Tony Bloom Betting
Brighton owner and chairman Tony Bloom made his millions in gambling On the poker table or with his sports betting company Starlizard, Bloom raised the money he has poured into getting the Seagulls. Tony Bloom has been hailed as one of the top poker players in the world, and over the years has mixed it up at the tables against such greats a Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu. Although the exact amount of wealth he has acquired through his poker, sportsbetting and gambling enterprises is not known, the notoriously private gambler is believed to.
| Tony Bloom | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Lizard |
| Born | Anthony Grant Bloom 20 March 1970 (age 50) Brighton, Sussex, England |
| World Series of Poker | |
| Bracelet(s) | None |
| Money finish(es) | 11 |
| Highest ITM Main Event finish | 512th, 2006 |
| World Poker Tour | |
| Title(s) | None |
| Final table(s) | 1 |
| Money finish(es) | 2 |
| European Poker Tour | |
| Title(s) | None |
| Final table(s) | None |
| Money finish(es) | 1 |
Anthony Grant Bloom (born 20 March 1970 in Brighton, Sussex) is a British professional sports bettor, poker player, entrepreneur and owner/chairman of Premier Leaguefootball club Brighton & Hove Albion and Belgian First Division B team Royale Union Saint-Gilloise.
Poker and betting[edit]
Bloom has been a sports bettor and property investor, nicknamed The Lizard.
Bloom appeared in the Late Night Poker television series and also has a final table appearance on the World Poker Tour. He also made back-to-back final table appearances in the first two Poker Million events. His first major win came in January 2004 when he won the Australasian Poker Championship in Melbourne, collecting a first prize of around A$420,000 ($320,000, £180,000).[1]
Bloom won the £5,000 No LimitHold'emVC Poker Cup Final in London on 5 August 2005 and won the £200,000 ($351,401) first prize.
He also had a fourth-place finish in the 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. He was a member of the winning British team in the Poker Nations Cup.
As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $1,500,000. Bloom won A$600,000 for his second-place finish in the High Rollers Challenge, event 8 of the Australian Poker Millions tournament held in Melbourne in Jan 2009.
Bloom fell short of the million pound grand prize in the Poker Million IX event held in London on 10 December 2010. He finished second behind Gus Hansen.[2]
Entrepreneur[edit]
Bloom is believed to have accumulated wealth through developing online gambling and gaming websites, and through property and start-up investments.[3][4]
Football chairman[edit]
Since 2009, Bloom has been the chairman of Brighton & Hove Albion, who are currently a Premier League club, having gained promotion in the 2016–17 season after 34 years out of the top flight of English football.
He succeeded Dick Knight after securing a 75% shareholding in the club and investing £93 million in the development of the club's new ground, Falmer Stadium.[5][6] Since the stadium has been built, it has received numerous extensions in spectator capacity and has received funding to ensure that it is 'Premier League ready' by installing floodlights, amongst other minor features.
Upon taking over the club, Bloom declared his love of the game, '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.'[7] Bloom is a longtime fan of Brighton[8] and his family has had a long association with the club: his uncle Ray is a director and his grandfather, Harry, was vice-chairman during the 1970s.[9]
On becoming chairman, Bloom appointed former Uruguay international Gus Poyet as manager, and together they led the team to promotion from Football League One as champions in 2011, the season before Brighton moved into their new home - the Falmer Stadium. Poyet left the club in 2013 after losing in a play-off semi-final to Crystal Palace. In June 2013, Bloom appointed Óscar García as the new head coach of the club; Garcia resigned after losing a second successive play-off semi-final to Derby County and left the club in May 2014. The next manager was former Liverpool player Sami Hyypiä, who only lasted a few months in the managerial role after a poor start to the 2014–15 season left Brighton in the relegation zone. Chris Hughton became manager towards the end of 2014, and the club have been successful since.
Hughton steered Albion to safety in their 2014–15 campaign, and then guided the club to a 3rd-place position in the Championship in the following season, missing out on promotion to Middlesbrough on goal difference. The club would be defeated in the play-off semi final, for the third time in four years, this time to Sheffield Wednesday.
Brighton went one step further in the 2016–17 season under Hughton's management and Bloom's ownership, finishing 2nd in the Championship and gaining promotion to the Premier League for the first time in the club's history. Bloom backed Hughton in the following transfer window, breaking several record transfer fees to improve the squad, readying Brighton's first Premier League season. On 13 May 2019, immediately after the end of the season, with the club ending at the 17th position and thus securing its top-tier status for the coming season, Bloom released a statement to the effect that 'it was time for a change' and sacked Hughton, replacing him with Championship's Swansea coach Graham Potter.[10]
In 2018, Bloom completed the takeover of Belgian second division club Union SG.[11]
Personal life, and other ventures[edit]
Bloom is Jewish, and has contributed significantly to the development of a synagogue project in Hove. He stepped in with the Brighton and Hove Hebrew Congregation suffering financial problems, and the funding for the development will come from his Bloom Foundation, of which he is the chairman.[12]
References[edit]
- ^Tony Bloom's Player Profile and HistoryArchived 2 March 2010 at the Wayback MachinePokerpages. Retrieved 1 May 2010
- ^Hendon Mob DatabaseThe Hendon Mob. Retrieved 26 May 2011
- ^https://www.businessinsider.com/tony-bloom-biography-2017-4
- ^https://www.theargus.co.uk/sport/4387975.how-bloom-hit-the-jackpot/
- ^Stadium Funding SecuredArchived 22 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Seagulls World, 18 May 2009. Retrieved 18 May 2009
- ^Prediction for 09-10 SeasonSquarefootball, 21 February 2009. Retrieved 21 February 2009
- ^TONY IS BLOOM-ING GOODNOTW, 16 May 2009. Retrieved 16 May 2009
- ^Szczepanik, Nick (22 May 2009). ''I'm no Abramovich' says new Brighton chairman'. Times Online. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
- ^Szczepanik, Nick (19 May 2009). 'Brighton secure £93m investment'. Times Online. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
- ^'Brighton: Chris Hughton surprised and disappointed by sacking'. BBC. 22 May 2019. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^https://www.theargus.co.uk/sport/16239606.done-deal-albion-chairman-tony-bloom-completes-takeover-of-belgian-club-saint-gilloise/
- ^'Albion owner finances new synagogue project'. The Argus. 28 October 2017.
External links[edit]
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” .
Tony Bloom Betting Strategy
“And, occasionally, to win big, you have to risk losing.”
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.
Tony Bloom Sports Betting
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.
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!