[notforviewingit]

People are mythologising making money by gambling. In terms of tech the industry is like 20 years behind the financial markets.

Source, I worked at company that did arbitrage in online sports betting in 2010s that employed around 30 or so people and did hundreds of millions in profit.

[shkkmo]

This story predates that period by well over a decade. Even if the company you worked for isn't one of the ones named towards the end of the article, it is very likely that the company you worked for was in some way connected with people from either or both of Benter's or Woods' operations.

[notforviewingit]

I doubt there is a strong link between the founders of my old employer and Benter or Woods. My old employer did totally different kind of betting. No blackjack or horses.

In general people overestimate how hard it is to make money in gambling. You don't need to be some kind of savant to do it. The people in general are similar to what you would find in your average tech company. Sure there is a founder with a vision and some sort of an insight into making money, but every company has one.

[sourcepluck]

Could you share the name of your former employer, or if you can't, could you share the name of similar employers?

I'm on a bit of a probability (gambling, sports betting, stats, etc) kick these days, and I'd be interested in reading more about people and companies doing this in practice. I'd been imagining there must be organised sports gamblers, but they don't seem to be overly searchable.

[notforviewingit]

I don’t know exactly how these companies make their money and how successful they are, but I at least believe all of them are in the odds computation business. They might be supplying prices to bookmakers instead of betting themselves etc.

Longshot Systems Football Radar Gambit Research SportsRadar Odds Reactor Star Lizard Smartodds Smarkets

These companies are known more for their HFT trading in financial markets, but I believe they have also expanded into sports betting.

jane street jump trading Susquehanna

Also some of the bookmakers such as matchbook have started as betting group and then overtime turned into a bookmaker as that is where the real money is.

[sourcepluck]

Thank you, that's wonderful, I'll be sleuthing there and getting a feel for things. Cheers!

[LiamPa]

Search betcode, plenty of us on the slack.

https://github.com/betcode-org

[sourcepluck]

Oh wow, it's happening there! I've followed and starred and bookmarked and all that, and will be having a browse around a bit more closely when I get a moment. I think I'm roughly understanding what the group is about. I'll follow up, thanks!

[harveynick]

Looks like the slack invite expired?

[LiamPa]

This one work?

https://join.slack.com/t/betcode-org/shared_invite/zt-2uer9n...

[chillydawg]

Certainly helped to be early in that particular market. It certainly helped that Hammersmith lot.

[josephg]

Yeah; I briefly did some consulting work at a sports betting company. They have a database of hundreds of people who are essentially banned because they’re too good at picking winners, and the betting company loses money having them as clients.

Internally they track how much each account wins & loses. If you win too much, the site gives you worse and worse odds until eventually you’re banned entirely. The reverse is also true: if you’re a terrible better, the site gives you better odds hoping to keep you coming back for more.

They have a whole team whose job it is to instantly block smart betters from opening new accounts. Accounts opened in the name of their girlfriends is the classic thing they watch out for.

Some of the smartest gamblers also get hired as quants, and help figure out what the odds should be on the site.

[notforviewingit]

In Europe bookies just get rid of good players, except for the exchanges and Pinnacle. No one serious will gamble with European bookmakers. Though maybe this has changed lately. I have not been following field recently.

In Asia the bookies are a lot more tolerant, especially the larger ones. You really have to hit their pnl hard for you to get cut off.