Who does not dream of winning large amounts of money with a simple game of cards or just making enough money to get by while doing something you love? The enticement of large jackpots and the fun of games have made the casino industry prosper. Millions of people use brick-and-mortar or online casinos in their free time to entertain themselves and maybe make some money.
Looking at the prize money for poker tournaments, it’s understandable how one can fantasize about a professional gambling career. Is there such a thing as a professional gambler? What do they do, and how do you become one?
Professional Gamblers: The Stuff of Movies or Fact?
Yes, professional gamblers do exist. However, the wish of “becoming a gambler“ in and of itself is a bit vague. We might use it as an umbrella term, but several types of professional gamblers will not equally be everybody’s thing. Don’t expect them or their lives to look anything like the glamour and luxury of Casino Royale. Making money with gambling might be a fun and rewarding career, but it’s just that, a job like any other.
Possible Types of Professional Gamblers
You can go multiple directions when you want to make a living with gambling. These are some options:
Matched Bettors
The rise of online casinos has led to many amateur gamblers discovering the pastime for themselves and finding ways to make enough money from betting online that they can do it professionally. Matched bettors are some of those who have learned how to take advantage of the online casino bonus offers.
Online casinos offer bonus promotions to attract new customers and bind old players. Typically, these bonuses match the amount of money a person deposits into their account or offer them free spins. There are, however, many different bonus promotions and loyalty programs with different terms & conditions.
For example, one of the industry giants, SlotsMillion, offers a Happy Hour on Fridays, which rewards users with 10 to 20 free spins if they make a deposit. Other bonuses are called Ladies’ Night (Mondays) or Gentleman’s Night (Wednesdays), matching deposits with 40% up to C$100. If you want to know more details about these kinds of bonus promotions, take a look at this large SlotsMillion review discussing the casino and its features.
The matched bettor targets these kinds of promotions and earns money by using free spins & bets. To make cash using this method, the bettor must make themselves acquainted with the available bonus offers and their specific terms & conditions. Since the best promotions target new players, a matched bettor often cannot use this strategy at a single online casino for an indefinite time.
Horse Bettors
Many professional gamblers make their money betting on horse races. There is more to this kind of career than one would know. It takes a lot of insight into the horse racing world to reliably make good choices. A Horse bettor must study everything about horse racing itself, the current stables, horses, and jockeys. They need to keep up with current statistics and trends.
There are several different strategies for horse betting. For example, Betting allows you to see the number of people who bet for and against a specific horse. Since the pay-out percentage is typically tied to the odds of winning, you can make money by betting against these favorites, who can easily lose two-thirds of their races.
Sports Traders
The same basic information applies to sports betting as well. Since sports betters don’t just bet on the outcome of a race, there are many more variables to keep in mind here. You can bet for or against a team. You can just as easily decide to bet on how many goals will have been made in the first third of a game and many other bet types.
Like horse betting, sports betting requires the bettor to have all the relevant knowledge to judge the current field and place bets they cannot lose.
Arbitrage Bettors
Arbitrage betting also called arb betting for short, is a mixture of regular sports and horse betting and the keen eye for advantages matched bettors have. Arbitrage bettors bet on multiple sports and/or horse racing platforms and are always looking out for beneficial price differences and profit margins to make use of.
Card Counter
Card counting was made famous by movies and TV shows, but it actually applies to real life. Mathematicians and blackjack enthusiasts have developed strategies to count the cards in play in a blackjack game and calculate the probabilities of which cards could be played next.
Casinos frown upon this strategy, but it is not illegal as long as you don’t use any external tools. They try to make card counting harder by using multiple decks and automated card shuffling machines, but it is still possible to create an advantage when counting the cards. You can only count cards, however, offline or in live games.
Poker Player
There are multiple poker tournaments globally, both off- and online, mostly hosted by casinos. A professional player can start playing in regular casino games and then take on some tournaments. You can check casinos that are similar to ku casino. These typically have buy-ins, so you have to have some assets going in. Poker is a game of skill, self-control, and psychology. You must be able to read others and hide your own emotions behind a poker face.
Conclusion – How to Become a Professional Gambler
The path to becoming a professional gambler can take many forms. You should look at it as you would any other career change. Be sure of what you want and what you would leave behind. Luckily, most of these options can be started on the side. You can find a game you are good at and train to analyze situations and make the right choices. You don’t need to apply for a job (except for tournaments, maybe) or prove any kind of qualification.
The biggest hurdle is your own talent and the will to stick with it. If you plan to switch careers indefinitely, make sure you have big enough capital to support your gambling for a while and manage it well. In this case, do consider the cost for things like health insurance as well, since you won’t have an employer covering it.
Featured Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels
