From placing bets using fake IDs as a teenager to owning a Premier League club, here is the story of Tony Bloom. The current Brighton and Hove Albion chairman is regarded as the Godfather of Gambling.

After graduating in maths from the University of Manchester, Tony started his career as a trader. But soon he discovered his talent at playing poker and betting on sports and horse racing. He ditched his job in the early 90s and turned into a professional gambler.

Popularly known as Lizard for his calmness at the poker table, Tony also runs a betting consultancy firm named Starlizard. Reportedly, the company generates £100 million every year by catering only to clients with a minimum betting budget of £2 million. Though Tony Bloom keeps a low profile, it is believed that his net worth exceeds £1 billion.

Interestingly, the childhood Seagulls fan also owns the Belgian Pro League club Union SG, which qualified for the UEFA Europa League in 2022.

The Story of Brighton and Hove Albion Owner Tony Bloom in detail

While the transfer windows may be closed, Brighton are once again the target club in another title race, this time for their manager, Roberto de Zerbi. But there has been another twist as big clubs chase the Italian’s appointment, with Brighton’s owner Tony Bloom setting the compensation fee for his club at £12 million if a club is to hire the manager from the club. This is not the first time the Seagulls are doing something like this. According to Standard Sport journalist Nizaar Kinsella, Chelsea paid Brighton and Hove Albion £21.5 million to sign Graham Potter in September 2022, which was a world record transfer fee for a football manager. Identifying high-potential managers and players, developing them into high-profile talents, and making significant profits as they move on to pastures anew has been the club's philosophy over the years, all thanks to the strategy of their professional gambler owner, Tony Bloom, who has revolutionised the game with his numbers-led approach.

Who is Tony Bloom?

Tony Bloom, whose net worth is currently valued at around £1 billion, has always had a history with football. His grandfather, who moved to Brighton from London during the Second World War, and uncle were both members of the Board of Brighton in the past. This long-standing connection to the football club played a key role in his acquisition of the club in 2009 to turn around its fortunes.

Bloom the Lizard

Bloom himself chose to go first into studying mathematics and then became a trader, leaving to get into professional gambling in the 90s, catching the attention of some of the highest-profile gamblers in the UK, who introduced him to the Asian betting market and its handicap. It was in this arena that Tony Bloom and his gambling prowess shone, with the Mathematics’ graduate’s understanding of the faults in the betting system being responsible for much of his fortune, even being named The Lizard for his cool demeanour while gambling.

Tony Bloom set up his own company, Premier Bet, in 2002, moving away from advising professional bookmakers Victor Chandler, and sold it three years later at a cost of £1 million to a gaming company. He later set up Starlizard, another betting company that soon became his golden chip to the fortune, with its army of statisticians, analysts, and experts consisting of young adults being proven right more often than not and becoming one of the leaders in the industry. 

Tony Bloom’s rescue of Brighton

Tony Bloom was not to be limited by gambling alone, however. His portfolio has expanded to several companies, most notably two football clubs, Brighton and Hove Albion FC and Royal-Union Saint-Gilloise. This was not, however, his earliest financial engagement with the club. His financing was one of the main lifelines that supported the club during the time that they used to play at Withdean. 

Tony Bloom acquired the football club in a deal with then chairman Dick Knight that also involved him investing £93 million in the construction of the Amex stadium. He then revolutionised the approach taken within the club in regards to transfers and player transfers, using data and complex statistical metrics to identify undervalued talent, bring them in, and utilise their full potential to turn the club’s fortunes around. The result saw Brighton’s meteoric rise to the Premier League in 2016–17, after a 34-year absence, and retain their position since then. 

RUSG, Bloom’s other football club, has also been seeing great success, being finally promoted to the first division in Belgium in 2020–21 and, since then, also securing a Champions League spot and reaching the quarterfinals of the Europa League as well. It is insisted by the hierarchies that the clubs operate independently of each other. 

Tony Bloom, the Philanthropist

Tony Bloom’s relationship with Brighton is not limited to the club. He has contributed to donations for the synagogue in his local town and is responsible for the active role the club plays in community welfare through its arm, the Brighton and Hove Albion Foundation. He is known to carry on his calmness and optimism throughout both his professional and personal lives. But this personality is only lost when it comes to the games of Brighton and Hove Albion, where he turns into a passionate fan like us all, irrationally optimistic about the fortunes of the game and letting the probabilities go into the air when the players take to the field. After all, while he may be a billionaire gambler, he is perhaps a football fan first. 

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