I tried making it a full-time thing for me. Everything started out very well. Went to the track to watch the workouts, talked with clockers and trainers about horses. Then I would bet the races and before you know it, my kids were one year older and I didn't remember a thing. That was it for me and I put everything away and only do it for fun. Like Kasept said, you are looking at 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week.

i do atleast 5 days a week but its part of my job in the industry but not wagering. i know of only 2 guys here in chicago that wager on the races full time for a living and actually make a substancial profit

A great book on the topic is William Murray's "The Wrong Horse".. Hysterical tale of his attempt to play full time.

I keep trying to convince my parents to let me play full-time this summer while I'm home from school rather than get a job but they're not having it. . .

It's a bad idea for this many people to be considering betting horses as their only source of income...

ditto.

Thanks Mike for the advice, appreciate it greatly. I have put together this where my goal is to turn that 2k into 10k by the end of this year. I did a test run about two years ago when I was out of work and started with $500, and turned it into $2500 within one month. That being said, it was only one month, and I also had some stuff over my head (CC's and loans) that I don't have now. If I do this, I am going to have a clear head with plenty of money to back up if I do quit (about 12 months worth of living expenses) so if it bombs, it bombs, but at least I know I couldn't do it, and I can get the thought of my head, worth the 2k IMO

I just dont see how you can live on a 2k bankroll,

say you made a 20% profit, which is pretty large, and you bet $500 a day for 5 days a week. That would be $100, or $500 a week. Now of course it would grow but at $500 a day you wouldn't sustain a bad run at all on a 2k bankroll.

Now $100- expenses, minus taxes, and you dont have much income to live on. I figure to have any chance I need about a 50k bankroll to start and wager a few thousand a day, on average.

It would grow after $500 in profit, so when I get to $2500 I would be wagering more, and then $3k...Eventually, the 20k mark is the stop point from increasing my wager.

The takeout kills you

yup, you have to hit at 30% really if you have a 20% take and 10% profit.

Ya- the thing is, my dad plays the horses casually and he's the one who got me in to it by taking me to Saratoga when I was younger. . . He just doesn't really have the right type of mindset to be serious about it so I think that's why he doesn't understand where I'm coming from. . . My girlfriend and my other friends don't really get it either. . .

I would never feel comfortable playing full-time if I was self-sufficient, but to be honest, I don't really have many expenses at this point in my life. . . I would just be playing for my spending money for the school year. . .

Most people are telling you that you need to start with a bigger bankroll. They are missing the point that you are trying to see whether you can make a living by capping. You don't know whether you have an edge yet, so why should you be betting from a large bankroll?

You need to identify your goal. If your goal is to see if you can cap well enough to win, it doesn't much matter if you start with $2K or $20K or $200K. However, you should not increase your bet size if you get ahead. That would be the correct thing to do if your goal is to grow a bankroll. But IMO, your first and primary goal should be to see if you can cap well enough to win.

If you increase your bets when you are ahead, your fluctuations will increase wildly. Your end-of-year results will be less meaningful.

What's extremely important is that you do not kid yourself about your results. You count every bet you make and you see where your bankroll is at the end of the year. There should be no "I missed something obvious so that bet doesn't count" sort of stuff.

If you can turn that $2K into $4K, you can figure you could just as well have turned $20K into $40K or $200K into $400K*.

Save the Kelly betting for when you are pretty sure you have an edge.

--Dunbar

* Of course, turning $2K into $4K does NOT completely translate to turning $20K into $40K or $200K into $400K. When you are betting from a $20K bankroll, you will have to worry more about knocking down your own odds than when you are betting from a $2K bankroll. Still, you get my point.

Ya I hear what you're saying. . . I do live at home and I hear the comments at home a little bit, but it's not a big deal. . . The fact that my dad goes with me a lot of the time helps out. . . They were worried about my grades slipping but they haven't. . . I've gotten more grief from them because I said that I want to work in the industry (not as a gambler). . . I've been groomed for law school pretty much my whole life so if I don't end up there they won't be too happy. . .

People have no idea how tedious and miserable the work can become when you're betting horses for profit. And if you don't do it---you're not going to make much money.

It can be excruciatingly tedious and time consuming....and can eliminate your social life almost altogether.

It's is much easier and makes a lot more sense to just take normal employment.

Even if you do choose to bet horses for income and succeed...you will find there will be huge unexplainable gaps in your employment history, and if you wish to ever take employment again---your application is much more likely to not be taken seriously......and if you tell them you spent that time "gambling professionally" -- I'd have to think they'd be even less likely to hire you-- as they would consider you a much greater risk of thieving from them.

It's a big mistake to try and gamble for income if you first haven't recieved a good formal education, one that will look good on paper...or you haven't proven yourself successful in another line of work. Even if you do very well betting, you'll find you trapped yourself...and sometimes even wish you'd have failed as a bettor.

You hear all those great stories in poker, about how some of the new "greats" would spend there early days sleeping in outdoor parks...and there nights playing poker for profit. And Jim Rome loves to rip on how a few of the now big-name poker players were living "in their parents basement" not to long ago.

Unlike Poker, with it's gruelingly long big paying tournaments that feature tons of hands played, the thoroughbred handicapping tournaments are all a complete joke, the emphasis is always placed on spectacular short-term success, from a very limited number of possible races played.

The only way you're making any money, is through betting income, and that is into the teeth of a big takeout.