Arguably the greatest gambler to ever wager on horse racing, and certainly the best gambler to ever come from Australia, Alan Woods is considered to be a legend throughout the sports gambling industry. In 2006-2007, alone, Alan Woods was said to have wagered around $64 billion dollars on various horse racing events. An insane amount of money for most of us, but for the world’s betting elite, it’s just another successful year in a long history of sustained success.
The Worlds Best Horse Handicapper
Not only is Alan Woods considered to be one of the greatest horse racing bettors to ever live, but he’s also one of the best blackjack players to ever play the game, as well. Woods was a skilled and intelligent mathematician who used his ability with numbers to improve his odds when playing blackjack.
Woods was a particularly avid and talented card counter, who would use his card counting techniques to win consistently against the house. While card counting is not tolerated by the vast majority of casinos, it’s hard to catch on to as long as you’re doing it right and not wagering too large of amounts. After winning a quick, easy few thousand while testing his method, Woods’ wife left him in 1979, which enabled Woods to focus full time on his gambling and blackjack. While playing blackjack in Hobart during those first few months after his divorce, Woods won $16,000 in only four months. Knowing that he was on to something special, he moved to Las Vegas where he would continue his profound success and win another $100,000 playing blackjack and counting cards. This method is how Alan quickly built his fortune and gave him a larger bankroll to play with at the racetracks, where he would turn his bankroll into millions upon millions.
Mr. Woods would eventually retire from playing blackjack in 1982 after amounting quite an impressive fortune using his card counting technique, and then he moved to Hong Kong where he further pursued his interest in wagering on horse races. Eventually he teamed up with two other notable and historically successful gamblers, Bill Benter and Zeljko Ranogajec, and with the three of them working together they would revolutionize the way people wagered on horse races.
Sign up for a FREE Consultation to start working with Legendary Sports Bettor Jon Price
Before teaming up with the two men, Woods often saw Zeljko as a rival in the gambling industry. The two men were at the pinnacle of their industry’s success, and far ahead of anyone else wagering on horse races at the time, it was only natural that the two saw each other as opposing forces, but they would eventually put their differences aside to become arguably the strongest horse race betting team to ever wager on a race.
The three legendary gamblers came together to pioneer a new method for wagering on horseraces, it was called “Quantitative gambling.” All three of the men lived in Hong Kong at the time, where they were professional horse race gamblers using this quantitative gambling technique. The technique used statistical analysis, one of the first of its kind to implement statistics into determining the winning side of a sporting event or race. The method turned out to be more accurate than any of the three men could have predicted, as they won millions upon millions using their revolutionary formula.
When Alan Woods died in 2008 at the age of 62, his net worth was estimated to be $670 million dollars, making him arguably the most successful gambler in the history of sports betting or horse racing. In terms of Australian gamblers, he’s in a league of his own in terms of sustained success and contributions to the industry.
Some people still implement Alan Woods’ quantitative gambling technique in horse racing, though nobody has yet to be as successful as Mr. Woods, and his partners Bill Benter and Zeljko Ranogajec were using it. Still a bonafide legend in both the horse racing industry, as well as blackjack, Alan Woods has left his mark on the gaming industry and forever changed the way that people gamble. He was one of the first people to popularize card counting, and also helped bring quantitative gambling to prominence. He died of cancer in his appendix in January of 2008, but he will forever be known as one of the greatest gambling and horse racing minds in history.