Making a Living as a Professional Gambler

Yes, I know there are people who have won a fortune playing the lottery, or by hitting a mega-jackpot against the slots. They are outliers. Those people make headlines. They come from places like Buck Snort, Tennessee, risk $10, and hit the $50 million Super-Wooper Slots Jackpot. But a reality check quickly confirms that as a percentage of the whole, only a small fraction of gamblers so much as break even. Research has shown that in Las Vegas the average local resident loses about $1200 per year playing slots.

Mind you, we are not saying you should never play casino games. They’re great fun – and certainly more enjoyable than sitting home watching Dancing with the Stars. We only point out that you can't realistically expect a long-term profit from playing roulette, keno, craps, bingo, baccarat, etc.

What games do most professional gamblers play?

There are ways to gamble - even in casinos - which do offer beatable propositions: poker, blackjack, and sports betting. None are easy to beat and none offer overnight wealth. Nobody is saying you will get rich in a few weekends. We’re only pointing out that it is possible.

Poker

Against poker, for example, all you have to do is beat the other guys at the table. The casino's profit from poker comes from renting the chairs. If you're better at poker than the other players, you figure to win.

Blackjack

Against blackjack, the trick is to know which cards remain in the deck and their relevance to the odds concerning whether you'll win the next hand. Tough stuff but not impossible.

Sports Betting

The best news is sports betting. It is almost self-evident that an expert sports bettor can make a long-term profit. The key factor is that when you bet on sports you're not going head-to-head against the experts. Make no mistake about it, you can't beat the experts. Instead, when you bet on a pro sports event you are pitting your judgment against the opinion of the general betting public. More precisely, you are pitting your judgment against your bookmaker's other customers.

You can beat those guys. That's the critical difference that makes sports betting a beatable proposition. A bookmaker's posted lines are not intended to be predictions. The purpose of point spreads is to make sure the bookmaker gets enough action on both sides of a bet. If public opinion is not reasonably balanced, a disproportionate amount of money would be wagered on one side of a game. That would force the bookmaker to gamble, and bookmakers are not in business to gamble. The bookmaker's role, strictly speaking, is to act as a broker, much like a stock broker or a REALTOR. His job is to 'hold the money,' and to charge a fee for that service. He adjusts the lines in order to get an acceptable amount of money risked on both sides of a proposition. (Not an 'equal' amount of money, by the way, as you've probably heard, but simply an 'acceptable' amount of money - bookmakers rarely get an 'equal' amount risked on both sides. They actually DO 'gamble' in a sense, but that's a subject for a different article.)

Consequently, if you can outwit public opinion more than 53 times out of 100 - (or, to be more specific, if you can outwit your bookmaker's other customers more than 53 times out of 100) - you figure to be a winner over the long haul.

Moreover, unlike blackjack wherein an expert player takes the casino's money and risks being kicked out and banned, big sports books actually have no real incentive to care who wins or loses on a regular basis.

Forget horse and dog racing

Forget horse racing and dog racing – in the United States at least. Our pari-mutuel style of gambling results in gigantic vigorish charges that are suicidal to any sports bettor trying to show a profit at the end of the day. The 'drag' from horse and dog racing is typically higher than 15-20 percent. That's why race tracks are going broke throughout the country - bettors are getting too sophisticated to stand for a 15% "tax." You'd actually be facing better odds playing the Wheel-of-Fortune. When was the last time you met a rich horse player, anyway? Not to mention, it’s quite cruel to the animals.

The key to becoming a successful sports bettor is education

Learning successful handicapping techniques is much like learning anything else - you must go to 'school.' Study what experts have to say. Read books by proven experts. Team up with professional handicappers like JV Miller, whose service focuses on not just winning picks, but educating Subscribers how to be a professional sports bettor.

Concerning 'how-to' books, be sure to read several different authors. The more you read, the better you'll be able to separate the legitimate pros from the phonies. Be especially wary of authors touting progressive betting schemes. Progressive betting systems are for suckers. They're a sure sign of a non-professional. Also, avoid authors who claim they can pick an outrageous percentage of winners. Against pro football lines, for example, nobody can consistently pick 65% -70% winners. My uncle, R.J., for example, was a winner in the 1997 "Pick the Pros" contest sponsored by the Barbary Coast, Gold Coast, and Orleans casinos in Las Vegas. He beat out some 39,000 other entries by calling 69% of NFL games straight up, without point spreads at all.

​In any event, if you're considering gambling on a serious level, sports betting is without a doubt the best way to go.