Arbusers

How many years of experience do you have in smart gambling?
Count your active years as I am sure there are people on and off in the sphere. Both semi-pro and pro years are counted. I would appreciate it if you mention how you started in this business.
Poll runs for 3 days.
Thank you for your vote.

As for how I started, I am copying my text from an older thread:

As for me, it was some 20 years ago when the idea got into my head. And how did that happen? I will try to keep it short:
I had a friend who was a crony, stuck like a leech to a Greek party. There were elections coming up and the guy was enabled in the campaign of that party. He was very fanatic, only in the way Greeks can be fanatics. So he was dizzying everyone's head with his party and he was declaring his absolute certainty they would win.
But, judging from the sentiment and the gallops, it was a common sense that his party would lose with a big difference. So I asked him to bet 50 euros with me, that his party would win. He accepted the bet.
Even though it was obvious I would be the winner, I started thinking of ways to secure any profit even if my assessment was wrong. So I though placing the exact opposite bet online. The odds the guy gave me was exactly 2. But, after searching online I found the odds in Bwin that I needed to secure the profit. And that was my first bet online.
Guess what, I won the bet with him, and took his 50 euros in cash, and I lost with Bwin, building a nice profile of a loser.
I guess the best payment for me was his face when he handed the 50 euros, but let's not be poisonous now.

So, that was my first arb ever. After that, I started thinking if there is anyway to bring this operation in an industrial level, and the journey started. I was very lucky to get into the game in the golden times. For all younger guys, let me describe the golden times:
1. 500 euros welcome bonus from Pinnacle.
2. 1000 euros welcome bonus from Mansion exchange.
3. Unlimited daily arbs between Bwin and Betoto, 2 bookmakers of the same company.
4. An unlimited StanJames account would make you a millionaire within some months.
On the flip side, I wasn't able to understand the potential of this operation from the very start, and I did not enable the bulk of my savings. When I realised the potential, most of the chances were gone, but still there was a lot of money to be made.

There will always be money to be made, even if between drips, when once there was an all open tap

TjTaker wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2024 10:10 am

There will always be money to be made, even if between drips, when once there was an all open tap

This is very close to an old proverb of the Jews of my hometown: Keep the faucet open and one day water will run.

I m probably the oldest member of the forum and never had any real day job. Been a professional casino player for decades. I exploited all the chances in casinos in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Cyprus and Turkey before the islamists closed them.

Before that I was working as a bar tender in all the trendy islands of this planet, Ibiza, Mykonos, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and some smaller islands of the Caribbean sea.

For the last 2-3 years I m having a side income from online gambling that adds up. I m mainly into online casinos but I do some sports betting too. This year Trump was my #1 betting event, wish they had a US election every year. Very grateful for this forum. Many quality people here.

Hi guys !

My journey in this industry began approximately 10 years ago in late 2014 . A very close friend of mine had already began his poker and value betting career a couple of years ago and thought I was a good candidate to do so too.

By that time I had already been working for 1 year as an accountant , I didnt like my jod and decided to give value betting a try in my free time , as a part time occupation. Things escalated pretty quickly as I was lucky enough to have good guidance from my close friend .

As a matter of fact in the end of 2016 and after 2 years of value betting experience the results were quite satisfactory as I was already making more than my salary as an accountant. At this point a decision had to be made.

A couple of months later I resigned from my jod and went full time . Probably the smartest decision that I ever took in my life !

Started my journey in January 2021 though matched betting and pre-match arbing, made a few thousands for a year but then I stopped due to work commitments (I'm a sports event planner and I was away a lot for work).

Last June I went with a friend at a high-street bookie for him to place a 20-fold acca and I saw some juicy offers and boosts they had in their SSBTs, so placed a couple of bets. I then realised I could do that multiple times in multiple shops and gave that a go. Sharbing has been my main source of smart betting income, earning as much (or even more) than my regular job (and by spending way less than 40 hours a week doing it).

In the meantime I'm also trying horse racing trading with mixed results (still in profit, but I'm not convinced I found my edge so I'm trying a few different strategies). Same for live arbing, I want to dedicate some proper time and get better at it.

I'm hoping in a couple of years I can turn that into a full time income so I can quit my day job and focus on that (alongside a few non-gambling projects I'm currently working on).

Vatan19 wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2024 2:18 pm

Started my journey in ... though matched betting and pre-match arbing, made a few thousands for a year but then I stopped due to...

That's 95% of the cases.

Vatan19 wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2024 2:18 pm

I'm hoping in a couple of years I can turn that into a full time income...

Better not use time frames like this, the train might depart.

Yeah I know, that's why I don't want to put too much pressure on myself. That's why I'm also working on some other projects with sports (just not gambling -related).

arbusers wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2024 9:15 am

As for how I started, I am copying my text from an older thread:

As for me, it was some 20 years ago when the idea got into my head. And how did that happen? I will try to keep it short:
I had a friend who was a crony, stuck like a leech to a Greek party. There were elections coming up and the guy was enabled in the campaign of that party. He was very fanatic, only in the way Greeks can be fanatics. So he was dizzying everyone's head with his party and he was declaring his absolute certainty they would win.
But, judging from the sentiment and the gallops, it was a common sense that his party would lose with a big difference. So I asked him to bet 50 euros with me, that his party would win. He accepted the bet.
Even though it was obvious I would be the winner, I started thinking of ways to secure any profit even if my assessment was wrong. So I though placing the exact opposite bet online. The odds the guy gave me was exactly 2. But, after searching online I found the odds in Bwin that I needed to secure the profit. And that was my first bet online.
Guess what, I won the bet with him, and took his 50 euros in cash, and I lost with Bwin, building a nice profile of a loser.
I guess the best payment for me was his face when he handed the 50 euros, but let's not be poisonous now.

So, that was my first arb ever. After that, I started thinking if there is anyway to bring this operation in an industrial level, and the journey started. I was very lucky to get into the game in the golden times. For all younger guys, let me describe the golden times:
1. 500 euros welcome bonus from Pinnacle.
2. 1000 euros welcome bonus from Mansion exchange.
3. Unlimited daily arbs between Bwin and Betoto, 2 bookmakers of the same company.
4. An unlimited StanJames account would make you a millionaire within some months.
On the flip side, I wasn't able to understand the potential of this operation from the very start, and I did not enable the bulk of my savings. When I realised the potential, most of the chances were gone, but still there was a lot of money to be made.

what is mansion exchange? what years was this exchange operating? were they big like betfair? did they go bankrupt?

x-casino wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2024 1:19 pm

wish they had a US election every year.

I was watching a video with Scott Galloway the other day, who said that according to Trump's age and body mass, he has 30% possibility not to finish this tern alive. However, I doubt he took under consideration that a US president is enjoying a medical service second to none. Just have a look at the current POTUS.

hardcore wrote: what is mansion exchange? what years was this exchange operating? were they big like betfair? did they go bankrupt?

Mansion was an exchange that came out of the blue in the 2005-2007 period. Owned by an Indonesian tycoon, they wanted to compete with Betfair. To enlarge their customer basis they offered an 100% bonus up to 1000 euros. This exchange was very good with Asian Handicaps. AH were not that popular for me back then, didn't now even the terminology, but thanks to Mansion and a couple of guys from the old forum who helped me, I was able to understand the concept.
They were pumping their own liquidity in their markets, pretty much at the same way Smarkets is pumping today, and like Smarkets, they were doing some mistakes in their odds you could exploit. They didn't go bankrupt, they paid everyone completely to the last cent. The project wasn't popular in Europe, due to Betfair's popularity of that period. They closed the exchange and kept the sportsbook alive up until recently. Not quite sure if the sportsbook is still alive and how owns it, but I m sure I have sen advertisements for them.

This is how I started:

Although I had a decent job (and still have), in 2015 I was burdened by bad financial decisions in the past, struggling to make ends meet. So I came across bonus hunting as something that could give a little extra in the short term. I had never placed a bet before. I avoided losing money by laying the bets for the rollover requirement. This was essentially arbing and after the bonus hunt was done, I found it logical to continue doing this. One year later, having half of my accounts limited and realizing that I had bled much money to the sharps, I started value betting instead with a focused effort on increasing the yields year by year. By the end of 2019 I had finally paid all my debts and I could start investing and enjoying the profits instead.

This forum was essential in this journey by providing both new information and debate and reflection on new ideas.

First time I heard about the online-gambling thing was back in 2002 during the South Korea WC. I worked at the time in an Internet cafe and I was helping a guy who somehow gambled on sites. We didn't even know the concept at the time. But remember he was visiting Globet and bet-at-home websites. Nobody had an access to a credit card back then so nobody bothered to deal with the online gambling thing, all we cared was pu%%y and mIRc.

Later in 2005 was the first time a heard the term green-market. We were regulars playing computer games (Dota 5.84) at friend's gaming hall and one of the visitors was always betting on something he called green-market. We didn't believe it, it turned out to be the Betfair's exchange and he was placing bets there, then greening up his position in-play. Again - nobody bothered, he was known drunk, with unfortunate Fate.
But later the same year don't know exactly I found about arbitrages in one of our major forums. It was a whole theme in a board explaining the process, the sure win, percentages etc. I just said OMFG, it is awesome. During the whole day I was copy/pasting odds from our local one and only bookmaker. I couldn't believe my eyes - all games with all the odds there was some 20.04% difference (that was margin as i later found). It was a strange coincidence ( I thought) but already caught the bug. The very next night - contacted the person about some details I couldn't understand and he even answered me!!! Next week I was applying for credit cards (thanks to them) and got two of them with 450EUR and 1000 EUR limits. Skrill /Moneybookers at the time offered 1% cashback even on gambling transactions (deposits and withdraws) and remember every 45 days (according to bank/cards rules) I withdrew my money back to cards, and then at day 1 deposited them again. It was hard arbing with a small bank, but happily i found my stride.

Then everything followed quickly - found the Betfair exchange, and the moment I earned more money with gambling than my then salary (350 EUR) I just quit my job. It was FebruarMarch 2008, and ever since that is what I love doing.

But I think there is something very importan aspect we all shall pay respect to. LUCK. All of us who started at this time period (200-2009) were lucky. Right place at the right time! Internet was changing fast, Online poker and Gambling were very popular, there were huge knowledge base/forums/sites, no regulations at all, it was Wild west.

If someone is starting now - it will be almost impossible for him to make it, unfortunately. We just live in a different World/system. And deeper knowledge/understanding is a pre-requisite for dealing in this Sphere.
All our mistakes were forgiven - bonus abusing, fake accounts, courtsiding, hiding, even taxes. Now there is no mercy for us all. You have to be impeccable, on top of your game most of the time in order to thrive.

Some of you guys are very inspiriting.

So the average number of years of experience is 11.5 years for our members. If we take into account that the average age is 37, then we understand the age 25.5 is the entry point, provided that we do this business uninterruptedly. However, I believe this could be a little lower because many smart bettors are taking breaks before returning to business. It makes sense to me as it is the age when we all have our first incomes from any source, and we finish with studies and serving the army (for some countries).

Thank you for your vote, I will come with a new question on Monday morning.