There was a time, not too long ago, when you couldn’t even place a sports wager online. You had to visit a casino or underground bookies back room to place your bets and wait for the outcome of the game. However, with the exploding popularity of gambling, and sports betting in particular, today the vast majority of wagers are made online, legally. One of the people that’s greatly responsible for that, and someone who has built his fortune on betting on sporting events is legendary sports bettor and entrepreneur, Tony Bloom.
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Tony Bloom is a graduate of mathematics from Manchester University, who eventually grew from a poker star into a billionaire gambler. He made his first billion from the poker tables, and now he is the owner of two professional football clubs: Hove Albion and Brighton. He also once played in the World Poker Championship and made over $2 million by placing in the money, a win which would change his life considerably.
Early Beginnings of Tony Bloom
He was born in 1970 in Brighton, Sussex to a middle class family. He began to notice his passion for betting as a young boy around only 8 years old. He once told journalists that he and his mate used to take their own pocket money to play on the fruit machines which were popular back then (Fruit machine is a British term used to describe slot machines). According to a former Cricket captain, Mike Atherton, at the age of 15 years Bloom used his fake ID to get access to the betting shops where he would regularly play. At this time, bloom was 3 years younger than the recommended legal age of sports betting. However, his young age wouldn’t stop him from gambling, and eventually would land him in some trouble for playing under the legal age.
When he was in Manchester University, he continued with his gambling but was heard time to time confessing that he was not so good at it. He won more often and people thought that he was using a strategy of which was not true, Bloom insisted he was just guessing the whole time. Upon graduating from Manchester, he got a job at Ernest and Young which is a multinational accounting firm headquartered in London. He made the decision of becoming a professional gambler at the age of 23 after working for several months as a trader, and he’s never looked back.
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Early on, Tony Bloom spent a lot of time betting on Cricket and football matches, and most of his bets resulted in big wins. However, in 1994, he experienced a tough loss when he wagered $5,000 on England vs. West Indies which resulted in one of the biggest losses of his career at that time. However, he quickly gained nationwide recognition for his talent, and in the 1990s he caught the attention of Bookmaker Victor Chardler who offered him a job to set up an international betting operation. Of course Bloom jumped at the chance and accepted the offer, which was the beginning of his success.
Tony Bloom’s Poker Background
According to Poker news, Tony Bloom is named the 15th most successful living poker player in the World today. As of today, Bloom has won over $3 Million at porker tournaments throughout his career. He was nicknamed “The Lizard” due to his jumps in the betting tables. Although there isn’t anyone with clear details about his financial net worth, Tony Bloom has invested over $200 Million in his football teams that he owns. Consequently, the claims that he is worth several Billion pounds could easily be true. He has many other money-making ventures and businesses, particularly in the realm of online sports betting, including things like Default, PremierBet – an online betting platform and many more. However, he sold his online betting company PremierBet for $1 million a few years ago. He has also transacted lucrative property deals throughout his time and various directorships which he has held for more than 12 years.
Star Lizard Betting Operation
There’s no doubt that Bloom is among the most successful gamblers of all time, and has also played a role in building online sports betting to what it is today. However, Bloom is a very private man and therefore there is little information known about his personal life to the public. It is not known what goes on behind the doors of his company Starlizard, and no one can accurately estimate his net worth. He fails to appear in any rich list despite the fact that he’s made a lot of money betting on sports for the last decade.
One of his most successful business ventures is the rise of his betting operation The Starlizard Company which is a secretive football betting syndicate based out of England. He founded this company and has run it by himself since its inception. One of the most surprising things about Starlizard is that the company doesn’t accept bets like a bookie or sports book would, but rather it combines hundreds of great sports betting minds to do comprehensive research in order to identify games with a distinct betting advantage. In simple terms, Starlizard acts like a betting consultancy agency for both common bettors and professional players and is assumed to employee 200 people.
He started The StarLizard Company in 2006, the company’s name was inspired by his nickname – The Lizard, which he received during his time as a gambler. It offers professional betting tips to wealthy clients who wish to pursue sports betting as a sustainable source of income. Starlizard makes use of mathematics, variable analysis, and extensive research to generate accurate winning odds for all sports. The clients can then use sophisticated odds to make statistical and well informed decisions in their own wagers.
In 2006, Michael Atherton published a book named – A story of Triumph and Gambling. In his book, he stated that Tony Bloom had an addictive personality. He was addicted to winning and that’s one of the reasons he’s been so successful. However, in response to those remarks by Michael, Bloom clarified by saying that when he completed his studies, he made a decision to venture into betting and to be fiercely disciplined.
The company is located in Camden’s Icework building. It has no Logo or company sign at the main entrance or any other place. It also has windows glazed with reflective glass thus making it difficult to deduce what happens behind the closed doors.
On the other hand, there is a company website that offers an insight of what the company does. Some time spent researching the company’s operation would reveal that most of their operations, earnings and the information concerning the employees is strictly confidential. However, it seems that there are always some positions left to be filled by the best applicants. The company is also believed to host more than 200 employees combining effort and know how to bring forth some of the most rewarding and advantageous odds in all of sports handicapping.
Its website offers clarifications that Starlizard company doesn’t offer online betting but it does offer informed betting tips. There’s a lot of secrets and tricks of the trade that are employed behind the closed doors of Starlizard, but the main story kept hidden is the successful gambling syndicate that they run. Many of its high-stakes members betting millions of dollars daily on sporting events.
Although there is no doubt that Starlizard Company is run by Tony Bloom, the reality of the matter is that he doesn’t appear on the list of directors. There are several reasons why he doesn’t appear on such documents, but the main reason is that a substantial share of the bets are placed using his personal fortune which is currently tax exempt. What this means is that the main goal of Starlizard company is likely to manage Tony Bloom’s betting operations.
How Starlizard works is the company is divided into multiple teams of specialists and professionals. One team is a research team made up of football experts. The research teams gather detailed information about the players, state of the stadium, their fixtures, coach, influencing factors, the team’s current form, table position, team history and the climate of the day. They gather detailed information on all cup competitions, domestic leagues and international level. They also record each miss, shorts on target on their previous games, average ball possession, and winnings.
After the information is gathered and recorded, there is another team that deals with the analysis. The analysis team involves mathematical specialists and IT experts. Their main role is to analyze the data collected by the research team. They calculate odds and consequently select the best odds to place bets on that day.
The analysis team uses high complex and sophisticated statistical tools similar to the ones used by the brokers in the stock markets when they are analyzing movement of stock prices. After this, there is Betting Team that is concerned with bet management and maximizing your wins. The betting team is responsible for placing best wager to maximize their client’s returns on a pick. This is the team that is always on the fire. They run on adrenaline and nerve in a manner of a person investing in penny stocks.
The other team is the IT team which is very important to the company. The team is bestowed with the role of keeping Starlizard Company at the edge of the current technology.
Starlizard betting team prefers betting on the Asian market where football the handicap system is predominantly used. In this system, in case a team plays a strong game, then the next win should be above the handicapped goal number. There is no force that keeps Starlizard company operational other than their ability to correctly predict score lines with a high degree of accuracy, much higher than even professional gmablers. However, the company’s returns are low, perhaps 2 percent, which is still a great deal of money when you’re wagering in the million to billion dollar ranges.
Being one of the most famous, renowned, and successful gamblers in the world, Tony Bloom is also a Philanthropist. He has supported a number of community support measures during his time, and he even founded the Bloom Foundation. The foundation supports organizations that run UK and the international education and health projects. Tony Bloom is also a member of the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis.
A living legend in the sports betting and online gambling industry, Tony Bloom is an icon and someone that every spots bettor should know about. His talents and resources are among the best of this generation, and there’s a reason many consider him the Godfather of online sports betting and second only to legend Jon Price of Sports Information Traders.