As I said before, you should be comfortable with what you are doing. For some this is betting, for others poker. Playing dice, slots is ok too, but don't expect to come out on top there. Do it for fun and don't invest too much money there.


You always learn more from the lows than you do from the highs of course. Mistakes and failure are necessary ingredients to move forward. There is no shame in making mistakes - the only mistake is not learning from them and doing it better next time. Being succesful in pro gambling is a skill which has to be developed over time.

A favourite quote of mine, which tennis player Stan Wawrinka also has tatooed on his forearm, from Samuel Beckett:

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I can only talk about the legal situation and laws here in Germany, but it's the same for many countries. Online betting is still a grey area and often times very un-regulated market (which is good and bad).

German government always puts up some strange laws. They say they want to protect the players. On the one hand, players should not run easily into gambling addiction and on the other hand they should be protected against scam (books, casinos). What they really want is taxes. Gambling is a huge market, so Angela & Co try to milk that market tax-wise, smoke screening it with player protection.

So the first thing that happened some years ago, was, that german customers weren't able to register with quite some bookies anymore. Existing german customers were kicked out, because the bookmaker didn't want to take any legal risks by letting german customers play at their sites. This was a blow, because being active mostly in niche/small markets requires a good variety of bookmakers to shop for odds and to bet on all the offers each bookmakers provides. In a game of football, the matchup is clear: Team A against Team B. In a cycling race for example, you have 160+ riders and can make gazillion of H2H. Rider A against rider S, rider W against rider Z and so on. And back in the days, a lot of bookies made their own H2H and compiled odds for them. So, I could maybe bet on rider W to beat rider Z only at one particular bookie. And as a resident of Germany I was excluded from playing at a lot of these books.

Then some time later, the german government introduced a 5% bet tax. This means, that german customers, get taxed 5% on the net win for each bet. The bookmakers would collect those taxes and send it to german tax authorities (I doubt any of those bookies ever did, it was just additional money for them). So when you are operating with a 5% yield, 5% taxes are a lot. Odds of 2.00 suddenly became odds of 1.95 (after taxes) - looks small, but makes a huge difference longterm. Nearly all european softbooks truckled and introduced that tax for their german customers. So I lost nearly all european books over night.

The latest law, which will be passed at some point later this year, will introduce a 1000,- Euro deposit (!) limit per month per user over all (!) bookmakers. There will be a big database, where all bookmakers are forced to put their customers data, betting amounts, deposit amounts, winnings etc. in. All for player protection of course
This new law is totally bs and just shows what idiots are at work there. A) Recreational/fun bettors won't reach that 1000,- Euro limit B) Addicted gamblers will always find a way to feed their addiction C) Pro gamblers bet via agents anyway, only agent knows identity, bookmakers has no clue who that customer is. So I think, that law will have no negative impact on me, but you get what I mean, when I say "bullying from authorities".  

And then you are always in danger of getting on the radar of authorities. Betting/poker are considered games of luck in Germany and thus are not taxable, gross profit = net profit. There weren't any pro bettors yet that were sued by authorities, but one poker player (there might be more, but I only know this case). Authorities sued him to pay taxes on his poker winnings, because they said, he is a commercial player and makes a business out of it, so no game of luck anymore.  
All the madness, dumbness and ignorance showed up, when they calculated what he owed the state. This player was a good live poker player, but also played a bit online afaik. Prize money winners from poker tourneys can be found in the internet and there is some databases. Authoritites added all his prize money and said, ok, you have won this and this and will have to pay like 50% taxes on that. They didn't take into account, that in most poker tourneys you will win nothing, but pay (huge) buy-ins. So, if they count his winnings, they should also set it off with all the buy-ins he has lost. But they didn't. The amount he was due he was not able to pay, it was more money than he had. I think he is still busy paying those taxes, but at least he can now also tax his losses and will get some taxes back that way. And from his own statements, he is a losing player in the end, but had some big cashes during his career.