Is professional punting easy work?

Just how hard is it to become a professional punter? It's not the easiest question to answer mainly because successful punters don't like to give too much away as part of their success is related to the information that they keep close to them and their team of workers. Through documented stories on betting professionals like Australia's Alan Wood and Zeljko Ranogajec we've compiled a few facts that the average lounge room punter should consider if they are contemplating the big step into the pro-league for betting.

 

Where's the bankroll?

However you decide to enter the world of professional punting there is one thing you will definitely have to find; a decent bankroll. Even professional punters experience losing runs so there has to be enough in your initial bankroll to cover a fair period of losing runs. You've either got the cash saved up or you going to have to get a loan for it from somewhere. Dave Nevison from the United Kingdom started his bankroll for his professional punting career when he took a 70,000 pound pay out from his job. There is of course the option to build your bankroll from a small base, however you might be living on fish and chips for a while before you get it to the size you need it to be to make a decent living.

 

Betting method

Whatever approach you take towards betting, ultimately it has to beat the bookies and that means you have to have a competitive advantage over them. It's that simple. Remember that the corporate bookmakers have departments full of staff who are focussed purely on odds and risk so the key to success is getting the method right. As you probably know, bookies set each betting market with a built in margin putting the punter behind the eight ball to start. The successful punter has to overcome these inherent challenges and beat the bookies at their game. Embodied within the punter's betting method has to be logical rational reasoning that enables the punter to win. The value punting approach is a good example. This requires the punter to accurately price a market and look for opportunities where the odds on offer are higher than the horse's actual chance of winning the race. Alan woods used the value punting approach, choosing Hong Kong for his betting activity for two key reasons. Firstly it is a relatively well controlled environment:.

• Racecourses - there are only two racecourses in Hong Kong, Happy Valley and Sha-Tin compared to the 100 plus race courses in New South Wales with a similar population. This makes it easier for the pro punter to get across the factors that impact the outcome of a race.
• Smaller group of horses - there is a relatively small group of horses going around which aligns to the two race meetings per week.This means less homework than if you chose to achieve the same outcome in Australia.
• History of wrong doing - there is a relatively clean racing history in Hong Kong with minimal instances of corruption in a tightly controlled and strict racing environment, with extremely harsh penalties for violations of their code.

The second key reason for Woods focusing on Hong Kong is because it is filled with emotional and superstitious punters which means that serious money can follow or not follow a horse due to its name, number or jockey colours, creating more value opportunities in the betting market.

 

Resources

Dave Nevison cited one of his greatest challenges as a professional punter being the balancing act between his personal life and his career. The job required countless hours of study followed by attention to prices on race day only to be followed by analysis for the next race day straight after. Hardly the picture of someone living the dream life. There's always computer software to help with the load but that requires a developer to tailor the solution as there's hardly going to be a solution sitting on the shelf. A price exercise which means building up enough of a bank to make the investment to achieve the efficiency. The software might alleviate some of the manual labour but it usually won't eliminate it. Most professional punters we have spoken too talk about taking a computer print out and running their own personal filter over it to arrive at their final betting decisions.

As you get more successful you are probably going to have to employ a team of people. More to do the analysis, more to review prices and ultimately to put the bets on. The majority of successful punters refer to their teams, and in some cases armies, of people who worked for the organisation. To give you an idea of just how big they can get, Alan Woods' enterprise was quoted as having an estimated worth of $670 million US before he died in 2008. At that size you can afford a very large payroll.