Ask a Pro.

POINTBREAK

A friend of mine, who is a Professional Gambler has said he would let me do an interview with him on betting. He bets on horses, football, darts, snooker and anything else with what he sees as value.
If you want to post a question I will put it to him.

jive

With regards to football, do you find singles/doubles are the best way of getting a good return in the long run? Or trebles and greater?

What would your typical stake be, roughly?

Given as this is your livelihood, what do you do when you hit a losing streak as this surely would have more repercussions than just a typical punter having a few losses

dotsflan

Whats the maximum percentage of your bank that you would place on a bet?

Woddle

Does he use a staking plan and if so which?
Does he get involved in laying?
If he's having a bad run, what does he do, give up for the day or keep on trying?

mike65

Is he any good and can he pass on his selections?

Or more seriously does he have a hard and fast set of parameters when picking horses? Or is he flexible?

Nulty

mike65 wrote: »

Is he any good and can he pass on his selections?

Or more seriously does he have a hard and fast set of parameters when picking horses? Or is he flexible?

Following on, and more specifically, does he view the all-weather as a non-betting medium? i.e., bad horses, too unpredictable, etc.?

Warper

What is your best bet for the World Cup and do you think Brazil are a good bet @ 5-1?

Verance

What sort of staking plan does he use?
What sort of bank did he need before going professional?

This will be really interesting to see the interview, good stuff Pointbreak.

LittleLebowski

What type of betting have you found has the best value/return?Singles,Doubles,Yankee's etc
Also with which sport? Football,Racing,Golf?

L'prof

What's the longest you'll go without having a bet in general and when you're on a bad streak?
How many bets would you have per day (midweek and weekend)?
Are there certain bets that you would break your staking plan for, if you have one?

x PyRo

You missed the "Y" out of my name there PB.

:pac:

POINTBREAK

x PyRo wrote: »

You missed the "Y" out of my name there PB.

:pac:

lol...........This Guy is just marginally more famous than you XPyRo.

digme

Does he live in Ireland?
Is he married?

SRFC

Whats a tracker mortgage?

x PyRo

POINTBREAK wrote: »

lol...........This Guy is just marginally more famous than you XPyRo.

Must be an "A List Celeb" then.

Best of luck PB, Should be some interesting replies. I've no questions that haven't been suggested already.

SomethingElse

How did he get started? How long did it take him to go pro?

skeleton_boy

Are much of your racing selections down to information from contacts or you own personal knowledge of the game.

POINTBREAK

skeleton_boy wrote: »

Are much of your racing selections down to information from contacts or you own personal knowledge of the game.

You will be pretty surprised at the answer to that one.

POINTBREAK

I need about 7 more questions.

refusetolose

what football leagues does he think are the most predictable/unpredictable?

any leagues he stays away from altogether?

Woddle

Whats his strike rate at horses and does he follow any tipsters and if so who.
What amount would he consider his average wager

coughlan08

refusetolose wrote: »

what football leagues does he think are the most predictable/unpredictable?

any leagues he stays away from altogether?

i could name a few...:D

just one question for me,please,,

what point in your gambling life did you say,"Right im going to make a living out of this?"

THANKS

btard

How long have you been pro. What bankroll did you start with. What percentage return on your bankroll do you make annually. What's the maximum percenatge of your bankroll you've ever had on a single bet. How do you protect yourself from going on tilt.

Thx

Amigomenor

Is he married? How much on average over the last 5 years has he made per year?. Does he see a long term future in his capacity as pro punter, what is his greatest challenge in this regard?

tiernanmul_gos

what kind of bets do you recommend for easy returns? eg.doubles,trebles
i usually be on sports beside racing but how would you know if a horse is good to bet on?

funnyname

In terms of bankroll do you have a separate bank account to your day to day accounts and do you use neteller or moneybookers?

Do you bet online and or down the bookies and also do you have much trouble getting a bet on?

Do you have a maximum deposit limit for your online accounts?

Do you use premium tipping services?

nice1franko

How much did you lose in your worst losing streak?

Do you find it stressful much?

Has ever been tempted to give it up?

Were you always a pro gambler or what did you do before it?

Have you any shocking or amazing tales of crookedness or cheating?

What bet have you been most proud of?

About how much do you make a year?

Have you any rules or limits you set yourself?

POINTBREAK

I have posted the reply and I think it covers most of the questions asked. You can leave questions in the comments section. I think its an interesting read and some people will enjoy it.

http://pricewiseextra.info/the-interview/

turbobaby

Whats the breakdown between long and short term bets?

Does he have sweaty balls from all the sitting around all day "analyzing the form"? hahah

Woddle

POINTBREAK wrote: »

I have posted the reply and I think it covers most of the questions asked. You can leave questions in the comments section. I think its an interesting read and some people will enjoy it.

http://pricewiseextra.info/the-interview/

Hi pointbreak, first off I just want to say well done on the site, I've been following it, pretty much since you started it and its excellent. The interview is great but what I think would be good is say one day a week he puts his bets in a diary and shares his logic behind each bet, obviously to be done after that trading day.

Also if you get a chance to see how I got on today and give a bit of feedback it would be much appreciated.

POINTBREAK

Thanks Woddle. I will pm you, probably tomorrow....... tho.

Kod-box

Good interview, he has a good point on the e/w value in them races.

What age is this lad and does he post here?

myflipflops

His reply has all the right answers to show that he does bet profitably.

The below is maybe the most relevant point.

If someone had told me then that the only problem I would have with making money from betting was getting my bets layed then I wouldn’t have believed it either

POINTBREAK

Kod-box wrote: »

Good interview, he has a good point on the e/w value in them races.

What age is this lad and does he post here?

He doesn't post here and he is nearly 40. He has probably been gambling for over 20 years though. He will tell you himself that when he first started he was hopeless at it.

SomethingElse

Good interview. Thanks Pointbreak

catmelodian

What a spoofer. 'Play the bad e/w races'

Amazing. Groundbreaking.

mug

catmelodian wrote: »

What a spoofer. 'Play the bad e/w races'

Amazing. Groundbreaking.

i've just set this account up so i can post here.

i can understand people being doubtful about what i've said... like i said, i would have been 5 years ago, but you seem to have (deliberatly?) igrored a lot of what i've said. i didn't say backing bad EW races was 'Amazing or Groundbreaking'. in fact i said it was a very simple system that requires zero thought and a lot of effort to get the bets on.

i know that a lot of people know about these types of races and the value in them, but a lot of people who use this forum, or read the interview on the pricewiseextra site won't have been aware of them. i also pointed out that these races aren't a license to print money, because bookmakers wont give you a big bet on them, and that the only way to get around this is to make my way round a lot of shops getting relatively small bets on, and opening lots of online accounts with every firm under the names/credit card numbers of lots of friends and relatives (and even that is tricky, as u have to use different IP addresses for them or the firms close you down almost immediately).

anyway... by doing this and spreading my bets over about 10 shops ot so, i am able to get 1k to 1500EW on pretty comfortably, and since you know about this system, you will know what sort of figure i can expect to make over a year from these kind of stakes.

since i've been keeping records about half of my profit has come from betting on these, but i've also made a lot of money from betting on sports... and again, as i said in the interview, i don't profess to be a betting genius... most of the stuff i do comes from other people who i know who also bet professionally. i've also shown a profit on bets that i spot myself over the years, but i've only got a pretty small edge, and my profit from sports bets that i pick would probably account for about 1/5th of my overall profit.

this is all true, and i can't even understand why it sounds unlikely to you... i'm actually trying to explain that what i do is actually quite simple as long as you put in the work with getting the bets on.

these absolutely nothing to stop you replying with anothother fairly ignorant post along the lines of 'what a load of boll**ks', but if u really think that, then you can take me up on the challenge that i issue to that guy at the end of the interview (his post seems to have been deleted, but it was pretty disparaging and dismissive). i said that if he could raise 10k i'd back myself for 20k at 1/2 to turn a hypothetical 100k profit from a 100k starting bankroll in a year (i'd actually be confident enough to take 1/3 for 30k)

you're probably thinking, well that easy if you're allowed to bet on bad EW races with your hypothetical bankroll... although, thats exactly my point... it is easy.

having said that i'd still have an 1/1 money bet for 10k upwards that i can make 100k profit without backing any horses

dotsflan

slightly going off track here, but just wondering if you bet on darts? i find that darts is where i seem to do better on then other sports.

mug

by the way, for any of you who aren't familiar with this EW thing, i've answered a post in the comments section under the interview on http://pricewiseextra.info/the-interview/ which gives a pretty detailed explanation of whats going on.

Verance

mug wrote: »

by the way, for any of you who aren't familiar with this EW thing, i've answered a post in the comments section under the interview on http://pricewiseextra.info/the-interview/ which gives a pretty detailed explanation of whats going on.

Where?

mug

dotsflan wrote: »

slightly going off track here, but just wondering if you bet on darts? i find that darts is where i seem to do better on then other sports.

yeah, i do bet on darts, and i watch it every week. i'm showing a small profit on the bets that i pick myself, although i don't put much effort into it and it's really just done off feel. i also get some good stuff on darts occassionaly from a friend who worked for one of the spread betting firms and is still in contact with a lot of the compilers that he worked with.

mug

Verance wrote: »

Where?

i've just seen it's 'awaiting moderation' it'll be up shortly

dotsflan

mug wrote: »

yeah, i do bet on darts, and i watch it every week. i'm showing a small profit on the bets that i pick myself, although i don't put much effort into it and it's really just done off feel. i also get some good stuff on darts occassionaly from a friend who worked for one of the spread betting firms and is still in contact with a lot of the compilers that he worked with.

most weeks though in the premier league darts i feel theres always at least one market that the bookies have got wrong. For instance a few weeks ago they had barney @ 11/10 to get more 180's then jenkins. I was expecting barney to be odds on at around 4/6.

Woddle

Hi mug could you give me your definition of an edge, I went to a seminar recently given by a guy who plays the stock market, he also used the word edge alot.
Thanks

POINTBREAK

mug wrote: »

i've just seen it's 'awaiting moderation' it'll be up shortly

Sorry about that I changed the settings to allow comments without moderation, but its not doing that............ pfft.... computers!

mug

nice1franko wrote: »

How much did you lose in your worst losing streak?

Do you find it stressful much?

Has ever been tempted to give it up?

Were you always a pro gambler or what did you do before it?

Have you any shocking or amazing tales of crookedness or cheating?

What bet have you been most proud of?

About how much do you make a year?

Have you any rules or limits you set yourself?

i've answered most of the questions in the interview on pricewiseextra, but i'll happily answer any more on here or under the comments on that site.

on the questions above...

i find it pretty stressful sometimes when i've been on a bad run and i've got a big bet running. probably the biggest bet i ever had was on a snooker match recently, where i'd lumped on over loads of markets, match odds, points supremacy spreads, break supremacies, handicap markets. i thought the guy i bet on was double the price he should have been and the handicap was out by about 3 frames.

it's hard to put a figure on what i could have lost because a lot of the bets were spread bets, but if my guy had actually lost the match and been outscored heavily it could have been between 60 and 100k.

i knew this was highly unlikely but i was still very nervous watching the first session. fortunately he pulled clear after a bad first session and won easily covering the handicaps and making a decent profit for me on the spreads.

i didn't actually win that much in the end though because he faield to make the higest break of the match (he screwed the white in off the final black deliberately for a bit of show-boating, when he was on for a 124 break which would have been enough) and that was a 12k swing for me.

i have been tempted to give it up when i'm on a bad run and lose more than i should through tilt, but i'm getting better at handling that and getting more professional with what i do... i do well from gambling but i really should do a lot better, and there's really no reason for me to stop.

my income varies greatly but i gave a couple of figure in the interview that gives u an idea of my average

i don't have any stories of crookedness other than the obvious ones that make the papers or become general knowledge. i've never made any money from betting on a rigged match or race, although i definitely would if i was lucky enough to hear about it

i frequently set myself rules about being more professional etc, but there's definitely room for improvement. limits aren't really an issue.

the best value bet that i ever had, didn't come from me, it came from a friend with a good football contact who told him just b4 kick off that half their team was being rested. we got on a few markets at ridiculous odds and copped the lot. but i can't be proud of that one since it wasn't my bet.

one that i was quite proud of was a few years ago when morinho was at chelsea, they were losing 1-0 against newcastle at half time and morinho made 3 sustitutions for the 2nd half. not long after the break wayne bridge went down with what looked like a very bad injury, and it didn't look like he was getting back up.

i immediatly realised the implications of this before the masses on betfair did, and lumped everything i had in the account on newcastle, which was quite a bit as i played a lot of poker on there, even though i didn't bet on sports for particularly high stakes at the time. i can't remember the figures exactly, but once the penny dropped with people that chelsea were going to have to finish the match with 10 men, newcastles price dropped quite a bit and i had a nice freeroll for 5 grand or so before they even started the match again.

POINTBREAK

Did you have any bets today? There was a couple of races that seemed to fit the profile you were talking about.

mug

POINTBREAK wrote: »

Did you have any bets today? There was a couple of races that seemed to fit the profile you were talking about.

yeah, there were a couple which looked like they might turn out ok, but they weren't going to be big value from what i could tell from looking at betfair early in the morning. normally i'd have checked back later around 11-12 but i was out playing golf so gave them a swerve.

i'll have a look tomorrow and let u know if i'm doing anything, and if not, why not.

mug

heading out for a while.. will address some more questions later

POINTBREAK

Thanks. I'm just getting worried that I offered to pay you for this, or its some elaborate bet that I agreed when you got me drunk.................. lol

Sizzler

Posted up some q's and then saw the link to the interview so have erased the original q's:o

Interesting stuff on the horse racing it has to be said, was just looking at a few races today that fit the profile, and yesterday the last race at Wolver also springs to mind where a major gamble was foiled with Barney Curley's 1/3 Fav being turned over. In such cases, as yesterday, how do you cope with a sustained gamble, I get the impression you are ready to get your money down as soon as the firms have priced up, but yesterday Curleys horses were backed in from double digits to very short odds, surely this will distort your perception of the e/w market? Are you tempted to weigh in again?

Whilst the e/w strategy seems to be long term,and you make no bones about it, today as an example would have played out as follows -

Warwick 240 - 5/4 Fav (unplaced) next in betting was 8/1 and was also unplaced. No return.

Warwick 310 - 1/2 Fav (unplaced) 2nd fav 8/1 c/f's also unplaced, granted only paying 2 places here.No return.

Beverley 200 - 10/11 Fav wins, 2nd fav was 2nd at 5/1. So you break even here.

Beverley 430 - 1/5 Fav wins, 2nd co fav is 2nd @ 11/1. Profit.

Am I interpreting these examples right?

Also would be interested to hear your thoughts on arbouring? Something Ivan Yates warned his staff about last year in a leaked memo, obviously theres patience required but is there money to be made here, any examples?

Cheers!