Do You Want To Be A Professional Gambler Articles | Gambling

By: Richard Bleuze

So you want to be a professional gambler?

I love to gamble, especially when it comes to sports betting.  However, gambling is not my primary profession.  However, a significant part of my income comes from my betting activities, especially my sports betting.  Thus, I guess I am qualified to talk with some authority on what it takes to make money from betting.

A true professional gambler will be involved with betting opportunities in many sports – he is not concerned by whether he enjoys playing or watching a particular sport.  A true professional gambler will be concerned about unearthing a potentially profitable opportunity, where the price offered about the outcome of an event is too high compared to the actual chance of it happening.  This is especially true in college basketball and college football.  There are just too many conferences for the books to put up the odds on correctly.

In other words, the true professional gambler is looking for those golden nuggets where the bookmaker has made an error in pricing up an event, and in favour of the sports bettors.  It could be basketball, football, horse racing, baseball, etc. it does not matter to the professional gambler.

However, because I study sports and horse racing on a regular basis, then I believe my advantage over the bookmaker is my knowledge of sports betting and horse racing.  That is why personally I bet almost exclusively on sports and horse racing.

So I can only really answer the question of “how to be a true professional gambler from my own personal perspective. But here goes….

Anybody who earns their living through betting will need to focus on three key areas if they are to be successful:

1) Discipline
2) Betting bank
3) Bet selection

I will spend a little time discussing each topic.

DISCIPLINE

By exercising discipline what I mean is that you must treat your gambling as a real business to get business benefits.  This means keeping records of all your bets, sticking to a strategy, keeping emotion out of your selections, not chasing your losses, you know, all the things you’ve heard a million times before!

The thing is, if you do not adopt a professional gambler's attitude to your betting, you cannot call yourself a professional gambler.  If you don’t take your source of income seriously (gambling), then trust me the bookmakers will end up taking your income from you.

Any professional gambler will admit they suffer from a losing run from time to time.  However, the professional gambler will seldom lose their entire betting bank because they maintain their discipline.

BETTING BANK

The most common question here is “how big should my betting bank be?”  Well, this is personal to you,but I recommend 1 to 2 percent of your total starting bankroll.  The key words in this last sentence is your starting bankroll not your present bankroll.  But, whatever the size of your bankroll it should always start out as a sum you can afford to lose. I know you’ve heard this at least a thousand times over! But, most gamblers do not follow this rule!

Look upon your betting bank as the capitalisation of your new business – professional gambling.  Treat your betting bank as your business funds, and with the same respect and discipline you would were you in a conventional business of your own.

I tend to risk no more than one per cent of my bank on any one selection. Betting to relatively low stakes allows me to maintain my discipline, so even a long losing run will have little impact on my reserves overall.  Remember what I said about betting without emotion?  Let me tell you, if you have lost half of your bankroll because of your high stakes and an unfortunate losing run, then your judgement with each successive bet will be badly affected.

BET SELECTION

Most gamblers tend to focus all their attention on how to make profitable selections, without regard to discipline nor their betting bank.  All three areas are equally important and you should perhaps view them each as a leg on a stool – remove any one of the legs and your dreams of earning a living from betting will come crashing down.  Remember, your goal is to be a true professional gambler so that you do not have a 9 to 5 day job!

If you have a solid method of selection that you are able to follow through losing periods, as well as good, and you also have the discipline to stick to your plan, then you should show a long term profit from your investments.

It may be you do not have your own system, or perhaps you do not have the time to study and make selections.  In which case you can follow the services of a tipster.  Finding the right tipster is a topic all on its own, and I do not have the time to do it justice here at the moment.  Suffice to say, check out 24-7wagering handicapping service.   

Please remember, that the most important factor in placing your bets is to get a good price about every single bet you make. Always, and I mean always, search for value.  If you do not find value, then honestly it is better in the long run to leave the bet alone.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!