I'm not what you'd call the average punter

20 years of beating the bookies - how it all began 

 

Hi, I'm Bob Rothman - professional gambler.

 

That's not how I started off, of course. I studied finance and accounting at university, joined Price Waterhouse and then went into computing. But it was obvious that for big money, I needed something else.  

 

Since my school days, I found myself attracted to horse racing and always wanted to be a professional gambler.When I was a kid I admired John Gough, a well-known ‘player’ from York, whose betting prowess allowed him to own one of the first V12 E-Type Jaguars. Yes, gambling was going to be the answer.

 

To start off with, I advertised in the papers for contacts and pursued people in racing who I thought could help me. The only problem was, 99% were timewasters. But I managed to filter out the dross and was fortunate to meet well known odds-complier and private handicapper Angus Hill. He was a great help to me in the early days.

 

I soon built up a network of top-quality contacts among people involved in the sport, and also got in touch with a few other professional punters. Along with their advice, I used money management techniques to help me select winners. I treated betting as a business.

 

 

My learning curve was steep. It cost me £35,000 before I started making money. But I made it big time - more than £440,000 in my second year of full-time gambling.

 

Then the bookies played dirty. They soon wised up to the fact that I was onto a winner with my system, and did everything they could to shut me down. They even put spies in my network, so when we had, say, a juicy 33/1 shot, they would smash up the price before the shows were sent to the betting shops.

 

In spite of their dirty tricks, I kept on being successful. So much so that one by one, the bookmakers started closing my accounts. Among Professional Gamblers, getting banned is a sign of success. Most pros get closed down once or twice. In one year I was closed by 25 different betting shops.

 

So I took my revenge. I created my Racing Advisory Service. For a small fee, people could join and I would provide the tips. They weren't known to the bookies, so no problems there. They simply gave me a share of the winnings.

 

Perhaps it's time you did the same?

 

 

More things you should know about our Racing Advisory Service