Anyone who loves to place a few bets on the weekend has dreamed of turning their hobby into a full-time job.

Even more so, turning betting as a full-time job into making millions of dollars, or even billions! For some people, this dream has turned into a reality and we want to tell you all about them.

Over ten articles, we are compiling a list of ten people who got seriously rich from sports betting!

ARTICLE 1: TONY ‘LIZARD’ BLOOM

Arguably the UK’s most notorious sports bettor, Tony Bloom, is the owner of Starlizard, a company that describes itself as a betting consultancy.

Starlizard is also the sole adviser for Bloom’s betting syndicate who, every weekend, have £1 million riding on any given football game.

This makes Starlizard the biggest betting syndicate in Britain and it is believed they make roughly £100 million a year, but that would be an average year.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 2: MATTHEW ‘MONEYBALL’ BENHAM

Although Matthew Benham has stated he dislikes the comparison between himself and the movie ‘Moneyball’, let’s be honest, he’s about as close as it gets!

Benham’s footballing beliefs revolve around KPI’s, statistics and algorithmic philosophy.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 3: HARALABOS ‘BOB’ VOULGARIS

From the late 1990’s to the early 2000’s, Haralabos Voulgaris (a.k.a. Bob), made betting look easy, exploiting inaccurate odds on NBA points totals.

For five years, Bob made an absurd amount of money with a winning rate of almost 70% at a point in time.

He found a flaw in the bookies prices where the total points for the first and second half of NBA games were simply half of the predicated game total.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 4: BILL BENTER

Bill Benter is one of only a few who has managed to master the world of betting on Horse Racing.

In the mid-1980’s, Benter produced an algorithm to beat Hong Kong Horse Racing, and over thirty years later, Bill has amassed nearly $1 US billion.

For a sport which can produce hundreds and thousands of variables per race, from what a horse ate for breakfast to jockey’s falling off, his success is phenomenal.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 5: EDWARD THORP

Although he doesn’t fit the theme of a sports bettor, it would be rude not to include betting pioneer, Edward Thorp, in our article series.

Edward Thorp was made famous through his book Beat the Dealer and because a casino attempted to kill him!

Thorp brought the phenomenon of card counting to light when his book was released in 1962, selling over 700,000 copies and making it onto the New York Times Bestsellers list.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 6: BILLY “THE GREAT WHITE SHARK” WALTERS

Billy Walters has been described by odds-makers in Nevada as a Great White Shark, the most dangerous and feared sports bettor in the world.

For four decades, Walters amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in sports betting profits, mostly on American Football and Basketball.

Unfortunately, his story hasn’t ended well though, as he currently sits in prison after being found guilty of insider trading.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 7: ZELJKO ‘THE JOKER’ RANOGAJEC

Zeljko Ranogajec is one of the most successful sports bettors of our time, accruing his billionaire status through casinos, horse racing and Keno jackpots.

The funny thing is, most people have never heard of ‘The Joker’, who resides in multiple countries, owning an apartment on One Hyde Park, London, where an apartment once sold for a world record sum of over US$170 million.

Zeljko not only turns over $1 billion yearly but he has also sent a betting exchange bankrupt!

Read more here.

ARTICLE 8: JEFF ‘21’ MA

Jeff Ma’s betting story is so good that it was adapted into the book Bringing Down the House and the movie, 21.

Ma is famous for being a member of the MIT Blackjack Team from 1993 to 2001, where he took the casinos for roughly $2 million.

He’s also renowned for his ability to stay cool under pressure, believing most people fail at betting because they let the emotions get the better of them.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 9: JAMES ‘JEOPARDY!’ HOLZHAUER

Other than the sportsbook managers in Vegas, not many people had heard of the name James Holzhauer before his incredible 32-game winning streak on Jeopardy! in 2019.

Over 33 games of Jeopardy!, Holzhauer won over $2.4 million using basic sports betting principles such as probabilities and expected value; principles he’d been using his whole life.

But before he took the Jeopardy! world by storm, James was and still is a professional sports bettor.

Read more here.

ARTICLE 10: JONAS GJELSTAD

We couldn’t go through the whole series of 10 People Who Got Rich on Sports Betting without mentioning our own, Jonas Gjelstad.

Although he is a co-founder of Trademate Sports, he’s also been a very successful poker player and sports bettor, profiting nearly $1 million from value betting in one year.

But there is no real surprise that this is where Gjelstad’s life has taken him, after he started betting on football at just four years of age!

Read more here.

NOTABLE MENTION: ALAN WOODS

Alan Woods was a mathematical genius from Australia who used his superior IQ to make a lot of money! By using the principles of “quantitative gambling” Woods won millions on horse racing.

Woods sadly passed away in 2008 when he was 62. At the time of his death, his net worth was over $670 million AUD, which is about €400 million.

It’s not an overstatement to say that Alan Woods was the man to start a revolution in horse racing betting.

Read the full article here!

Want to read about some of our customers who are on their way to becoming professional sports bettors too? Take a look at some of these videos/articles:

1. My Value Betting Journey from 1k to 2k
2. Matias Interview - from 5k to 20k
3. Jonas Gjelstad Documentary Series - from 10k to 1m

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