Betting for a living: a pro punter's insight on how to make gambling pay

What's the main attraction of being a full-time gambler? That was the first question that struck me when I was asked to share my experiences of several decades as a serious horseracing punter and 15 years with no other source of income.

Well, everyone has their own individual motivations. Being able to control when and where you work, not being answerable to anyone else, having the opportunity to make more money than a regular nine-to-five job could provide – all seem perfectly valid reasons for taking the plunge.

For me, from an early age, puzzle-solving was always the most appealing aspect of following horseracing, the working-out at least as satisfying as collecting the cash from a winning bet. And after many years of betting reasonably successfully alongside a full-time job, I simply wanted to see if I could take things to a different level. In theory at least, having an extra 40 hours a week to hone my analytical skills and explore new approaches would enable me to do just that.