Blooming marvellous

It's the same with Sports Betting.  Most of us, as we plonk down our £10 or £20 bet on a Sky Bet Championship game, or the 3.30 at Newmarket, look enviously at those big spenders who bet in hundreds & thousands of pounds.

I was reminded of this recently, when I bumped into a chap named Tony Bloom at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Amongst the poker tournaments he played this year was the $111,111 entry "One Drop", for which some of the entry fee goes to charity.

When Tony - nicknamed "The Lizard" - is not playing poker, he looks after Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, which he owns.  And as you probably know, they have a spanking new Stadium - The American Express Community Stadium - and Tony Bloom paid for that, too. When asked how he funded the construction n of the Stadium, he bristled a bit, almost affronted at the question. "I used my own money, I never borrowed a penny".

Tony is also involved in various Charitable projects. He heads up The Bloom Foundation, which has raised over £3 million for poverty relief, & helps out with "Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis". His wife, Linda, is an MS sufferer, & she is a Trustee, too.

You get the picture by now - we are talking seriously rich.

So where does all this money come from? This is not "old money", or inherited wealth. His family were not poor, but Tony is a self-made man.

Long before the internet boom gather pace, Tony started - & then sold for a huge profit - several Sports Betting Sites. He was also an early starter in the Online Poker boom, helping to create & grow Tribeca Software, which was, really, the first Online Poker Network. That was sold, too, in around 2005.

Having accumulated all this wealth, Tony's next move was to set up a business called StarLizard.

They, essentially, do two things. First, they crunch football data - lots of it - to come up with probabilities, which they then compare with prices available in betting markets - principally Asian Handicaps, where the markets have so much liquidity then can comfortably absorb bets for 7 figure sums. They then sell that information to high roller sports bettors.

Secondly, Tony leads a team who run betting syndicates. These syndicates are not like office sweepstakes - they stake millions of pounds on football matches.  And the biggest bettor of all is Tony himself, recently described as "the biggest & most fearless sports bettor on earth". Now that may or may not be true, but it is clear this man bets serious money, & when he wins life must feel great.

Word of caution, though. Whilst it is natural to feel envious of Tony, jealous even, what must it feel like when a £1 million bet ends up losing, especially if it is the result of a dodgy decision by the referee?  We can't begin to imagine, can we?

And that's why it's no bad thing for us regular guys & girls to play fiver & tenner poker tournaments, or have a few £10 bets on the football every Saturday afternoon. We might not win as much as Tony, but losing a tenner is not the end of the world to us. Losing a milly, on the other hand, must be the nut worst feeling.   

Just imagine your wife or hubbie asking the question - "how did your bet get on Dear?" Telling them you have just lost a million quid is going to be one of those awkward conversations.

So good luck to Tony Bloom, & whilst I'm full of admiration for his vision, work ethic & ability to punt such huge sums on Sports Betting or Poker, I'll stick to my Tenner poker tourneys thank you very much.