Business Insider recently published a fascinating piece on Britain's most successful gambling operation.

Starlizard is as a company that treats gambling the way hedge funds treat stocks and is reported to earn between 40m and 200m AUD each year.

Oscar Williams-Grut wrote that expose and he joins us on the podcast this week.

Punting Insights

The story behind Britain's biggest gambler

Why the company operates as 4 very separate business units

Where and when they bet

The potential of sporting hedge funds

Today’s Guest:

Oscar Williams-Grut

David Duffield: Oscar, thanks very much for joining us. A lot of people down here in Australia have read your recent piece on Britain's most successful gambling operation and in it Star Lizard was described as a company that treats gambling the way hedge funds treat stocks. I was wondering how you came across the story?

Oscar : Pretty much by accident, to be honest. I come from a business journalist background. I'm more familiar with the world of hedge funds than I am with gambling and sports betting. Just through my journalism career came into contact with a PR at one of the high-street bookies here in the UK and he just mentioned off hand this company, I think a couple of years ago now.

He just said, oh yeah there's this secretive company in Camden that make absolutely millions betting on football every month, they're not that well known. I just thought it sounded like a great story that would be good to dig into.

David Duffield: As you did the digging and I think you mentioned in the piece that they have pretty strict NDAs, so there's probably some other people that you'd have to speak ... It's difficult to get in touch with people who are currently there, but you managed to piece together a very interesting story.

What similarities were there for their operation as compared to the hedge funds that you're typically dealing with?

Oscar : I think the big similarity is the reliance on algorithms to try and spot patterns in the market that you wouldn't necessarily be able to see with the naked eye. Their whole philosophy is they want to try to overcome that sort of natural bias that you have you know, you root for the underdog or you've got your favourite.

Whereas they say no, let the numbers speak for themselves and we can find an edge in the market by just being very clinical. Which is typically what hedge funds do as well.

I think also in the way they deal with very thin margins, which similarly hedge funds ... They're a volume game. They put big bets on that come good, but they need a lot of volume to really make it viable.

David Duffield: The head of the operation, or the biggest client and the biggest gambler, is Tony Bloom. How would you describe him and what did you learn about him?

Oscar : It's funny, once a friend of mine who read the article said, "As I was reading it I was thinking there was going to be some massive foible or something that would make you hate him," because you think secretive gambling operation, there must be something dodgy going on here.

But everything I learned about him, everybody I spoke to about him ... Everyone's got nice things to say about him. He's seems like quite a quiet, just a nice guy. He's very generous, he's the patron of a charity that supports Multiple Sclerosis, he runs marathons for fun, he loves football and gambling as well as does it for his sort of professional life.

I finished the article thinking, "I wish I could meet him," because he seems like the type of guy you'd enjoy going for a drink with.

David Duffield: There's two aspects to their operation, one is the consultancy side of things, and the other one is their own betting. How does that work?

Oscar : Star Lizard in itself don't do any proprietary betting. They only do betting on behalf of the syndicate. All their revenues come from just consultancy fees.

But, the syndicate,