[walker77]

Started out as an employee at a book and watched how the smart money worked and tried to learn as much as possible through working and reading sites like this. I left the job to pursue as many poker and casino bonuses as possible and tried to build a br to scalp. It's not easy with living expenses etc. but was able to get into the arb scene with a mate a few years ago. We were able to do OK betting the weak side of arbs and hedging back to low risk at stupidly good prices. Unfortunately we couldnt really make good with the 2 of us so I left to try find an investor.

It's not easy, a bank won't touch it without any assets to back you up, but I managed to find some well bankrolled pro handicappers who thought what I had to say sounded good and supplied all the bullets needed for a 50/50 split.

It goes alright, monitoring markets and picking off weaknesses, betting as much as possible and hedging back to an accepted risk. I bet across all sports around the clock, about 60 hours per week. It's definately changed over the last year. Gone are the days when you can get a good scalp betting both sides at once, and some of the major books have drastically stepped up their limiting policies. Those mass spamming arb service sites are churning new arbers through these books at low limits who race to get their $100 bets in. At the start it was all about picking off the abvious weak numbers when they were there, now most of it is predicting line moves and being onto info, betting at mostly solid books and exchanges. Lots of back now and lay later. Fortunately I'm not in USA so still got pinny and access to many good outs that US citizens don't.

I enjoy doing it and my share pays better than working for any books, and it's taught me to have thick skin. To do it right, 50K downswings can and do happen, and speculating moves means you can be put in some bad spots. I see this lasting another year before I'm sick of it and/or it becomes too tough, so looking to move more into the handicapping, modelling side, or at least combine some of that to blind market play. At the moment I'm bottom barrel sports bettor, tailing in on the guys who can beat the lines straight up.

It's a tough game to get into. Big bankroll is required not only for the swings but to have enough money where it is needed and also keeping transactions to a minimum to save costs. I've been immersed in sports betting markets for the last 7 years and still get it wrong often enough.