Yesterday on JazzFM, Brad Barker and Bryan Snelson were discussing the world's richest sports gambler. They were referring to James Holzhauer - the record-breaking "Jeopardy' champion. He is on a 21 day winning streak, the second longest in history. His story is here in business insider. I think his winning streak is with Jeopardy. He wins an average of $73,867 a game, according to the Boston Globe. He is also a sports gambler, so that was what got Brad and Bryan's interest.
There are a few famous sports gamblers of all time. Billy Walters is considered the # 1 gambler. This information comes from bestcasinosites.net:
Billy Walters: "With a father professional poker player and an uncle professional gambler, it was no surprise that Billy made his first bet at the age of nine...According to reports, he makes about $15 million a year, and has made as much as $2 million in a day. His net worth is estimated at $200 million. And that’s not hard to believe, considering he makes really, really high bets – as high as $3,5 million. Well, technically not exactly he because for years he’s been using other people to place bets for him since not only is he not welcome in Vegas anymore, but most bookmakers will also refuse to take his bets.And while you may think he’d try to make these “beards” as inconspicuous as possible, he actually has Hollywood celebrities like Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher running his errands."
Alan Woods: "The godfather of horse racing software, Alan Woods was born in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia, in 1945. In his early gambling career, he used math to count cards at blackjack tables until moving to Hong Kong in the 1980s. There, he teamed up with Bill Benter forming a syndicate that became the most successful in the history of the horse racing industry. The pair developed a software that took into account factors like the formulaic consideration of track, form, weather and more. After the partners separated in 1987, Woods moved on to Manila to a continuing success, teaming up with Zeljko Ranogajec. As a true mathematician, Woods is said to have viewed horse racing as “nothing more than a mathematical equation to be solved”. At the time of his death in 2008, Woods was regarded as one of the biggest and best gamblers in the world and was estimated to have amassed a fortune of AU$670 million."
Can you imagine being a math genius and instead of pursuing the great mathematics questions of our time, you figure out how to make a lot of money? That's what makes us curious about their childhoods.
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