Tony Bloom Betting
Tony “The Lizard” Bloom is a British professional sports bettor, poker player, and entrepreneur notably known for his ownership of the Brighton & Hove Albion soccer club in England. However, before his involvement in English soccer, The Lizard was even more famous in the gambling world. Nicknamed the Lizard because of his cold-blooded gambling approach, Bloom is estimated to be worth a few billion, though nobody knows for certain. He is believed to have accumulated his wealth through online gambling sites and property investments.
Tony Bloom: The Lizard Like many of the biggest gamblers in the world, Tony Bloom owes much of his success to a combination of computer and mathematical based betting, as well as business savvy. Bloom is the owner of Premier League club Brighton & Hove Albion. Tony Bloom, a legendary gambler known as 'The Lizard,' is one such operator. So revered, Bloom runs Star Lizard, a company that employs a raft of people to analyse football matches for his. A maths graduate from Manchester University and now in his mid-forties, on the surface Tony Bloom is a reclusive billionaire who made his first fortune on the poker tables and is currently the owner of Brighton and Hove Albion football club.
He now has a personal team of experts that operate his gambling efforts, which act more like a hedge fund and less of a gambling organization. Bloom has always known exactly what he was doing and can keep a straight face while doing so. It doesn’t matter if he’s placing a “small” wager down or a multi-million dollar one, his belief that his statistics and strategy are the only confidence he needs. Losing money isn’t really an issue for The Lizard though, as he has continually increased his net worth through his gambling background, which is why he is one of the most famous sports bettorsaround.
Growing Up With Tony Bloom
Tony Bloom was in the gambling world ever since his adolescent days. At the young age of 10-year-old, Bloom made his first wager on a slot machine with money he managed to collect himself over time. The young entrepreneur became enthralled with the idea of taking risks for potentially high rewards. This was the beginning of his career as a professional gambler. As he got older, he moved on from slots to betting on sports and he hasn’t looked back since. He used a fake ID while he was a teenager (not recommended) and was able to sneak into several sportsbooks to wager on his favorite teams. He started winning big at a very young age. Bloom was eventually caught and forced to postpone his gambling career until he was of the legal betting age. When he was finally old enough, Bloom returned to the sports betting world, mainly betting on soccer matches. Blooms credit his success in soccer betting as being a die-hard fan and not having any real strategy.
The Lizard Develops His Strategy
After graduating college and working for Ernst & Young for a short period, Bloom transitioned from recreationally betting on sports to deciding to make it his main focus. His strategy became to bet aggressively claiming that to win big, you have to be okay with the risk of losing. This mindset gave him the cold-blooded appeal that others seemed to admire, where walking away from large sums of money was easy. It also helped him to have a sizable bankroll to start with.
Another of Bloom’s other points of emphasis is to not overestimate the impact of an injury. Bettors and bookmakers often overreact to injuries, especially to big-name players. Bloom has noted this as a market inefficiency and would frequently bet on the team with the injured player. Another point of strategic emphasis for Bloom is his willingness to wait until the last possible minute to place a wager, as in his estimation the additional info available for patient bettors outweighs any benefits of betting early.
Handicapping Soccer Matches
Working for Victor Chandler, Bloom took a deep dive into Asian betting styles. These are slightly different from the common wagering lines seen in Europe and the US, where a goal differential compared to the most recent form is required to hit in order for a wager to be successful. His mathematical background allowed him to analyze data and handicap games for the company. With the industry growing and rather unknown at the time, Bloom spent some months living in Thailand as well as on the south of Spain in Gibraltar.
Everything changed during the 1998 World Cup when Bloom realized the bet on the century. In a wagering tournament, The Lizard convinced the company to wager everything it had earned on the final matchup. There is no data as to how much was won by the company, but immediately after BetVictor was formed – one of the most renown UK betting brands. Bloom went his own route and developed Premier Bet, which also took a focus on the Asian handicap system.
Starlizard
Bloom founded Starlizard which can be described as a hedge fund for sports betting. While very limited data is released to the public and every member is required to sign a nondisclosure, it is believed to be the largest gambling syndicate in all of the U.K. The company uses statistical models to find value in certain wagers and sells picks to clients in order to gain more clients from their success. Unlike previous operations Bloom was associated with, Starlizard does not accept action but rather offers advice.
Their insight comes not only from league and player data but information from any source they can get their hands on. Whether a beat writer, a friend of a player, or expert, the company takes on the impact of morale and training to analyze every little data as much as possible. Their models would constantly be updated to reflect how much weight each determinant would carry and have very rarely offered losing bets to their clients.
Because Bloom now owns Brighton & Hove Albion, wagers associated with the club are off-limits. Bloom’s connection with Brighton stemmed back through his family’s lineage, as the uncle was a director and his grandfather was a vice-chairman of the team. Soccer is the clear favorite sport for Bloom, who also recently purchased Union SG in 2018. With two professional sports teams under his belt and the dedication to pay whatever it takes to succeed, Bloom has turned his gambling habits into becoming one of the wealthiest men in the world. 2021 projects to be another year of profits for Bloom and Starlizard.
Bloom’s Time As A Poker Player
Bloom started as a poker player, where he has toured in a variety of series and tournaments, being labeled as one of the best poker players despite his limited professional status. Bloom appeared in the Late Night Poker British television series and has also scored a final table appearance on the WPT (World Poker Tour). He made two consecutive final table appearances in the Poker Million events and scored his first major win the 2004 Australasian Poker Championship. He has gone on to score an impressive poker purse while still maintaining his semi-professional status.
According to Wikipedia, Anthony Grant “Tony” Bloom (born 1970 in Brighton, Sussex) is a Football Club Chairman and successful Poker Player however in sports betting circles he’s known to be one of, if not the biggest Football (Soccer) punters in the world.
Bloom who is Jewish and grew up in Brighton, supports various Jewish causes through his own charity, the Bloom Foundation.
He went to school at Lancing College, an established private school founded in 1848 whose alumni feature the likes of Evelyn Waugh and Sinclair Beecham.
He grew up around his beloved Football Club which he now also owns – Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club. His grandfather Harry Bloom served as vice Chairman back in the 1970’s.
“He also had a big love of gambling and betting,” Tony said last year, “Through the blood it came into me, and I was fortunate enough to be successful at that.”
“Tony is a hugely mathematical and analytical type of person, so clearly he looks at numbers as a means of gaining confidence in decision-making,” said Paul Barber, Brighton’s chief executive, adding that his team had its own data and scouts apart from Star Lizard (see below).
No sport holds more in annual turnover than The World Game and Tony along with his infamous sparring partner Matthew Benham (who also owns a Football club) contribute an enormous amount to this global hold.
Tony, nicknamed The Lizard is a betting rockstar. Equally respected as he is feared by bookmakers and still to this day turning over billions of dollars on sporting events around the world.
Find out more about his incredible story below.
Tony Bloom Poker Player
Whilst it is fair to assume with great confidence that Tony has won the majority of his fortune from sports betting, he has also developed a fairly accomplished poker playing CV over the years.
Bloom has a World Poker Tour final table appearance to his name as well as twice finishing in the money while doing so once on the European Poker Tour.
He’s finished in the money 11 times in the World Series Of Poker but is yet to land a coveted Bracelet.
He’s represented Britain at the Poker Nations Cup and is known to play high stakes games with close friends and colleagues in his spare time.
Tony Bloom Sports Bettor
Ok, now time to move onto the really juicy stuff. Imagine Bloom as like the Zeljko of Football betting.
Tony studied Mathematics at the University of Manchester where he went on to refine the betting skills he had developed while using a fake ID in his teens to sneak into high street betting shops.
Out of school Tony got a job working for Accountancy firm Ernst & Young but he only lasted six months before branching out to bet professionally.
“I believe in betting aggressively,” he told Mike Atherton in his 2006 book “Gambling” .
“And, occasionally, to win big, you have to risk losing.”
Tony Bloom Betting Sports
In the same book Tony revealed that he had “an addictive personality,”
“At university I made myself a promise that I would become fiercely disciplined. I wanted to gamble because I enjoyed it and therefore I needed to do it properly in order to win. I didn’t want to lose my money.”
Tony cut his teeth on the Asian Handicap bet type and spent some time working with UK bookie Victor Chandler before eventually founding his own book, Premier Bet.
Bloom told The Argus in 2009: “I was one of the first people outside of Asia to take a keen interest and an understanding of it. I worked in Thailand for seven months, then Gibraltar for three years.”
He later sold Premier Bet and purchased two online poker sites (Tribeca Tables and St Minver) of which he sold both for healthy profits.
In 2006, Bloom brought his ever expanding bankroll to the biggest table of his punting career – forming Star Lizard.
Bloom’s intimate knowledge of Football betting markets and expertise in predicting scorelines has enabled him to exploit various markets – in particularly Asian Handicap markets over time.
Tony Bloom and Star Lizard
Star Lizard Consulting is the backbone to Tony’s betting syndicate and features a team of traders, quantitative analysts, data scientists, game analysts, software engineers that form a group of what is believed to be well in excess of 200 employees.
Many of the employees are offered a free stake in the Syndicate in return for their hard work and undivided attention to the business that is Star Lizard.
Located in Camden, in the Iceworks building, Star Lizard operates very much incognito. There are no signs on the building or logos on the door and there is no way of seeing in the windows.
In fact, Tony Bloom’s name doesn’t even show up on Star Lizard’s business fillings.
Everything is top secret about Lizard HQ but it is said that employees and even those who go for job interviews have to sign detailed NDA’s.
There is a fully functioning cafeteria that operates all day to feed the staff, a gym, pool tables, tv and lounging area and a library. Not to mention the company box at Stamford Bridge, the home of defending EPL Champions, Chelsea and packages at various other top level London Clubs that employees can enjoy.
Star Lizard doesn’t do things by halves!
Star Lizard also contract analysts and contributors from all-around the world to provide valuable data and insight so that they can fine tune their prices and squeeze out as much margin as possible on their turnover.
The markets Star Lizard often play in are high volume, low margin and highly competitive markets.
If the estimates of 100 million pounds of profit annually are correct at lets say a 2% margin then the syndicate is turning over roughly 5 billion pounds annually?
All speculative of course but whatever the true numbers are, there is no doubt we are dealing with phone book type arrangements.
A visit to the Star Lizard website doesn’t reveal much, most information is pretty standard and broad. However, if you’re looking to apply for a job with the consulting firm, you can do so online!
Tony Bloom Football Chairman
Tony owns the majority stake and is Chairman of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club as a result of his $130USD investment back in 2009. Since then, Brighton have spent time between England’s top-flight and lower tier leagues over the years but currently sit 11th on the EPL table.
In 2009 Tony was quoted as saying “I’ve been a football fan and a gambler since the age of about seven or eight. My interest in both developed at the same time.”
Since purchasing the Football Club, Bloom has reportedly sunk another 200 million pounds and to his credit, has now got them into the top flight.
Brighton and Hove Albion’s players “are aware that Tony is a professional gambler,” they are more interested in his poker skills, Paul Barber said, adding, “Some of them like to play cards.”
English Football’s association with gambling is full-on in terms of sponsorship and even ownership.
Betting is ostensibly banned by the Football Association, the governing body of Football in England but the FA revealed to the New York Times in a recent article that there is also a set of unpublished rules for Bloom and other owners involved in the betting industry like the owners of Bet365 who own Stoke City Football Club (and half of Stoke!) and Matthew Benham who like Tony is a gambler and owns the Brentford Football Club.
Tony Bloom Soccer Betting
It is said however, that Bloom does not place any wagers on or against his club, Brighton.
The following articles were used as research when pulling together our piece on Tony Bloom.
Britian Bans Betting In Soccer But Not For The Lizard – New York Times
Tony Bloom Biography – Business Insider
Thanks for reading!