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-compiler and private handicapper Angus Hill. He was also a Pro Gambler and 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.

As a Professional Gambler you’ll have a massive overhead quite apart from any losses along the way. I’ve spent £100,000 or more in a year on information and performance data.  But in the early days I had to rely on winning to generate enough cash flow to pay my contacts … and it was tough, no doubt about it!

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 Professional 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 don’t want pro punters betting with them, they just want mugs.  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 Horse Racing Tips 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?

Most tipsters don’t have a press following or any exploits worth reporting. Read for yourself what the newspapers have had to say about Bob Rothman, and decide if you’d like to join one of his services.

Scotland on Sunday:

If backing horses is a mug’s game then Bob Rothman is several furlongs short of the healthy gallop.

He exhibits some of the classic signs of romance of the turf – “I’d bet ten grand a week if I could” – he studies form and racing information from the moment he gets up in the morning, and he is often to be seen breaking into a wide grin. This means he’s probably off to see his bank manager.

Bob Rothman is a professional punter and the antithesis of the bookies fool. More then 25 bookmakers have refused to handle his business because he is too successful – he does not bet ten grand a week because they won’t take his money.

So he punts through an elaborate network of friends and acquaintances who place bets for him, and he runs a highly successful tipsters business complete with logarithm-like tables and electronic bleepers.

…

Rothman talks in business management terms about betting. The average punter loses, he says “because he’s doing it for entertainment – 20 or 30 guys getting together in a betting shop. If you want to win you have to work at it, to spend 40, 60 or 80 hours a week at it”

Apart from hard work Rothman holds to two basic management principles: betting “value for money” – dispensing with emotion and working out whether the odds you are being offered on a fancied horse actually make sense on the balance sheet after outgoings like tax – and betting in proportion, looking at the total of what you have and deciding what the next stake should be.

The Sun:

His name has become so well-known among bookies they will only offer him the starting price on the horses he backs IF they know he is doing the backing.

Should word ever leak out, the big bookies flash advance warnings to their shops: “Only take starting price bets on the 2.30 – it’s a Rothman race.”

The Sunday Express:

We put Mr. Rothman to a random test on Wednesday and Thursday, two racing days he described as “uninspiring”.

He selected three horses for the Wednesday evening meeting at Ripon Airedale, Colourist and Mahrah.

For our benefit he had imaginary bets of £1,000 each way on Airedale and £1,000 to win on Mahrah and Colourist which could have been backed at 2/1 and even money respectively, before racing.

Airedale was a non-runner, making the bet null and void – but the other two horses romped home – so if the bets had been real, he would have won £3,000 on the day.

On Thursday, there were two selections, both at Brighton on the afternoon – Shikari’s Son and Jawab.

The proposed bet was £400 to win on each. Shikari’s son won at 7/4, showing a profit of £700. Jawab came second in its race – so on the day £400 had been lost and £700 won.

The overall “profit” on the two days would have been £3,300.’

London-Irish News:

‘Rothman has published a book on his system called ‘The Racing Success System”’ in which he completely explains the concept of value betting and money managements, and there are pages of formidable looking tables to help you decide what the right odds are.

The book costs £50, which sounds steep enough but when you take into account the amount of work Rothman has put into it and the fact that it’s a limited publication it seems reasonable. Perhaps the best idea is for a group of four or five would be pros to share the cost of the book between them. As well as saving money it’s the sort of book that’s easily understood when it’s discussed in a group.

So far Rothman has sold 1,500 copies of the tome which he published himself, proving that just about everything he touches these days turns the same colour as his gold Rolls Royce. But apart from that he’s not the stereotypical flamboyant gambler.

These days he’s on the blacklist of most bookies so he depends on reliable contacts to place his bets. He rarely visits a race course, and when he does it’s purely a gambling free day out. All of his business is done from an office in sleepy Wimbledon, where he gathers information over the phone. These days he employs an assistant and he calls his new business R. Rothman Offcourse Commissions.

Cobham, 2.46pm Monday

Awesome week! £17,255.00 Profit!

Summary

This is the time of year when our betting on the Flat starts taking 2nd place to the Jumps. Many Flat horses are now losing their summer coat and going over the top making results more erratic. We had more bets over the sticks this week and the week’s results clearly demonstrated that the New Jump Season is now starting to pay its way. Let’s hope it continues as well as it’s started!

6 Bets 4 winners!

We had 6 bets over the sticks with 4 good winners at fantastic prices. We usually have an advantage at the start of a new season because not everyone knows which horses are fit before they’ve run. That means you can get better odds as we did last week.

****** was pretty stunning as an example. It was hard to believe you could bet a horse at 9/1 that was trading at odds-on in running well before the race was over … and at a very short price for most of the time … he was travelling so well you could call him the winner from a long long way out! ****** at 11/2, ****** at 11/4 and  ****** on Sunday at 13/2 were all great big priced winners too so despite a substandard Saturday with several Flat horses running well below expectations and just the one winner we ended up with a handsome 172 points profit on the week! £17,255.00 to £100 per point stakes. Awesome!

Monday:

Nice start to the week with 2 winners 2 seconds. But how cruel was ******? He had to run wide most of the race yet was still well ahead in the last furlong and in the words of the Racing Post was “mown down last strides!”  It was carnage for the “Betting In Running” Professionals who were betting him at 1/5 in the last furlong! Ouch! At least we were on each way at big odds around 11/2 and made a small profit anyway. They lost their shirts! It was one of those races were afterwards you’re left wondering “how the heck did he get beat from there?”

Tuesday:

****** ran too free early on yet was still close up and only run out of second close home. Worth keeping an eye on.

****** battled for the early lead but as a result blew up in the last furlong after looking like he had the race at his mercy. He needs to be ridden with more restraint.

Wednesday:

A Fabulous Day! Two great winners. ****** was the cream! I love backing 9/1 winners don’t you? Even if you missed that and only got 8/1 you had to be feeling pretty smug when he was an enormous gamble just before the off and went off the heavily backed 4/1 second favourite. He’d been schooling brilliantly and I guess when the bookies were hit for 6 they may have finally twigged it was a proper “job”.  The race was named in honour of  ****** and the bookmakers eventually got the clue that ****** might just have laid it out to win this and dived for cover like headless chickens as they so often do when faced with professional money!!

****** was an effortless winner making it a great day.

Thursday:

Profits on the week zoomed up to over £10,000! These are the weeks I love! Our Jump contacts proved they are in excellent form when  ****** was well backed and landed a lovely 11/2 winner for us.   ****** won a decent bet and the other two bets were both placed. I know they can’t all win but I don’t mind if they go close. This was a really good day!

Friday:  

A poor day’s racing and looked like we’d have no bets. Then we got a late message for one which was heavily backed yet ran badly. No excuses and odd because our late messages usually run great.

Saturday:

On the plus side our sole bet over the Jumps won well.  ****** was another ******  runner that was having his seasonal debut and proved he was as fit as our spies reported, winning easily and being heavily backed to do so.

The Flat horses were disappointing.  ****** won the race last year and had been targeted at it yet ran no race. Afterwards they agreed she gone over the top and the race had probably come a week too late. It is hard to get horses to peak for a race and usually you have a 2 week window where you can keep them at peak fitness before you have to let them down and then build up again.

Our reports on ****** proved to be accurate as we’d heard he was working better than the original favourite (******) at home (both trained by same stable) he beat him in the race but neither were good enough and it looks like their horses have also gone over the top after a long hard season.

****** travelled like the best horse but found disappointingly little when ****** asked him to quicken. They blamed the ground but I’d like to reserve judgment. He’s such a good horse at home he wins his gallops on the bridle so they didn’t know how good he was. It’s possible he’s a “bridle” horse who finds little for pressure and because he’s used to winning easily at home has never had to develop his battling qualities. Rather like humans who have life way too easy and are over-spoilt by rich parents. They may be talented but often are losers in life! Time will tell.

Sunday:

What a great way to end the week!  ****** was a stunning 13/2 winner for us. Sorry we missed the early 7/1 because I wanted to study the race for a bit longer after I got the message. After Saturday I was treading a bit carefully.

He was a great winner and it would have been too cruel if he’d got beaten like ******. 18 lengths clear at the second last when he hit it, and then blundered at the last as well! He had enough left to still win but it would have been even more authoritive had he not messed up the last two hurdles! He probably went too far ahead too early but was the best horse at the weights so why not!

All in all a Great Week. 172 Points profit is fantastic for a years betting let alone a week! No complaints even though  ****** getting caught close home cost us another 65 points! Can’t be too greedy I guess! But I do love beating the bookies and giving them a good kick in the pants don’t you?!

All the best,

Bob Rothman

June               =   £45,892.50 Profit

July                 =   £11,367.00 Profit

August           =   £30,492.50 Profit

September  =   £75,805 .00 Profit

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