Professional gambling means in the first place that you can provide your most important necessities through gambling activities. The activities can bet on sports, poker or other casino games. Professional gambling therefore requires a mathematical insight in placing bets.
In this article you can read more about the path that people walk to eventually become a professional gambler. You can also read about a number of persistent myths about professional gamblers.
If you have the impression that professional gamblers are going from one chic party to another, then you will be disappointed. The reality is very different. Professional gamblers do not spend all their time with luxury parties and dinners or dinners in luxury restaurants.
In fact, they spend a huge amount of time studying mathematical formulas. These are essential to use opportunities while playing in their favor.
What you think you know about professional gambling is probably not right
Films such as "21" or "Two for the Money" give a distorted picture of professional gambling. The film 21 is based on a heavily fictionalized book "Bringing Down the House", by Ben Mezrich. Why this book is categorized as non-fiction is many a mystery. Two for the Money is an entertaining view of the casino industry, but misses every similarity. The film contains more fiction than a film such as Lord of the Rings.
Counting cards to gamble professionally
It is quite possible to do with BlackJack to win money. But it becomes easier when one can use a certain strategy or skill. Counting Blackjack cards is perhaps one of the easiest skills to learn. With card counts you use techniques and the les of the rules to get a mathematical advantage.
With almost every gambling activity you use a mathematical disadvantage as a professional player. This applies to all casino games, most poker games and most sports betting.
The casino has an advantage at casino games. Their chances of payment are lower than your chances of winning. In poker games, the house gets 5% of each pot. Bee Sports betting Let the bookmaker risk $ 110 for a bet of $ 100.
Gain advantage with Blackjack
The first thing you have to understand about Blackjack is that the casino uses a house advantage. If you lose, you have lost your bet and the casino just gets the house advantage. That also happens if you win, only in the long term.
But Blackjack has a number of different options that makes the game attractive for a professional gambler. To begin with, the house advantage is small, especially if you play the correct variant of Blackjack. The house advantage with some blackjack variants can be as low as 0.4%.
On the other hand, the composition of the game cards changes as the cards are shared. Suppose that with roulette every compartment that is hit by the bullet no longer participates. If the bullet falls red, that number will expire. The chance that the bullet falls red again in the next round becomes slightly smaller.
If that happens two or three times in a row, it is smart to bet on black. That is of course not how roulette works. Every twist on the wheel is an independent event. It is impossible to get a lead at Roulette by looking at what happened during earlier spins.
But at Blackjack, once a card is shared, this way is until the card game is shaken again. And that can result in an advantage. This fact does not apply if shaking machines are used. So the whole story does not apply to Holland Casino.
Payments that benefit from blackjack
Profit at a game of blackjack will give you your bet once. However, there is an exception, namely a direct blackjack, also called a natural. A natural is a hand of two cards that make 21 together. This combination can only be made with a 10 and a bait. If a card game contains more aces and tens compared to other cards, you have a greater chance of a natural.
If you increase your bet at those times and lower your bet at other times, you can benefit from that. This even makes it possible to convert the house advantage of 0.4% into a 0.5% to 2% benefit for the player.
Card counters of course never know what the next card will be. They only keep track of how many high versus the low cards are out of the game. By high we mean 10s and aces and low cards, the 2 to 6. They increase their bets when there are significantly more high than low cards in the game.
Counting disadvantage of the cards
The biggest problem that occurs with all gambling strategies also applies to counting cards. You have no guarantee that you will win. You can do everything exactly according to the strategy and be a boulder in counting cards and still suffer great losses. It is therefore essential to have a bankroll with which you will always survive a series of losing.
Many people do not have enough faith in their skills or in the strategy to hold on to it.
On the other hand, some people get winning series and overestimate the same skills and strategies. After all, you can be a worthless card counter and have repeated happiness. In the end, however, your lack of skill will result in huge losses and you will scratch behind your head and wonder what happened.
In other words, professional gamblers have profits and losses, just like other gamblers. However, in a long time they pull the longest end more often than others. Imagine a line graph with an upward trend. Such a line is representative of the income of a professional gambler.
A recreational gambler will often have only 20% to 40% of the time a winning session. This also depends on their happiness and how well the games play. Even gamblers on a slot machine run away 20% of the time as winners. Experienced blackjack players who know how to use the basic strategy, however, run away 40% of the time as winners.
But a professional gambler can have winning sessions for 60% of the time. The key is that they are not discouraged during the other 40% where loss is suffered. Professional players have calculated this and do not doubt their skills or strategy.
Other ways to gamble professionally
There are different games where with the right strategy you can get an advantage. These are for example:
- BlackJack
- Betting on horses
- Bet on sports
- poker
There may be some more, but these are the most important and most realistic. With betting on sports competitions and poker you may have the best chance of becoming a professional gambler.
That said, it is a fixed fact that only a handful of people can be a professional gambler. It requires a huge load of self -discipline and self -reflection can then handle most people.
Statistics also seem to confirm that. The percentage of poker players who actually make a profit after a year of play is around 5%. This means that 19 of the 20 poker players lose money in the long term.
Unless you keep a detailed administration, you are probably also one of those losers. Even when you think you play regularly or win small amounts. Professional gambling simply requires a degree of humility that most of us simply do not have.
Conclusion
Professional gambling exists. Some people definitely earn a good sandwich with their gambling activities. Some are blackjack players who count cards. Others play poker for a living, and another group of gambling on sports. They all have a few things in common.
The most important thing about these things is their refusal to use money without a real mathematical advantage. A true professional gambler is on it to have an advantage before he places a bet.
They also have a hard, cold and realistic view of the results of their gambling activities. It is impossible to earn a living as a gambler, unless you are willing to face the real facts of your situation.
