When it comes to an online casino, there is an eternal debate regarding how much of it is luck and to what extent it is about skills. And haven’t you ever wondered how the richest gamblers in the world do it? Well, with the right combination of luck and skills, professional gamblers have aced it in the world of betting. Some people say it is as easy as to find a True Blue casino login page, while others believe you need to master a special skill set for that. Though it is hard to get rich through gambling, a few individuals have managed to do it pretty well. So, who are these famous gamblers? Let’s look at the top six names in the gambling business.
Bill Benter
- Net worth – $1 billion
- Focus areas – Horse racing and blackjack
Bill Benter is world-famous for his outstanding betting skills. He started his gambling journey with blackjack before moving on to horse racing. His estimated annual income is around $1 billion. In fact, he can make $5 to $10 million in a one-horse race. As a student of physics, Benter uses his keen mind for gambling with precision. After seven years of gambling, he was banned from the Las Vegas casinos on the charges of card counting. He went on to continue his journey in Hong Kong.
In Asia, he teamed up with the late Alan Woods to create the first software in the world that can help gamblers. With a net worth that hits the roof and his exceptional services to world gambling, Bill Benter is no doubt the finest gambler the world has seen.
Tony Bloom
- Net worth – $1.7 billion
- Focus areas – Poker and sports betting
If you have been in the gambling world for some time now, you have heard a mention of the name of Tony Bloom. He is a poker legend and the chairman of a football club. He also owns the biggest gambling consultancy syndicate in the world. The company itself makes millions of pounds each year. Interestingly, Bloom’s gambling career started as a child. He says that his first shot at gambling was when his pocket money was used for spinning the fruit machine reels.
By the time he was fifteen, he had already used fake IDs to place different bets at the meagre. Professionally, he started as an accountant before becoming a trader. But his affinity to gambling drew him towards it during his trading days. Going by his yearly net worth of $1.7 billion, it’s clear that he made the right decision.
Edward Thorp
- Net worth – $800 million
- Focus area – Blackjack
This name needs no introduction if you have been in a blackjack circuit for a while now. Edward Thorp is also the author of the immensely successful book titled “Beat the Dealer.” In this book, he makes innovative use of numbers to show how card counting can help in overcoming house advantages in blackjack. Several renowned blackjack players around the world cite this book as the stepping stone in their path to success, including Benter. You can also learn how to make the best use of free pokies.
Edward holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of California and has been a math professor at several universities. After tasting success at gambling, he applied his math skills to the share market and found viable methods to earn money from stocks. Edward found his place in the Blackjack Hall of Fame in the year 2002.
Andrew Black
- Net worth – $670 million
- Focus area – Bridge and horse racing
Next up on the list is the renowned British entrepreneur Andrew Black, known for bridge and horse racing. He is also the person behind Betfair, which happens to be the largest bet exchange in the world. As a young man, Black had tried his hand at different professions and kept on gambling on the side. But when he made enough to give up his main profession, he went ahead and quit his day job to adopt gambling as a career.
At the start, Black had a rocky beginning to his journey. However, he came up with software that could help in gambling, attracting big companies. He partnered up with one of the companies to open his software business. Though he focuses more on his software business now, he owes his success to gambling.
Zeljko Ranogajec
- Net worth – $610 million AUD
- Focus area – Horse racing and blackjack
The success of Zeljko Ranogajec came through advantage gambling, especially in blackjack and horse racing. This Australian gambler has a net worth of a whopping $610 million AUD, which is equal to a little over $450 million USD at present. He found his place in the Blackjack Hall of Fame back in 2011. Ranogajec was a student of banking, finance, and tax at the University of Tasmania. He learned counting cards at blackjack tablets when he was working at a casino.
And there was no looking back! Eventually, he got banned from every casino in Australia for card counting, which made him move to Las Vegas to start card counting there. Ultimately, even Vegas banned him from all the casinos. So, he had to move back to Australia and take up horse betting.
Billy Walters
- Net worth – $610 million AUD
- Focus area – Horse racing and blackjack
Billy Walters is famous for placing huge bets. Are you wondering how huge we are talking about? Well, he once placed a single bet for as much as $3.5 million. The fact remains that he has also made $2 million in one day. He has been gambling for almost forty years. Walters made just a single losing year in all this time. In fact, his thirty-year winning streak is still talked about in the gambling world.
His reputation had made several celebrities place their bets on his behalf. However, Walter lost it big time in 2017 when the police found out that he was insider trading. He was allegedly using valuable non-public details and got punished for his crime by serving jail time.
The Endnote
If you are into gambling, the betting stories and the life of these professional gamblers will interest you for sure. So, hopefully, the facts that you got to know about the professional gamblers today have been inspirational to you. It is time to put this inspiration to good use and try your hand at a few games.
