How do I Become a Bookie?

Becoming a bookie is easy, you just need to have the proper bankroll in case of a particularly bad stretch of losses.

You will need to have a few players.  It's common for bookies and agents to have between 10 to 20 gamblers under them.

Probably the easiest route to become a bookmaker is to start your own sports handicapping business, build a customer base then sign up with a quality Pay Per Head.  People looking for picks, especially those paying for them, are betting sports.

RealBookies.com notes:

"Getting new players is not as simple as advertising in the newspaper or sticking fliers on the windshields of cars when becoming a bookie. Nor can you just go out to the backyard, shake the customer tree, and watch them start falling to the ground."

They offer these steps to become a bookie:

    Learn about the business from blogs and experienced people
    Find players
    Partner with another bookie so that you both win
    Get a great Pay Per Head Bookie Software
    Start running and managing your business

And word of mouth is also key.

“I won $3,000 from my bookie this weekend, and he paid me in full at 10:00 A.M. Tuesday.” If enough co-workers and room mates and drinking buddies hear that, they are sure to say, “Hey, you think you could get me on with your bookie?”

"I always told potential customers who already had a bookie that if they would try me just one weekend, they would never go back to their previous bookie, and in the 8 1/2 years I was in the business, none ever did."

If you conduct your business based on the information here, you will create many ex-customers for other bookies around your city.

You can start a football season with as few as 10 customers, and by the time bowl season has arrived, word of mouth recommendation should swell your pay sheet to 50 or 60.

At that level, even if the customers are small time, you should be employing an office clerk and a fax clerk while still leaving yourself a profit of $100,000 or so for six months of semi-work. Another way to increase customers as a bookie is to spend your leisure time where gamblers spend their leisure time.

- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com