on other events than soccer pretty much.
In another thread I started yesterday I asked how much yield it is possible, realisticly, to make on soccer betting and the replies are quite interesting.
I can´t really see how you are to make a living out of this unless you have a large amount of capital to begin with. And you can also ask, if you would have that high amount to begin with, then is maybe a 5-10% yield worth the hard work?
And of course, no one should even think of starting such a run by taking a loan for it.
btw .. 100 bets a season is good practice. I bet less than that and it is so much more profitable to keep your powder dry.
That said, its mainly Newcastle ... been a real godsend the last thirteen months ... bookies dont know what to and as I know the players, support, can get news quicker than most, etc and I know club inside out (I dont work there though!!) so I am able to confidently take them on.
Only had two losers (0-0 vs Bristol City and 2-2 vs Man City last season season) in 16 big bets at often great odds so their turmoil has had its upside.
Originally posted by natrass: Not wanting to be a doom and gloom merchant but ...
There is now way you can make any dependable income from betting unless you have an angle.
That is just a fact.
To do so you have to basically be able to judge probabilities better than the market. With the advent of betfair, and its effect of straightening out anomilies in prices, you are talking about you having better knowledge and judgement than pretty much the sum of all the betting public.
If you dont have an angle (ie advantage knowledge or jusgement) then its worse than a toss of the coin as markets are not even 100%.
Added to that, it is stressful, zero security, absolutely no "life enhancing" side benefits, lonely, etc etc.
Good luck all the same but I do think you will waste years of your life before you realise its not practical.
Sure, bet away if the difference is between a holiday in the Bahamas or a holiday in Cleethorpes or new TVs and whatnot .. but long term and to depend on it ... it will end in tears unless you have either an angle in certain markets or a lot of luck.
Hey thanks for your comment, i take on board what you say i have my own system of betting, sounds like you speak from experience.. I make no where near the amount of bets you refer to my bets range from 1 or 2 bets per week, for example past week i took india in the second ODI and stakes 5 % of my roll and it brought back a healthy return. Now i wait for the Haye v Valuev bout for my next bet next week. Ihave invested a lot of capital from the start and targets are way differnt to ones where i need to earn a living off this immediately or in the near future.
My main bets are made on boxing events and cricket matches ( the longer format ODI or tests ) I suppose everyone has their own methods and opinons on this topic so im not going to sit here and say right or wrong but what's fact is there are plenty of pros that have and are making a healthy living off this and on the flip side plenty that lose all their income and saving through indisipline,varity betting and supporting emmo favoutres, im just trying something i have wanted to do and considered for a long time.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: kassahype,
Always good to see people turning pro and I wish you the best of luck Kassahype, I've got a couple of questions for you though;
How many bookies do you use? And which ones, if you don't mind me asking. There's a lot of discrepancies between bookie's prices, and if you're getting into the realms of professional punting I think the 0.05% or more per bet increase in prices you find from using multiple bookies would prove very important. As obviously, for every 10 winning bets it's a 0.5% yield increase.
What are your yield targets? And how are you going go about literally withdrawing money from your betting accounts into your bank account? Because the way I see it, if you're going to make a serious living out of this, you can't just withdraw ALL of your profit each week or month because then your bank will never grow. So do you take 75% of your profits and as it were "invest" the remaining 25% into increasing your bank and therefore increasing your real, monetary profit in the long run?
I'd also be very interested to hear your staking criteria mate, as again when you're getting into the area of serious betting I think it's the most important thing there is.
Now, this one's for everyone, this only 100 bets, or 1 or 2 bets per week business, I can't say I get it to be honest. For instance, I read and soak up a huge amount of information on a variety of sports across a week and I think to myself a lot of the time; "ooo, that would make a good bet etc." and I may or may not put this bet on and if I don't I end up feeling frustrated if it turns out to be a "good bet" whether it wins or not.
To avoid this, I tend to note down any of these little bets I think of and then evaluate them more closely and decided whether or not to place the bet and I've found this to be a much more profitable system.
Now another for everyone, is there ANY point in betting on the EPL? For argument's sake, say you do an hour of homework "per league" before you place bets. The bookies take the majority of their money on the Premiership in terms of football and spend hours and hours setting their odds for the premiership, with a team of many people. Do they do the same for League Two? Or the Conference? Or the French leagues? Of course not. Now to me, this is the "angle" that's mentioned earlier because if you spend your "hour" of homework on these other leagues you're pitting yourself, against one trader rushing to get his odds done for these minor leagues in turnover terms. What's everyone's thoughts on this?
So, in my view it's more about you have to speculate to accumulate in this business, particularly as I believe, to be profitable, average odds of round 1.70 to 2.20 are needed.
Jesus, I know this is a long message but the subject of seriously betting intrigues me hugely, so feel free not to answer all the questions!
Originally posted by Musuko: is there ANY point in betting on the EPL? !
Totally agree.
Someone posted a Hereford tip this w/e which was bang on .. you just dont get those in the EPL as everyone would drag the price down whereas lower league games the prices are a lot more varied from bookie to bookie.
I said in the weekend thread that no one should bet on the Villa / Everton game because there is simply no money in it.
That said Evertons price dropped a lot from 2.5 to 2.2 ... I still havent a clue where everyones confidence was coming from but people get sucked in I guess.
Originally posted by Musuko: is there ANY point in betting on the EPL? !
Totally agree.
Someone posted a Hereford tip this w/e which was bang on .. you just dont get those in the EPL as everyone would drag the price down whereas lower league games the prices are a lot more varied from bookie to bookie.
I said in the weekend thread that no one should bet on the Villa / Everton game because there is simply no money in it.
That said Evertons price dropped a lot from 2.5 to 2.2 ... I still havent a clue where everyones confidence was coming from but people get sucked in I guess.
There is nothing special with that Hereford tip (no offence meant). It was just one tip that was a good call. Show me a good trend with many correct tips - then i will salute the punter. Don´t misunderstand me, please do post here if you think you have a good tip , just remember there isn´t really anything special about getting it right here and there.
As to the Everton-Vila game it isn´t really surprising that money was going on Everton. Evenely matched teams, both have been a bit shaky, and given the fact that around 50% of matches in the epl end in a home win, betting on Everton really wasn´t that wrong at all, even though you would only do it to spice up the excitement if you were watching the game.
Originally posted by Musuko: Always good to see people turning pro and I wish you the best of luck Kassahype, I've got a couple of questions for you though;
How many bookies do you use? What are your yield targets?
And how are you going go about literally withdrawing money from your betting accounts into your bank account?
I'd also be very interested to hear your staking criteria mate, as again when you're getting into the area of serious betting I think it's the most important thing there is.
Thanks for the support sir, to answer your first question i have multiple accounts with a number of sportsbook sites eg Wills,VC bet, Canbet, B fair, 365 pluss paddy and a few others in my experience odds for many makets can vary a substantial amount. My yield targets are pretty high i aim to have a ROI of a 10 % within the first quartly period btw i would prefer not to indulge in specific figures of how much i have invested in this venture.
After this weekend's boxing event i will try and post up a detailed break down of my system and how i plan to manage my bank roll and maybe you guys and give me some tips as to how to improve it and where the flaws are. A typical maximum stakes bet for me would be 5 % of my entire bankroll and at no given time will i stake more than 5 % of my roll so i can't be in the position that i have two single's on the same day with a combined max stakes on both. To date i have placed four * 1.5 %, one * 2% and one 5 % stake bets resulting in 4 : 2 win :loss ratio thus far.
Regarding withdrawls from accounts i opened a new bank account which contains my roll that ill be working with all winning's from all accounts are transfered to the bank accounts immediatly after bets are settled.
I'll try my best to give you the correct breakdown of the maths behind the system im using after the weekend which is going to be a huge one for me i'll be using a proffesional boxing pundit to help give me a few tips and find some sort of edge on the casino on the main bout and some undercard fights depending what markets are on offer.
Originally posted by cornholio: Show me a good trend with many correct tips - then i will salute the punter.
And its easier to "get a trend" in the EPL?? Its not I think, because the info on this trend is picked up by so many more people so the price reacts so much faster.
Lower leagues ... well, how often do you see a 1.4 or even 1.55?? You do get more generous prices for taking a position on games I think.
Well the time is nearly upon us this weekend I feel there is an excellent opportunity to beat the casino's on the Valuev and Haye fight the casino have installed David Haye as the -200 fav Valuev is a +160 underdog.
Going off Valuev subpar performance against Holyfield I feel Valuev has been given this underdog status, we must forget that Haye last fought in Nov 2008 yep that’s nearly a year! So I think it’s fair to say he hasn’t really been active.
I strongly like Valuev to win this fight.. Haye does not have the defensive or survival skills like the men that have gone the distance with Valuev. People are really getting fooled due to the fact that Valuev couldn’t KO an old Holyfield or what the general media talk about. Evander Holyfield even as old as he is, is a very highly skilled defensive fighter let me just recap he fought Lennox Lewis twice and never hit the canvas and he also fought Mike Tyson twice never hit the canvas, Holyfield knows all the tricks and is a past and present master on how to prevent serious injury and can fight effectively from the outside and tie up on the inside with bigger or stronger guys.
Haye and many other fighter's feel and the majority arm chair boxing fan feel that Nic Valuev is simply too slow and opponents can just come in and use offensive skills and move around the ring and win the fight, people should use the Valuev v Monte barret fight as evidence this is the same Monte barret who lost to David Haye in his last fight. Against Valuev Monte barret couldn’t prevent being hit from the Valuev jab what people forget is that Valuev is not just a big guy but he has got some serious skills he probably has the best jab in the heavyweight division. Barret could not slip Valuev's jab he kept getting hit and slowly broke down, if you don’t have good defensive skill's you’re going to have SERIOUS problems fighting Valuev I don’t believe Haye hold those defensive skills.
Haye has a great offensive set of skills, I give David Haye a puncher's chance of winning this fight and become the first man to Kop the Russian something nobody has managed to do in 52 professional fights.
I feel the bookies have got this completely wrong and the time is right to cash in on this opportunity Haye should not be favourite to win this fight.
My pick for this fight is..
Nicolai Valuev to win outright @ 2.25 (correct at the time 5 nov )
i'll be staking maximum on this bout so that's 5 % of my roll.
If you dont feel as confident as i do you can use the David Haye to win by KO or TKO @ 3.75 which i feel is his only chance of winning as a insurance bet.
, just remember there isn´t really anything special about getting it right here and there.