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The first independent gambling guide
to the best online casinos!
Online Casinos attract the 9-5
gamblers, making poker a career
Online casinos are
seen by some as a place where luck and chance collide. Rarely is skill
mentioned in gambling at online casinos. But the $12 billion dollar
online casinos industry is now seeing a new breed of white collar
gamblers. Those players who frequent online casinos and do the math,
calculate the statistics, and play at online casinos “full time” in
order to gain an edge and win big.
Despite the stereotypes of smoke-filled betting shops and Las Vegas
strips, gambling is not what it once was, as online casinos have now
taken over.
The abolition of betting tax for punters in the United Kingdom in 2001
and the growth of online casinos have revolutionized the industry and
opened the door to a new breed of gambler, who is choosing gambling at
online casinos it as a career.
Matthew Benham, managing director of one of the top online casinos, 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.
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 at online casinos and sports books.
"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.
"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 analyze 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 at online
casinos that makes him successful - he makes a profit, although declines
to say how much.
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. Online casinos have spurned this
growth.
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. But after the explosion of online casinos he became a
full-time gambler.
He knows more and more people who are gambling at online casinos
professionally and they are mainly young. Is there a gambling revolution
underway in Britain?
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