Sports Gamblers The New City Investors?
26th May, 2010
An article which can be found on Money Wise, describes how in the 1990’s, a far cry from the professional tipsters of the 50’s and 60’s, the gambling industry saw the emergence of shrewd high stakes tipsters such as Keith Sobey. Sobey spent 26 years in the role of accountant and senior government auditor until 2001, when he took early retirement and set up Centaur, a tipping advisory service.
After creating a success with centaur with an annual turnover exceeding £1million, Sobey really wanted to target the mainstream investor market and saw the key to success with the potential of betting exchanges, with their guaranteed liquidity and range of options offered by the likes of Betfair and its competitors.
Sobey believes that sports betting markets can be studied and traded in the same way as a Goldman Sachs trader would study financial markets without having to identify an eventual winner in advance.
If this is the case, he believes that gambling will eventually be legitimized and regarded as a credible career, rather than having negative social connotations. This will create a new generation of traders with expertise in football, golf and cricket, just like their city peers have mastered currencies, bonds and shares.
This is why Sobey and Tony Woodams, Centaurs MD, have set up a scheme for government approved MBA graduate diplomas in sports betting trading. The idea is to offer bright young university graduates an alternative route to large salaries they’d usually look for in banking and law which seems light years away from old fashioned bookmaking.
Companies such as Betfair have enabled people to profit from the ignorance of others such as only the likes of Ladbrokes or William Hill were able to do in the past and with figures exceeding £250million flowing through Betfair each week there are certainly some big profits to be made!
Thousands of punters are obsessed with every race or every match, however the few that really do go home rich aren’t interested in the show, just the result.
By Faye
