"Professional" Gambling

A mid-week loss for Football Elite as Atalanta and Internazionale drew 1-1. Matt commented that:

Atalanta missed a last minute penalty which was a real kick in the gut. A 3.30 point swing on one strike of a ball from 8 yards out. AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

a comment which has me a little concerned about how knowledgeable Matt really is on football, because in my playing days, the spot was a full 12 yards from the goal-line.

A loss for the XX Draw selections midweek too, as Valencia scored in the 82nd minute to beat Real Zaragoza.

Griff has posted his draw selections for this weekend, and they are:

Wigan Athletic v Fulham and West Bromwich Albion v Liverpool

He also provisionally included Tottenham Hotspur v Queens Park Rangers but with the qualifier that: "The Spurs game is borderline - if the price goes above 5 then it's a no bet", it's a No Bet. At the time of writing, the price is 5.4. Incidentally, none of the three matches mentioned are among my selections for this weekend.

We await the selections of the Green Sweater with much anticipation.

Not to make light of Michael Chopra's issues with gambling addiction, but I did find it mildly amusing that the picture accompanying the story on the BBC showed him wearing a Cardiff City shirt with the club sponsor clearly displayed. Someone has a sense of humour.

Somewhat related, and a poster on the Betfair Forum wrote that in reply to the question "What do you do for a living?" his replies of Gambler, Bookmaker and Market Analyst all received different reactions. Someone replied that they would likely be "loser", "scumbag" and "successful intelligent fellow" respectively. There's also the term of trader that could be used, which along with Market Analyst sounds a lot more respectable. The opening post on the same thread included the idea that "many professional gamblers will eventually evolve in to problem or pathological gambling", which is complete nonsense.

Of course, many people describe themselves as professional gamblers based on the fact that they are unemployed and gambling is all they do (O'Dwyer for example) where nothing whatsoever about their approach is professional. Collecting dole money and steadily losing it on-line does not count as being a professional gambler. I'm basing my opinion of the comment being nonsense on the more limited definition of professional gambler which is someone who has grasped the concept of value, is actually successful at 'gambling', and actively chooses it as a career. Anyone of that ilk is unlikely, in my opinion, to evolve into a pathological or problem gambler. If anything, they are more likely to do the complete opposite, which is to get bored with it all and walk away.

Finally, a comment from Jon on my ideas on the make up of a 20 team Premier League were promotion and relegation to be scrapped. Jon wrote:

How can a pointless ZDS record have any bearing on who should make up the new closed shop Premier league?

Well, I would hardly call the illustrious ZDS trophy "pointless", but I am prepared to concede that an extra condition should perhaps be added, which is that teams qualifying via the ZDS route must also have made it to the last eight of this season's League Cup (to show consistency). That should quieten the protests.