As a professional gambler for more than 5 years I have realized that you need a well organized and full of space working office. You need a reliable computer setup, a well positioned monitor setup, useful peripherals and a comfortable chair.
The working office will help you make more money than a simple desk, a monitor and a hard chair, simply because a professional gambler needs to sit in front of the computer screen for many hours during the day and needs a welcome office. The multi-monitor setup will also help to arrange many windows as it is necessary for profitable online trading, playing online poker or writing articles in blogs, just like this one!
Now, I have already shown you my working environment as a professional gambler a couple of years ago. Since then I moved in another apartment where I am able to sit in my private working office. A professional gambler surely needs privacy as he doesn’t afford to be distracted in any way. Although he doesn’t need a big room for an office, he certainly needs a big working space to feel comfortable and not get tired quickly. For that reason I went for an office with a corner so that I can lay my arms at least up to the elbow. There are many articles online describing a condition known as RSI, which stands for Repetitive Strain Injury. I was able to avoid suffering from that in my previous office setup due to the big desk’s depth. I was sure I wasn’t going to change that.
My computer setup includes the very same computer I am using since September 2006 with just an addition of 2 more RAM modules, which brought the RAM figure to 6GB that is plenty for multitasking in Windows Vista environment. That is exactly what a professional trader, poker player or blogger should aim for, multitasking. You constantly need to open up many applications, web browser’s windows and little utilities that are used for this or that. So, in case you are into professional gambling, your main goal is a lot of RAM rather than a lot of processing power, unless you plan on running many simulations. And by simulations I usually mean stock trading backtesting.
If you are into sports trading or betting, you will of course need a couple of web browser’s windows to watch several things while you are betting or trading in other windows. If online poker interests you most, multi tabling in online poker should become second nature in weeks. And if you write posts in your blog frequently, you will need a lot of working space to lay out a word processor, a couple of web browser’s windows to surf, an FTP client and an image processing application. All above make a multi monitor setup a necessity.
My dual monitor setup allows me to play 12 tables of online poker at once which leads in a bigger hourly win rate. It also allows me to check out many trading charts at once which saves me time on finding my next trade, and we all know that time is money. Finally blog posting is done easier and much more flexible which leaves me relaxed and calm to continue gambling when the writing is finished. I strongly recommend a dual monitor setup as a minimum although I’m thinking of adding one or possibly two monitors more. If you are going to trade in-play betting markets, a TV set is also essential to keep up with the pace. Besides, a TV will also help keeping up with the news as long as you are depending on that.
My recommendations also include a sophisticated keyboard like my Logitech G15 I’m using, which has a lot more buttons that normal keyboards. Additional keys are constantly used by me in assigning shortcuts I am pressing more than hundred times per day. For example I have assigned to the extra keys the copy and paste functions, quick language selection (my blog is multilingual and I also write in Greek blogs or sites), shortcuts for calculator, web browser, FTP client and other applications I use every day. That saves me a lot of time editing and posting articles in my blog, in forums or replying to my emails. My mouse is also made by Logitech and you can change its weight depending on your personal preference. In my case I have removed all the tuning weights and made it as light as possible. Here is a review of my Logitech G5 mouse.
My office chair used to be a proper chair for good posture but it was rather cheap (about 100€). Now that I’m sitting on a €500 chair I completely realize the difference between them. If you are tight in your budget, I recommend investing more money in the chair since being healthy is more precious than being rich. What’s the point in buying the best computer that will make you a couple more money, when not sitting right and comfortably will probably make you irritated or send you to a physio? I wonder all the time when I see pictures of other people’s offices, where they have a tremendous computer setup but keep on sitting on bad chairs.
