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City turning to poker as best bet in recession
IT may be the most striking sign yet of the parlous state of the UK economy.
City hedge fund managers now believe online poker players can offer a better return on risk than traditional financial markets.
And one investment company is moving into the sleepy market town of Snaith, East Yorkshire, from its previous Kensington base, in the hope of finding new expert players to make money.
Badbeat, the poker arm of investment specialist Manro Haydan, is expecting to recruit online poker players who can prove they have a track record of avoiding losses. The company believes with further training and mentoring they can become money-making players.
It will provide basic and advanced courses and operate on a similar model to the financial trading floors of the City.
Courses will be free for those who can demonstrate an aptitude for the game, particularly No Limit Texas Hold 'em.
Badbeat's managing director John Conroy, who lives in Snaith, said the faltering economy would increase the number of people trying to make money through gambling.
He said: "I believe gaming does well in a recession.
"There are lots of similarities with traders and managing risk.
"We provide the risk management team, all the players have to do is trade."
He added: "There are lots of full-time poker players but not many professionals."
Although only five per cent of online poker players are thought to make money, the rewards for those who do keep many coming back for more.
Badbeat's current roster of players includes John Tabatabai, who plays online under the name Kunkuwap. The 23-year-old owns a Thamesside apartment and won 500,000 in a single tournament in 2007.
He and Badbeat's other top players earn seven-figure incomes. Conroy himself won $278,255 in one tournament in the gamblers' paradise of Las Vegas last summer.
As these figures suggest, fortunes can be made and lost very quickly.
Luke Trotman, 27, borrowed 1,000 while studying at university and turned it in to $250,000 in one year playing poker. He lost it all before joining Badbeat.
Mr Trotman said it was easier gambling with someone else's money rather than your own.
He said: "It gave me an opportunity to play with zero risk to myself and they instilled good money management in me. A lot of the guys I used to play with became millionaires playing poker, but 90 per cent of them lost that.
"They can quite easily drop $1m to $2m in a couple of months and they're bust."
The stakes are inevitably high.
Badbeat is happy to fund players as long as they are profitable and play at least 40 table hours or 3,000 hands a week. If this sounds a lot the best players can play several games simultaneously and can achieve 40 table hours in under 10 hours.
The company controls how much its players can bet each day, from $50 to $100,000.
The fortunes of hundreds of investors may soon hinge on the turn of a card.
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