UK Poker Player Tony Bloom becomes chairman of the Brighton & Hove Albion F.C.

[Shizzmoney]

This happen in Feb, but considering I once played with the guy at the WSOP, I found it interesting and funny:

For those who watched poker, especially European poker, during the early days of the boom....Tony Bloom, nicknamed "The Lizard", was often a staple of the various cash games and Late Night Poker programmes of that era. Hellmuth often complimented his play.

Brighton & Hove Albion F.C., slated to make the jump to the Premier League next year, has signed on Tony Bloom as their Head Chairman. Bloom has made the bulk of his money running a betting consultancy site that generates odds for football matches called Starlizard.

The first Premier League match of the weekend is about to begin. And with it, a weekly multimillion-pound gambling bonanza kicks off too. Their company can have £1 million riding on the outcome of a single match and more on the nine others that will follow in the next 24 hours.

But this isn't a bookmaker. It is Starlizard, a company that treats gambling the way hedge funds treat stocks. Officially, it describes itself as a betting consultancy that uses complex statistical models to generate football odds that are sharper than those offered by professional bookmakers. These are then sold to clients to help them beat the market. The company thus acts more like a betting adviser than a bookmaker — it doesn't actually take bets.

But the highly secretive company also masterminds one of the most successful professional gambling syndicates in the world, placing hundreds of millions of pounds worth of bets each year on behalf of high-roller clients.

Football is its biggest business, and if the goals don't go the way Starlizard's models predict, then people will lose a lot of money.

The bulk of the money Starlizard bets comes from Tony "The Lizard" Bloom, a maths whiz who earned his nickname for his cold-blooded decision-making at the poker table.

Football Soccer - Brighton & Hove Albion v Huddersfield Town - Sky Bet Football League Championship - The American Express Community Stadium - 23/1/16 Bobby Zamora celebrates with teammates after scoring the first goal for Brighton Mandatory Credit:
Bloom owns Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, more commonly called Brighton or The Albion. Action Images/David Field/Reuters
Bloom, a veteran gambler who owns Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, made millions setting up an online bookmaker and poker websites in the 2000s, and his net worth — which is a mystery — is estimated by some to run into the billions.

Bloom set up Starlizard to run his sports activities, and the business allows him to bring the cool heads and statistical rigour of Mayfair's boutique quant investment world into the murky arena of Asian bookmakers. He told one interviewer, "I wanted to gamble because I enjoyed it and, therefore, I needed to do it properly in order to win."

Starlizard workers are invited to share in Bloom's winnings. They are offered a free stake in Bloom's syndicate, putting them in line for payouts of up to £500,000 every six months — assuming the match results go Bloom's way, of course. If they don't, employees and other syndicate members must top up Bloom's gambling pot from their own pockets.

Ah yes, the gambling professional - a cornerstone of financial security!

[YUUP]

I must be missing something here, he's been chairman since 2009?