8 Top Tips for Becoming a Professional Gambler in Horse Racing, Poker and Other Sports

By: Keith Driscoll


Most folk are under the assumption that professional gamblers have one bet, play one game of poker, or most other form of betting, and then collect the winnings and go back to their castle in the country for a few months rest, before having another gamble!!

I wish it was like that, but in legitimate life it is vastly different. I personally work 10-12 hours a day, 360 days a year, and still do a bit on the days off, including Christmas day. When you see professional poker players they are spending 3-5 days at a table in a tournament every week, sometimes sitting for 12 hours, and when they are not doing that, they are at home playing poker on the computer.

So if you are looking for a relaxing life, do not take up gambling as a profession. Yes it can pay well, very well, but you need to put in a lot of work, and it can be 2-3 years before you are making any meaningful money. Anyone who tells you otherwise is in all likelihood lying just to receive your hard cash.

When you see tipping advertisers stating things like "We made $26,000 to $100 stakes in the last 12 months", it looks breathtaking. However, they need to receive your attention as a 1/8th ad in a paper costs around $500, and they need that funds back before turning a profit. And how many average gamblers have $100 to bet, especially when you need a betting bank, and with $100 stakes, the cash you need before you even place one bet is around $3,500, any less and you can easily blow it all. Then divide the $26,000 by the $100 to work out how countless points you make a year, and that is 260, then divide by 52 to see how numerous points profit a week, and that comes to 5pts a week. Wow!! If you are just starting off you are likely to only be using a realistic $5, so that is $25 a week average. That may not sound much but you have to learn to walk before you can run. If you cannot profit with 10c bets, how the hell will you profit with $100 bets?

Also think why various tipsters advertise every day. This is because they have such a large turnover; they need to keep renewing the customer base. This does not always mean the tipster is rubbish, in various cases they may be profitable long term, but the average Joe Punter always wants profit NOW and every day, and average Joe points more than 5 points per week, whereas a full time professional would be happy with that.

If you are going to gamble to profit, then for the initial few months this should be your basic training were you will be doing a lot of work for little return, but you will also learn how to handle losing runs, how to cope with mistakes, and if it does all go improper and you lose the betting bank, you should have learnt a lot from it for as little loss as possible, as you should only ever bet what you can afford to lose, especially while proving to yourself you can profit. You may have a spare $10,000 available, but prove you can profit with a $1000 bank maiden, and then add to the bank monthly.

So here are the 8 tips you need to learn, and stick to religiously if you want to stand a chance of ever profiting from betting.

1. Patience: If you want big profits now, try the lottery. Building up you betting banks takes time a lot of time.

2. Betting Banks: If you do not have a betting bank to inception with, and you are just betting from whatever is in your pocket, you will never make a profit. It is as simple as that. Most punters lie to themselves that they are breaking even. Do not do that, be truthful.

3. Staking: You see betting plans for sale on EBay, most of them may make you a few dollars quickly, but it is 100% guaranteed they will bust your bank as these are designed by amateurs who have no understanding of betting maths in the actual world. Always inception with levels, if you cannot make bankroll with that simple staking plan you will not make money with anything more complicated. Once you have proven over a few months you can turn a profit with level stakes, and then you can switch to each bet being between 1%-3% of the bank. Most professionals will emergence at 3%, but get it down to 1% as the bank grows.

4. Bank Management: Managing banks is not just staking, it also involves listing every bet on a spreadsheet so you can monitor things like average odds, strike rate, losing runs, etc. If you do not list every bet, you will have no idea where you stand, and no way of having data to look back and learn from.

5. Risk Management: Most people follow one tipster, or one system. This is usually suicide, you do not see the big boys in the city markets investing everything in one stock do you? No. They spread it around, and so should you. Use a number of systems, proven tipsters, method bets, etc. And ensure you have a separate betting bank for each (you can use the same betting account, as the spreadsheets you keep will explain you the amount which is in each bank).

6. Alcohol: NEVER drink while gambling, you will bet more than you should, you will bust banks, you will play bets you would never do when sober.

7. Forums: Join a forum where you can bite ideas, this can prove a huge facilitate, but make sure it is a good one, and not full of idiots just spouting off how good they are!

8. Fun Bets: You are often told not to do any 'fun bets' if you wish to turn professional, but this will not happen, as it is hard to break kind of habits at earliest. The best way to treat fun bets is to handle them as you would any pro bets. Separate betting bank, list all bets, and it will not be long before you lose the bank and realise how wonderful your own tipping is!

This advice goes for betting in any country, on horseracing, greyhounds, soccer, NFL, poker, etc.

You can also find various free horse racing systems, staking systems, poker systems, on the web, ignore them, they are only free for a reason, as they lose hard cash.

These days it is possible to get horseracing software, poker software, etc that can benefit you, they will only make you hard cash if you are already doing so, they just enhance your skills, not make them. Search the internet for reviews on every product before parting with any bankroll; ask people on forums which software is the best.


Keith Driscoll has been a professional gambler since the late nineties, and now runs many sites, forums and blogs as Managing Director of Win2Win Limited. You can visit my site at www.win2win.co.uk www.win2win.co.uk”>Free Horse Racing Tips