Forget those ideas about card sharps and hustlers, a new breed of white-collar gambler is using statistics and the power of the internet to turn a profit. Welcome to gambling as a career option.
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Despite the stereotypes of smoke-filled betting shops and glitzy Mayfair casinos, gambling is not what it once was.
The abolition of betting tax for punters in 2001 and the growth of internet gambling have revolutionised the industry and opened the door to a new breed of gambler, who is choosing it as a career.
Matthew Benham, managing director of Smartodds, had placed just a handful of bets in his life before he became a professional gambler last year. He was a City trader for eight years before setting up his company, which bets exclusively on football.
Suspicion
The 36-year-old employs 13 full-time staff, mainly made up of mathematicians and statisticians. He also has 25 part-time employees around the world who collate data on their country's league. Once the analysis is done, he and just one other colleague decide what bets to place.
'After leaving my job I was looking for something new,' he says. 'I have always been into football and I noticed betting on games was really taking off. A lot of what I did in the City feeds into what I do now. I use the spreadsheets and financial models I did as a trader to assess odds.
Until recently winning didn't always convert into high returns because the taxman and bookmaker took a cut |
'Five years ago professional gambling was hard work, but times have changed. With the internet it is much easier, from getting all the data to analyse a bet to placing it.
'I know more and more people who are taking it up full time and it is becoming a legitimate career choice. Some people are still suspicious of what I do and expect me to carry round suitcases full of cash.'
Benham says it is his unemotional attitude towards gambling that makes him successful - he makes a profit, although declines to say how much.
'I never bet for fun, it is purely a job,' he says. 'You have to be unemotional because if you do it for the thrill you might not make sensible decisions.'
There are no figures for how many people gamble professionally, but the money staked in all gambling style activities rose to £63.8bn in 2002-03, according to the government.
Dangerous passion
Politics graduate Paul Motty, 32, worked in the betting industry after school but left in 1997 to go to university because there were few prospects and full-time punting was too difficult. But after the explosion of internet betting sites he became a full-time gambler last year.
'The internet has changed the whole industry,' he says. 'The key to being a good gambler is research. It used to take days hunched over the papers to research a bet, now it takes minutes.
'Gambling is losing its seedy image. It is a massive global industry and doing it professionally is now a viable career. Effectively, it is just stock broking.'
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He knows more and more people who are taking it up professionally and they are mainly young.
'Younger people are computer literate and use internet sites. For us gambling doesn't have the same stigma, it is a job and we set ourselves strict limits,' he says.
Experts agree changes in the industry have made it more feasible to turn a punt into profit - but say it is not an easy way to make money.
'There has always been scope for smart people, with sufficient time to invest, to make it a full-time job of gambling,' said Dr David Forrest, reader in economics at the Centre for Gambling at the University of Salford.
'But until recently winning didn't always convert into high returns because the taxman and bookmaker took a cut. Now it is more feasible that your time will deliver a positive financial outcome.'
The university runs a degree in business and gambling studies and for the first time last year a student left to become a professional gambler after graduating.
Dedication
'You have to be very dedicated - it is not an easy job,' says Dr Forrest. 'That's the mistake some people make.'
Gordon House knows just how many people can't cope. The UK's only charity offering residential treatment programmes for gambling addicts, it has seen a huge increase in inquiries in recent years and places are massively oversubscribed.
Managing director Faith Freestone says there is a potential risk for anyone who gambles.'Professional gamblers talk about being in control but the problems start when gambling controls you,' she says.
Despite his success Motty says he would not advise anyone to take it up.
'You have to take the emotion and passion out of it to be a good gambler and a lot of people just aren't able to do that.'
A photo has emerged reportedly showing journalist Martin Bashir following an alleged visit to a takeaway and wine shop, despite the corporation saying he was too ill to respond to claims made by Princess Diana's brother.
The Mail on Sunday published the image, which it said was taken on Friday evening outside the 57-year-old's north London home.
It comes amid allegations made by the late princess' sibling, Earl Spencer, that he was shown false financial documents by then-Panorama reporter Bashir to gain access to her prior to her bombshell TV interview on the current affairs programme in 1995.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the corporation said: 'The BBC has made clear it will investigate the issues raised and that this will be independent. We will set out the terms of reference in due course. We will do everything possible to get to the bottom of this.
'Martin Bashir is signed off work by his doctors as he is currently recovering from quadruple heart bypass surgery and has significant complications from having contracted COVID-19 earlier in the year.'
The BBC has already apologised for Bashir faking two bank statements, which Earl Spencer says the journalist used to help land his interview with Diana 25 years ago.
The corporation has insisted the statements played 'no part in her decision to take part in the interview'.
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The broadcast exclusive sent shockwaves through the monarchy due to Diana's comments about the state of her marriage to Prince Charles.
But now the earl has shared with the Daily Mail notes of his meeting with Bashir and Diana in 1995.
He says the notes are contemporaneous and document a string of false claims allegedly made by the reporter.
This included the bogus allegations that Diana was under surveillance; that her bodyguard was plotting against her, and close friends were betraying her; and that MI6 had recorded Prince Charles and his private secretary planning the 'end game'.
They were apparently designed to play to the paranoia of the princess, who feared she was being deceived by her aides and in-laws.
While Earl Spencer told the Mail he concluded Bashir was a fantasist and apologised to his sister for wasting her time, unbeknown to him, Diana kept in touch with Bashir and two months later the explosive 'there are three of us in this marriage' interview was broadcast.
Bashir, now the BBC's religion editor, is seriously unwell with COVID-related complications and is not in a position to respond to the earl's allegations, the corporation has said.
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In a series of tweets posted earlier this month, Earl Spencer said the broadcaster was 'incapable of honestly facing up to the ugly truth of this matter'.
The head of a Westminster committee has told Sky News that the earl's latest allegations are 'deeply disturbing'.
Tory MP Julian Knight, chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said: 'This is a very complex and deeply disturbing tale and it is important for public confidence in BBC journalism that a thorough, urgent and independent investigation is carried out and my committee will be watching developments very closely indeed.'
An internal inquiry by the corporation in 1996 examined claims Bashir had used false financial documents, purporting to show a then member of the earl's staff was leaking stories, as a way to persuade the princess to talk.
The BBC maintains there is a written note from Diana - although it no longer has a copy - saying she had not seen the false bank statements, and they played no part in her decision to give the interview.
The corporation has previously said in a statement that Bashir admitted commissioning the mocked-up bank documents and it is understood the journalist was found to have 'done wrong' at the end of the process, but it is not known what sanction, if any, he faced.
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In an earlier statement, a BBC spokeswoman highlighted an apology the earl has received from its director-general Tim Davie over the mocked-up documents.