General Betting
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Professional Gambler:
Rarely loses control when placing bets.
Gambling is methodical and planned (e.g., a professional horse gambler may not bet on every race).
Maintain discipline and refrain from impulsive betting
Accept financial losses without chasing to win them back.
Professional gamblers do not meet the DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling, but may have a couple of symptoms (e.g. preoccupation).
Gambling is their primary source of income.
Most problem and pathological gamblers fantasize about being a professional gambler or mistakenly believe that they are, there are very few true professional gamblers.
Many professional gamblers will eventually evolve in to problem or pathological gambling.
It has been estimated that there are fewer than 3,000 professional gamblers in the US and Canada and only 50 professional gamblers in the U.S. who earn over $100,000 dollars annually by gambling. Psychological profiles of professional horse gamblers showed they tend to be somewhat boring, socially insensitive, extremely unsentimental, hyper-vigilant, and very tense. (McCown & Chamberlain, 2000).
The term "professional gambler" is very complex in distinguishing from problem and pathological gambler and the assessment should be conducted by a trained professional therapist who also consults with the gambler's family/friends regarding the presence of symptoms.
Rarely loses control when placing bets.
Gambling is methodical and planned (e.g., a professional horse gambler may not bet on every race).
Maintain discipline and refrain from impulsive betting
Accept financial losses without chasing to win them back.
Professional gamblers do not meet the DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling, but may have a couple of symptoms (e.g. preoccupation).
Gambling is their primary source of income.
Most problem and pathological gamblers fantasize about being a professional gambler or mistakenly believe that they are, there are very few true professional gamblers.
Many professional gamblers will eventually evolve in to problem or pathological gambling.
It has been estimated that there are fewer than 3,000 professional gamblers in the US and Canada and only 50 professional gamblers in the U.S. who earn over $100,000 dollars annually by gambling. Psychological profiles of professional horse gamblers showed they tend to be somewhat boring, socially insensitive, extremely unsentimental, hyper-vigilant, and very tense. (McCown & Chamberlain, 2000).
The term "professional gambler" is very complex in distinguishing from problem and pathological gambler and the assessment should be conducted by a trained professional therapist who also consults with the gambler's family/friends regarding the presence of symptoms.
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Very very interesting.
Some of this is spot on, some of it is rubbish. Psychological profiles of professional horse gamblers And yet thre are only 50 reported of them who make over $100,000 per year. So the study's conclusions are in themselves a gamble! You cannot profile 3,000 individuals and come up with sweeping statements to cover all. A professional gambler will be curious about his results but not very emotional about them. He will have extensively put in hard work and research. He won't make decisions within minutes or roll from one race to the next hoping for a result. It will be treated just as any other business, planned, researched, so he knows his longterm edge no matter what the race or day's outcome. Psychological profiles of professional horse gamblers showed they tend to be somewhat boring, socially insensitive, extremely unsentimental, hyper-vigilant, and very tense. It has been my experience that the above is quite common, but the social and emotional attributes vary dramatically. The only real attribute that is common to successful professional punters, is that they are all hyper-vigilant. I totally disagree that they are tense, in fact the reverse is more common. The tense gamblers are those that lurch from one disaster to the next repeating the same mistakes each time they renew their bank. As for myself, I would describe myself as "extremely sentimental", so I don't know what connection this has to gambling. Many professional gamblers will eventually evolve in to problem or pathological gambling. In my opinion this is utter rubbish - about as likely as a butterfly morphing back into a caterpillar. A gambler who is a professional success, is highly unlikely to become a pathological failure. He has the discipline, the plan, the tools to become successful and knows nothing of the attributes of a problem gambler. However, a very small percentage of "problem gamblers" have been able to turn it around into a professional success - longterm. I know of three of them who managed to pull it off longterm. |
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Undoubtedly looks to be written by one of the mainstream psychological organisations or GA etc.
Next to worthless. |
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i typed in how many professional gamblers are there and it came up on some gambling website were it list all types of gamblers
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Study was pre-2000,
pre betting exchanges, pre good computer data and power Pre soccer betting growth I would assume the numbers have grown as a result of all of those |
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as someone pointed out this is pre the betting exchanges and also in the US/Canada where waging is vitually all confined to the tote system, although you can use betfair in Canada these days. I would say that the vast majority of punters making a decent living out of the betfair US horse racing markets would struggle to make much at all if anything from the US tote markets. All too frequently you can have a reasonable bet on a horse on betfair at 2/1 that goes off odds-on on the tote.
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Psychological profiles of professional horse gamblers showed they tend to be somewhat boring, socially insensitive, extremely unsentimental, hyper-vigilant, and very tense.
Yeah, thanks for that character assassination!  |
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There is a world of difference between a compulsive gambler who happens to make money and someone who undertakes to do so professionally. I am one of the latter and I'm more likely to suddenly believe in one of the multitude of gods on offer than I am to lose for any sustained period.
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My sense is that there is little difference psychologically between a non-botting, non-trading winning gambler and someone w/ a gambling prob. The only difference in terms of obsessiveness may be that the winner has learned how to win.
I'm not saying, btw, that there are no differences cognitively or in bet selection. I'm sure that I go on forms of soft tilt after a big loss--upping stakes w/out full-blown chasing, betting where the bets wd be too marginal otherwise, occasionally pulling bets where I think I have an edge superstitiously. In taking value, sometimes you need to be inspired, crazy or aggressive to get something out of an apparently mature and rational market. But I may be wrong about how widespread my worst character traits are, as I'm not full-time and am much more risk-averse than I was after sustaining heavy losses one Cheltenham. |
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I agree that botting and trading make the obsessiveness less likely but I could name several posters on here who are neither yet, I am sure, make good solid profit and would never slip into bad ways.
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'My sense is that there is little difference psychologically between a non-botting, non-trading winning gambler and someone w/ a gambling prob. The only difference in terms of obsessiveness may be that the winner has learned how to win.'
With respect, that's just wrong. Have been betting on the horses for 30 years...wouldnt even call myself a gambler. |
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Many professional gamblers will eventually evolve in to problem or pathological gambling.
Most pro gamblers I know have the exact opposite problem in that they can't be bothered as often as they'd like. |
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Askari1 : My sense is that there is little difference psychologically between a non-botting, non-trading winning gambler and someone w/ a gambling prob. The only difference in terms of obsessiveness may be that the winner has learned how to win.'
Duncan Idaho : With respect, that's just wrong. Have been betting on the horses for 30 years...wouldnt even call myself a gambler. How would you feel if you had to quit betting Duncan? Askari1, just curious but I've always wondered why you type w/ instead of with? :) |
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'How would you feel if you had to quit betting Duncan?'
Trev, it would be a bit odd after all this time and obviously watching racing would be weird cos you watch it through a betting perspective in the main, looking for an angle or something others havent seen. But the actually 'buzz' of gambling i wouldnt miss cos i dont experience that on a daily basis, never have. Sure, i love to cheer home a winner, but i actually like the process of finding interesting horses more than i like having to put my hard earned down to try and profit from it (i do make a regular profit, but i'd say the number 1 thing that has stopped me being a bigger winner is that lack of comfort at betting and raising stakes). I enjoy taking time out from betting and i dont give it a second thought when i'm on holiday. There's other things in life. |
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i agree that most professional gamblers are likely to be quite boring people, really in some ways cold unemotional robot like people.
(you have to be otherwise you'll get too bothered by losses.) thats why i'm not one, as i'm such an exciting guy  |
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Not sure who you are agreeing with, MP. Luckily, i happen to be exciting whilst being a disciplined bettor- they are clearly not mutually exclusive in all cases.
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If I found something that I was interested in where I would expect to make 2 or 3 times the long term profit I expect from betting, I would have no qualms about giving it up.
The decision to give up would not be any more difficult than my decision to give up regular employment was to focus on betting. |
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what did you used to do Investor (for work) ?
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actually my post was somewhat tongue in cheek.
professional gambling must be one of the most nerve-wracking jobs known to man. i'd rather be a space astronaut |
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as opposed to some other kind of astronaut?
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Duncan,
Yes I hate how people do that. Like the Americans - "horseback riding" How else do you ride a horse? Or the old - "reason why" The reason is why! |
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Foxy..so you want to be a Gambler.. well try this .. tips on.. wrist about .. fingers good .. top high evens the rough .. 3 on the the field £500 bar .. by the way a monkie is £500 pounds take em on its your opnion its your cash take em on ........ them TV boys .. Nap boys well what can you say
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Zippers Zappers the best in the game and No I dont do tips for money.
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Coach, my last job was doing IT recruitment in the city.
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Anything but dull , my new gal
 swears as much. Got to get back to some work though |
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Investor- ahh OK, thought it might been a maths based job which is why i asked - you never know on here
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Duncan and catfloppo, you may be right in that many steady winning gamblers are people who have learned to take value, to shake themselves off after a loss or a bad run, to keep making the same winning bets whatever their recent results.
I was unable to do this when I started out 10-12 years or so ago as a straight bettor and began making books and trading to realise my expectation to smooth out results. By 'obsessiveness' I do not necessarily mean being on here all hours, betting without knowledge or betting to manage moods / recover losses. I mean more being absorbed in your sport, thinking about it constantly, reading the RP every day, re-watching races, working out new edges etc. I notice that I am often thinking about horses when my girlfriend is thinking about her career or my mother about her garden. I do think there's a psychological cost to this intensity to attachment to betting. |
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Trevh, I type whatever comes out fastest... There was someone a while back who didn't bother to engage w/ me b/c my abbreviations got up his nose. Prob. we both had better things to be doing.
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The Investor, that's where I am stupid. I already earn 1.8X what I earn from gambling from my job, and my business is struggling and indebted.
Long-term I expect to do well in career terms, yet I play unsystematically on the horses b/c it's more interesting than the job. |
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Long-term I expect to do well in career terms, yet I play unsystematically on the horses b/c it's more interesting than the job true |
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My sense is that there is little difference psychologically between a non-botting, non-trading winning gambler and someone w/ a gambling prob. The only difference in terms of obsessiveness may be that the winner has learned how to win.
I might be in a minority, but that's definitely the case for me. |
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Psychological profiles of professional horse gamblers showed they tend to be somewhat boring (hopefully not), socially insensitive (definitely not), extremely unsentimental (definitely not again), hyper-vigilant (nope, I'm a bit of a laxy bugger), and very tense (pretty tense and anxious by nature, but not due to gambling).
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lazy even*
I'm not very vigilant when posting, that's for sure. Constant typos and missing words. |
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I believe the best way of making a profit on Betfair would be to learn about computer programming. If you could co-ordinate prices on here and Betdak and other bookies their must be opportunities to arbitrage. Possibly you could arbitrage between different markets on Betfair. Get the bot to fill in prices within markets with little liquidity.
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Not the best way by any means but possible.
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Professional Gambler:
Rarely loses control when placing bets. Depends how you define rarely. Gambling is methodical and planned (e.g., a professional horse gambler may not bet on every race). Largely agree. Maintain discipline and refrain from impulsive betting Hmmm, most of the time. Accept financial losses without chasing to win them back. Not always... Soccer / Libertad v Sao Paulo : Match Odds 27-Oct-11 00:50 27-Oct-11 02:46 -15,311.38 Soccer / Godoy Cruz v San Martin de San Juan : Match Odds 26-Oct-11 23:05 27-Oct-11 01:00 -20,790.22 Professional gamblers do not meet the DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling, but may have a couple of symptoms (e.g. preoccupation). More than a couple in my case. Gambling is their primary source of income. Agree. Most problem and pathological gamblers fantasize about being a professional gambler or mistakenly believe that they are, there are very few true professional gamblers. Maybe this is where I'm at. Many professional gamblers will eventually evolve in to problem or pathological gambling. Actually my evolution was the other way around. |
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On a serious note, I think the lunacy in me that makes me slightly pathological in my betting has helped to make me a success. I learnt to deal with devastating losses when I was a teenager and now as a rational bettor I can take on large EV+ bets knowing that I can deal with the consequences when they don't come off.
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Interesting Bayes, I'd never considered lunacy as an attribute. I am sure greed and laziness are my main two strengths. The greed part hates losing and will never swing that way for long.
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My opinion is that there is a big difference (pressure) between someone who relys on their judgement and someone who has a mechanical edge.
Try this at a dinner or party, when someone asks you what you do for a living... Answer gambler to one group Answer bookie to another And market analyst to a third. The difference in reactions is astounding. I consider myself somewhere between a market analyst and a bookie. |
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im guessing market analyst get the best reaction?
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