How to Become Professional Gambler

How do you become a professional gambler, and is this a term that is grounded in fact or a Las Vegas myth? As it turns out, some people are professional gamblers, and who have become very successful playing poker, blackjack, roulette, video poker, or betting on sports.

Some of them admittedly cheated, while others found a way to master what in most cases are games of chance. We have traced the steps of some of the most prominent professional gamblers and taken a better look at how they did it.

1. Becoming a Professional Gambler Requires Study

Becoming a professional gambler is a process that requires study and practice. There are many successful examples of people who have started late in their lives and sought to master a particular game. Maria Konnikova is perhaps one of the best examples.

Konnikova holds a PhD degree from Columbia University and has taken an interest in poker as part of her research on “The Biggest Bluff,” one of three New York Times best-selling books she has published so far.

Her story is fascinating specifically because she started to play poker very late in her life, but she still managed to become what could be described as a “professional gambler.”

Although she has only been playing as part of her research into the psychology of poker, she soon realized that she had developed a liking for the game, earning $751,044 in live earnings since 2017, a relatively short lifespan.

 Her time as a professional gambler has exposed the poker world as overtly sexist, but also how men would underestimate Konnikova because she was a woman.

That has clearly cost them. Konnikova herself has learned from some of the best poker players of her age, and she has publicly stated that the only way to remain competitive is to self-study and improve. Mastery requires consistency and actively looking to deepen one’s understanding.

2. Learning from the Best

Konnikova’s example is a great one. It shows how a person who is determined to take on a complicated matter can do so through dedication but arguably through rigorous training and receiving hands-on experience from the very best.

Learning from the best is an essential part of becoming a professional gambler for at least several reasons. For starters, role models mean that there are people who have proven that it is possible to make a career as a professional gambler.

It is no coincidence that we first started with poker, as it is universally recognized as a game of skill, although it has clear gambling elements to it. However, players such as Daniel Negreanu and Justin Bonomo, Erik Seidel, and Phil Ivey are still capable of dominating poker tournaments time and over again.

This means that they do so not because of luck, but because of a deeper understanding of the game. More importantly, it proves that it can be done. You would not really believe that you can become a professional gambler playing slot games in Las Vegas, simply because slots are not games of skill.

Then again, you would similarly not try to replicate the success of Niko Tosa, a mysterious Croatian player who defeated roulette, by what is most likely nefarious means that nobody can with certainty state what they are in public.

However, you might try to copy Seidel or Bonomo, Negreanu or Bonomo, or even Doyle Brunson, a famed video and regular poker player, who has written several books on how he defeated the video poker machines, playing an optimal strategy.

3. Know the Limits That Exist

If you want to become a professional gambler, you need to understand the limitations of each game you try. Poker is cut-throat, video poker can be exasperating, and sports betting has a fairly small pool of successful handicappers.

Most of them you may not have heard about, and others have been certainly banned from holding accounts at major sportsbooks. If you want to be a professional sports bettor, for example, it would do well to study the stories of people like Billy Walters and Jimmy Snyder, known as “The Greek.”

They can give you some pointers as to how they did it, but keep in mind that both Walters and Snyder have a reputation to maintain, and besides, they would not be sharing all their trade secrets readily. On balance, becoming a professional sports bettor is possible, but it may be a little more challenging than poker where you bring your skill to the table and get a result fairly quickly.

4. Master More Complicated Strategies

Betting exchanges can prove a lucrative opportunity and a great chance to hone your analytical skills. However, they involve calculations in bulk and a good understanding of probabilities, profit margins, and a sound financial background. They are designed for professionals who already have a solid education in mathematical and financial disciplines.

This type of betting is often considered to be much like financial trading, as it expects you to account for potential fluctuations in odds found at traditional sportsbooks and use the betting exchanges to cover all your bases.

Overall, familiarity with betting exchanges can give you a much better understanding of what it means to be a professional bettor in the world of sports, and yes, it certainly is not easy. Education plays a huge part in this type of gambling.

5. Are the Ponies a Good Option for Professional Gamblers?

Horse betting can actually be a lucrative and worthwhile avenue to pursue as a professional gambler. There are vast pools of information flowing freely all over the world, allowing skilled bettors to build their own statistical models.

They do not need to necessarily profit from these models, although the best ones usually do. What they do is to sell their algorithms to others, or at least sell subscriptions to the prediction models that then allow other horse racing fans to bet in the hopes of turning a profit.

These models are not ideal, and professional gamblers who bet on the ponies still may lose money. However, they supplement and cushion these risks by the fact that they are charging a fee on their algorithm already.

6. How about a Professional Card Counter?

Counting cards is one of the slightly riskier strategies which involves an understanding of blackjack, and oftentimes – outsmarting the casino. This is easier said than done. Blackjack players who can count cards in real time take months of training provided they want to master the craft.

Not getting discovered is also hard, because casinos employ people who can count cards themselves to root out card counters from the gaming floors. Regardless, it is possible to become a professional gambler and count cards this way. Counting cards is not illegal, but it can still see you banned from properties.

To answer your question, though, it is completely possible to become a professional gambler by counting cards, although it is a difficult, challenging, and somewhat risky career path to pursue.

Do You Still Want to be a Professional Gambler?

As you can see, becoming a professional gambler is within the realm of possibility. However, it is not something that you should entertain as an outright career path. Many clever sports bettors are trained mathematicians or finances.

Card counters may have gone to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and poker players may have been trained by some of the most adept players in the world. The entry bar to being a professional gambler is not something that you can overlook.

Regardless, you can start small, taking your chances and studying assiduously to see how far you can take your hobby and perhaps even entertain the possibility of turning it into a legitimate career path.