Question for Full-Time Gamblers?

[WVU]

WVU, you're getting too caught up in "units". royalfan already said that a unit for him is $100. So if he's up 3500 units over 5 years, it means he's up $350,000, not that his bankroll has been multiplied 35 times over that span.

Further, he has said that his bankroll is well into the six figures, which means that over that span, he's maybe doubled or tripled his bankroll. In other words, using "1 unit=1% of BR", he would be up 100-200 units over 5 years, not 3500.

yeah i guess you are right. Still don't believe him though.

 

[kirkmuller]

There's nothing unrealistic about what he says.

Assuming he made 350,000$ in the past 5 years, that's $70,000 per year. Assuming he has a 200,000$ BR, that's basically +35 units per year, spread over 3-4 sports with hundreds of plays. It's not that impressive.

 

[X-Files]

There's nothing unrealistic about what he says.

Assuming he made 350,000$ in the past 5 years, that's $70,000 per year. Assuming he has a 200,000$ BR, that's basically +35 units per year, spread over 3-4 sports with hundreds of plays. It's not that impressive.

I've made almost that much scalping/whoring. A good/lucky
gambler could make that several times over.

 

[Iceman]

I've made almost that much scalping/whoring. A good/lucky
gambler could make that several times over.

the difference between you're style and RoyalFan's, is that yours involves ZERO risk. Don't know about others but I sleep alot better at nite when I am not up sweating out the games. Not much of a scalper (more of a middler) but I will back your style EVERYDAY of the week.:thumbsup2:

 

[royalfan]

There's nothing unrealistic about what he says.

Assuming he made 350,000$ in the past 5 years, that's $70,000 per year. Assuming he has a 200,000$ BR, that's basically +35 units per year, spread over 3-4 sports with hundreds of plays. It's not that impressive.

I have made roughly 420 units, 950 units, 1650 units, 2200 units, 2900 units the last 5 years but am only up 1050 units this calendar year so far so not going to set a new high unfortunately. Here is where the unbelievable part lies. When I got laid off from a corporate job, only had abou 120 units of net assets to my name. So it is a big time cinderalla story, and one I am very proud of. Could very well have had some adverse effects on other parts of my life as my focus has been at times "overboard" as it had to be when I barely had a pot to piss in. Hopefully, I am still plenty young to be able to find the proper "balance" in the other phases of my life. That is what I am trying to do now, which may have something to do with the regression in performance, but I think it is mostly just worse luck in nascar wrecks than one could even imagine this season. The point to the whole thing, is that one does not need to be a multiple identity thieving crook to make money in this business. People can believe me if they want, or not believe me if they want. Doesn't really matter to me as I know the truth. When I first started, I did a lot more of what Iceman does, but learned that I could make a lot more with the new style over time. I should be doing a little of that also, as it is simply wise, but I don't want to burn myself out, although I do a little of that on days when there is no "big" game to focus on.

 

[SSI]

i have a ML dog system, that i can guarantee you, will generate (10 units) of profit or more, every 30 calendar days.. on one unit plays..

Iceman, im talking to you.....

 

[crazyivan]

guarantee?

 

[MrJ]

I have made roughly 420 units, 950 units, 1650 units, 2200 units, 2900 units the last 5 years but am only up 1050 units

Average units/bet? You never increase your wager (ie a constant unit amount instead of a % of bankroll)?

 

[parlayin]

royalfan, i'd like to see a day of picks if you don't mind. parlayin@yahoo.com. thanks

 

[WVU]

I was just confused because most people consider a unit as one average size bet. If you can be up a few thousand units in one year then obviously your unit is small. no pun intended

 

[jimmyk+]

lol, that passage was copied and pasted from the site of notorious tout JR Miller.

doesn't much matter to me where info for someone new to the game comes from , AS LONG AS IT IS ACCURATE.To many here, the concept of RISK OF RUIN, which is the main point of the first part of this article, , is old news. However, to someone considering this as a ft occupation, it is extremely important. The rest is also pretty basic, but like all things fundamental , it's good to review every so often , just to keep focused during times of volatility . If it comes from a tout , hey , at least he's giving SOMETHING back , instead of taking.

 

[royalfan]

I have made roughly 420 units, 950 units, 1650 units, 2200 units, 2900 units the last 5 years but am only up 1050 units

Average units/bet? You never increase your wager (ie a constant unit amount instead of a % of bankroll)?

I would say my average size wager is between 2.5 units and 10 units. (250-1000 dollars)Lot of 5 unit limits on the type of plays I make. I think where people are getting confused, like WVU would be because in reality I don't use units. I wager as much as possible on expected value returns within reason. Won't usually risk over 4000 dollars or 40 units on anything although do occasionally. So a unit is sort of a relative term. It was just a way to quantafy without giving dollar amounts which i have since made known would be 100 dollars for me. In reality there are very few instances that I have just one unit on a play unless that is what the limit is. Anyone that gets me an email address, got a couple as of now, I will send you a sample of the action on a monday night game or other event in the next week or two. Have a commitment this monday so won't be working that contest. Likely two weeks from now on Monday.

 

[WildBill]

Amazing how far people can get off topic question the methods or results of others. Bottom line is everyone has different BR, different risk profile, different montly nut to cover, etc.

One point almost completely untouched upon here is a simple reality. Many people who do make it as a pro could easily make as much or more money with a normal career. Very few who make it as gamblers are doing their optimal life's work in it. The very best poker players and probably under 100 full-time sports bettors make more money doing what they do than if they had applied the same amount of time and effort in a regular career. Of course many of us don't have the desire for the career that we do for gambling, but that is a reality all must think about. I have been there, spent 2 exhausting years of my life as a sports bettor. When I worked out my hourly wage it came out to about $13/hour. I thought to myself in time if I scrimp and get my BR bigger that will go up, but by the same token if I get a regular job and use my college degree I probably will make more. Today there is little doubt in my mind giving up professional gambling to go into a more normal job and bet on the side has been far better to me. It isn't a cop out, I didn't give up. I didn't go bust at the end like so many have. I just did the math and realized gambling 99.9% of the time is best left as a hobby.

 

[Iceman]

Amazing how far people can get off topic question the methods or results of others. Bottom line is everyone has different BR, different risk profile, different montly nut to cover, etc.

One point almost completely untouched upon here is a simple reality. Many people who do make it as a pro could easily make as much or more money with a normal career. Very few who make it as gamblers are doing their optimal life's work in it. The very best poker players and probably under 100 full-time sports bettors make more money doing what they do than if they had applied the same amount of time and effort in a regular career. Of course many of us don't have the desire for the career that we do for gambling, but that is a reality all must think about. I have been there, spent 2 exhausting years of my life as a sports bettor. When I worked out my hourly wage it came out to about $13/hour. I thought to myself in time if I scrimp and get my BR bigger that will go up, but by the same token if I get a regular job and use my college degree I probably will make more. Today there is little doubt in my mind giving up professional gambling to go into a more normal job and bet on the side has been far better to me. It isn't a cop out, I didn't give up. I didn't go bust at the end like so many have. I just did the math and realized gambling 99.9% of the time is best left as a hobby.

Excellent post.

Almost every one of us here at one time or another has had that dream of doing this full time. I have in the past figured out what I made (or lost some months) per hour and it to was measly but I don't do this all for the money. It is a fun "hobby" to me. I don't hunt,fish, ski,etc... None of that stuff makes my heart beat and this done. Sometimes you can't help who you are. It's all about peace of mind

 

[kirkmuller]

doesn't much matter to me where info for someone new to the game comes from , AS LONG AS IT IS ACCURATE.To many here, the concept of RISK OF RUIN, which is the main point of the first part of this article, , is old news. However, to someone considering this as a ft occupation, it is extremely important. The rest is also pretty basic, but like all things fundamental , it's good to review every so often , just to keep focused during times of volatility . If it comes from a tout , hey , at least he's giving SOMETHING back , instead of taking.

what's funny is that you wrote something like 'the rx is worth all its bullshit because you occasionally have one poster who will post a real gem', which is ironic since the poster simply plagiarized it from a tout's site, which is to say that to you, the rx is not worth it at all since you could get all the info you need from the websites of touts.

 

[CHOPTALK]

The use of a correct bet size is every bit as important as the ability to predict winners. Make no mistake about it, the failure to use correct money management will put you out of the sports betting business even faster than a failure to predict winners.This concentrated study of expectations led to the single most important thing I ever discovered about sports betting. It is safe to say that less than one in one thousand sports bettors is aware of this extremely important fact: Even with a 57%-58% expectation on each and every bet, you will have less bankroll than you've had at one time or another in the past more than 95 percent of the time.
That's right; - less than 5 percent of the time can we expect to set new all-time highs with our bankroll.
It is essential to our well being that we recognize that fact. Like it or not, we must accept that such a condition exists, and that it is wholly normal. It is dictated by the mathematics of the situation. By recognizing and accepting that this condition exists, we can better deal with that nagging feeling of having to 'do something' to catch up. Even if we're showing a profit over the last couple of months, if our bankroll is less than it was last week, we tend to get that knot in the pit of our stomach that reminds us we've been losing.
That knot in our stomach is not conducive to clear thinking. It is the first step to a feeling of desperation.
It would be wonderful if our bankrolls increased predictably and smoothly, week-by-week, but that is simply not the way it works. We are not dealing with an escalator moving smoothly and predictably upwards; we are dealing with a pogo stick bouncing crazily up a long, low, uneven grade. Less than one 'bounce' in twenty of our pogo stick will result in a new all time 'altitude' record.
The important thing is to recognize that the condition exists, and that it is simply not avoidable, and to accept it as being part of the overall picture. If you are aware that this circumstance is supposed to happen you will be better prepared to cope with it on an emotional level.
Keep in mind that any particular series of wins and losses is a 'streak.' It is just as much a streak to have a long series not dominated by either wins or losses as to have a long series dominated by wins or a long series dominated by losses. To illustrate what can be expected from having a winning expectation of, say, 57½% per bet, I have often used the analogy of 1,000 marbles in a sack; - 575 white marbles (winners) and 425 black marbles (losers). Your job is to draw a marble from the sack without peeking, note whether it's a white marble (a winner) or a black marble (a loser), replace it in the sack, shake the sack, and repeat the process.
Given enough draws from the sack, it is obvious you are guaranteed to pick more winners than losers. After all, every time you reach into the sack you have a 57½% expectation of "winning" and only a 42½% expectation of "losing." Trouble is, those 425 black marbles can be a real pain in the patootsie. It is amazing how many losers you can draw over any sequential 10, or 20, or even 50 chances. In spite of having a clear advantage, you are absolutely guaranteed to have losing streaks.
The most disastrous streak I ever heard of happened to professional handicapper, Tony Diamond. Tony has been a pro for many years in Las Vegas, and his handicapping ability is generally well respected. The streak happened in 1997. Tony was sailing along against the NBA at a winning clip of 59+% when he hit The Mother Of All Losing Streaks, - an unbelievable string of 27 straight losses.
It made Tony more famous than ever. A math professor from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas figured Tony's odds of going 0-27 at something akin to 4.5 million to one. Stephen Nover, a reporter for The Las Vegas Sun wrote an article about the streak. Tony was interviewed on radio & television about it.
It was a brutal lesson in correct money management.

Your long term goal is to be able to keep picking from the sack enough times so that the streaks will even out. With 575 winners and 425 losers in the sack, you must eventually pull more winners than losers. That's the law of probabilities. What happens over a dozen or two pulls won't and can't dramatically change the long term results, - but you can certainly experience a bumpy ride over the short term. My own worst streak was back in 1985. I had a 57½% winning expectation against the NFL, and in Week 15 I went 0-13. That's right; - zero wins and thirteen losses. It was the worst beating of my life. (That same week, a television show I'd been writing for four years was also cancelled...Bummer.)
It was that beating that drove me to a closer examination of probabilities. What precisely are the chances of going 0-13 if you have a 57½% winning expectation per bet?
They're not big. Wiith the help of Professor Allbritton, I worked out the chances to be about the same as being dealt a cold straight flush in five card stud poker; - over 60,000-to-one. Trouble is, if you play five card stud long enough, sooner or later you're going to be dealt a cold straight flush. It's the old rule about an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters. If you bet on sports long enough, sooner or later you're going to go 0-13.
The critical point is to recognize the parameters of the eventualities. Having less bankroll than you had at one time or another in the recent past is simply the way it is more than 95% of the time. It is the natural condition. It is the nature of the beast. Life can be much easier when you recognize and appreciate that fact.
In 1998 against the NBA, our picks in PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER Newsletter made a season-long profit of about 29 units. That's less than we normally make, but it's still a good profit. (A normal year nets 40-some units; we made over 90 units in 1997.) Trouble is, somewhere around the first of March in 1998, we'd already zoomed to a high of 53 units! From March through the playoffs we lost about 24 units. Even though we produced a net profit for the entire NBA season of about 29 units, some of our subscribers went broke by getting too optimistic with their bet sizes.
The real key to a relaxed professionalism is in having done enough research and having had enough experience to be confident that the 'sack of marbles' does, indeed, contain more winners than losers. Once you are absolutely positive of that, your very next goal is make certain nobody can stop you from drawing from the sack. You want to draw from that sack as often as possible, of course. With a solid edge, you must inevitably draw more winners than losers. After that 0-13 disaster, for example, I never doubted I had a 57+% expectation because I had years of experience to prove it.
Strangely enough, the most likely person to stop you from drawing from the sack is you. If the sizes of your bets are too high in proportion to your bankroll, you will be forced to stop drawing by a short term losing streak. Sooner or later, if your bets are too high in relation to your bankroll, you will go broke, - even though you have a clear long term advantage.
I am wholly convinced that sports bettors go broke because of bad money management, not because of bad handicapping. The next time some tout in a bad suit advises you to use a progressive betting scheme, such as "one-star, two-star, three-star," or the so-called "Kelly criterion," ask to see his Master's Degree in mathematics - preferably in probabilities. As I point out in my book, the Kelly criterion should be called the "Kevorkian criterion" or the "Kamikaze Criterion." It's suicide. The fact is, if you have any kind of realistic advantage over the bookmaker, the safest and best "system" is to keep your bets as level as possible. It's a grind'em down situation, just as casinos grind down craps players and roulette players. Armed with a genuine understanding of what can be expected, you won't find yourself waking up at 3:00 in the morning with sweaty palms and an irregular heartbeat.

What a tremendous read. I agree with every last word except for the last paragraph. I do think its ok to rate plays, some plays are simply better than others, but I agree with everything else.

I am in a serious black mable run the last year. The only thing that has kept me above water is MM.

 

[jimmyk+]

what's funny is that you wrote something like 'the rx is worth all its bullshit because you occasionally have one poster who will post a real gem', which is ironic since the poster simply plagiarized it from a tout's site, which is to say that to you, the rx is not worth it at all since you could get all the info you need from the websites of touts.

.........not what I meant at all, what I was saying was that ,as with any diverse group the size of the membership here at the RX, there will be A LOT of useless, mostly irrelevant stuff re: actual sports investing as done for a living .....no problem w/ that, would be boring otherwise. But, not to sound too "old school", when I joined this site in 2003, it seemed there was a wealth of this type of info easily accessable. I learned a lot from many sharp guys (many who are no longer here), and continue to learn something almost every day. The only difference is, with the growth of the forum , it is much harder to find specific info like this , thats all . If it comes from a tout , so be it , as long as it's accurate and well written , whats the problem ?? Diversity is a great thing , and like I said , without it , life would be pretty boring . Hers hopin' you much success, wherever you may find it ...........

 

[wilheim]

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