Australia 2012 in high stakes court case a mysterious figure is called to the stand he is the world's biggest Gambler and the net . is closing it has been for years that's how long they've been trying to stop him chasing him across the globe the casinos the betting companies even the government and now his secrets are on the line it's not just his identity or the billion dollar rags to Rich his life he's , worked so hard to build so hard to keep quiet but the incredible system which made it all , possible if people knew it would change the way they bet forever for 30 years he's walked . the line between genius and Obsession between legit and illegal between being Robin Hood and Robin John Doe feared and respected he secretly controls a huge chunk of world gambling but now potentially he's about to lose it all 1983 Hobart the Backwater capital of Tasmania , Australia's Ireland state it's fair to say that not much happens but at least now there's , a casino wrest point in it a young man a student is enjoying himself the 23-year-old is the son . of Croatian immigrants Hobart is his hometown the place where he like his parents started with nothing life has been tough disadvantaged but he believes that if you keep your head down and work , hard you can achieve anything think he's a bright kid with a talent for maths he's even earned . a scholarship at the University of Tasmania where he's studying banking Tax and Finance but money's tight so when he can he earns a few extra bucks working part-time down at the , casino mainly he helps out with Keno a lottery game but right now he's on his break earning a , few more bucks he likes to play Blackjack and he's good at it suspiciously good because this , young man's cut his gambling teeth by learning how to count cards and soon he's only more in his . break than he does in his job and his bosses don't like that when he loses his job and gets banned , from the casino through a solicitor he asks why he says I've considered the rules of blackjack . and I'll be pleased if you could let me know on what basis the application of card counting to , the game of blackjack has been ruled unnatural play and he has a point if you're playing a game , where success requires you to beat the odds it's natural to chase an advantage and in him this . frustrating incident has created a revelation like no other the there's no turning back our man . is now obsessed with Advantage play he wonders could this be applied to other forms of gambling . for clarity Advantage play is where a player uses legal methods within the casino rules like card counting to exploit innate characteristics of a game to the casino the advantage that card . counting gives a player over the house is unfair because memorizing cards enables them to stack the . odds in their own favor when it comes to betting on a hand but is this any more unfair than the . advantage the House made contains punters just aren't supposed to win but for this young man with only a few dollars in his pocket a plan is starting to take shape there's money to be made . through maths but he needs a secret system which answers one simple question how do you gain a . proper advantage and win bigger by 1985 he's outgrown his hometown so along with his girlfriend . Shelley Wilson who he met at the casino and his best mate from University a math wiz called . David Walsh he heads to Mainland Australia and in particular the Boomtown Sydney but rents are . high and the buzz of the blackjack table gets to him so before long he packs in school and starts counting cards full time teaming up with David and another respected player Alan woods soon he's been . banned again but this time it's from every Casino in New South Wales so next he drives North across the state border to Queensland on the Gold Coast there he heads to the state's first newly opened . Casino the Jupiter however his reputation seeds him he's refused entry on arrival the casinos , are closing ranks using systematic checks to ban regular winners as the head of security reveals , he has his own dedicated file his real name is Zeljko Ranogajec but in the files they call him , the Joker and he's been banned from all casinos Nationwide the party is over for now at least but . really this is just the start of something so big that even Zeljko couldn't imagine it's time to . take his Advantage play to a bigger Arena and when it comes to casinos there's none bigger than . Las Vegas so the Joker moves in the shadows and grows his team always he sees strength in numbers , his plan is to pool resources work together and reduce the casino's built-in Advantage it's not . long before higher Stakes at more blackjack tables lead to bigger wins once more his reputation is . growing who is this guy all the time he continues to learn looking beyond the blackjack table first . he looks to Poker and then to other casino games and even sports betting he's developing strategies analyzing potential advantages and fine-tuning his knowledge consistently he wants to find something , bigger far bigger and while the Joker is in Sin City he's preparing himself for the next step , because the casinos of Vegas won't keep losing forever sure enough they fight back he's under , surveillance and starting to face all kinds of problems such as frequent shuffles to disrupt his counting so he branches out to Chicago too a Mobtown and he knows it's risky getting the .
winnings home isn't easy either when it comes to big bags of cash the Customs people treat it , like drug money they naturally assume that he must be some sort of criminal and then disaster . a car crash one of his team is killed instantly heartbroken and with the rting already on the . wall he's racked up a massive amount of bands in Vegas and Chicago it's time to head home . it's now that he'll rethink and start again there has to be a better way a more profitable way , a way of winning big without facing all of these issues little does he know he's about to find it , it's 1994 and back in Australia he's banned from all of the casinos it's depressing and he feels . defeated sat in a pub with his best friend one day they discuss his quandry and then it hits him the answer is sat right in front of them it's as if everything before was just a training , ground for what happens next it's time to up the stakes and change the game to Keno it's the game , that gave him his first experience of gambling back when he worked at the wrest Point Casino now , Keno is a lottery Style game played in casinos and tab betting pubs the tab is a totalizer or tote , system of paramutual betting all bets are pooled together and payouts are determined by the size of , the total pool and the number of winning tickets in Keno players select numbers from a choice of 80 on a Keno card after placing their bets 20 numbers are drawn randomly and the total prize money is divided between those 20 numbers so winning numbers selected by fewer players are therefore . worth more money than winning numbers selected by more players back at the wrest Point Casino Keno , taught him that when you're working against an advantage you need to find your own he studies . the game pool sizes and probable combinations over time he develops a new strategy based on the . likelihood of payout versus the potential winnings and now leading his latest Syndicate of close . friends he's ready to give it a try it works like this first they wait for an inflated size bet and pool relative to the odds of winning and then they buy enough tickets to ensure that they own the , majority of the payouts because they have most of the tickets it's more likely that they'll win more , than anyone else but the numbers are carefully chosen too there aren't any complex computer , algorithms at the time so using good oldfashioned analysis they pick the numbers most likely to , come up and least likely to be selected by other players and then they bet big really big mostly in the tiny wagon and horses Pub in Hobart over 18 months they bet around $64 million the result they win 40 Keno jackpots pocketing a whole lot more than they staked each time the margins are . small and it doesn't always look like a success on one record jackpot of $7.5 million it cost , them more than that in their initial stake all of which was wagered in the north ride RSL Club in Sydney suburbs but it all confirms what the Joker already knows by spending in the right way you , can control the game and leverage an advantage but how does he turn that Advantage into a profit a guaranteed profit that's his secret and he likes to keep secrets because it helps him maintain control however the Lamborghinis Penthouse Apartments and celebrity meetups are starting to , draw attention and it's not just journalists that are watching what happens next brings it all out . in the open behind the scenes The Joker Zeljko Ranogajec changes his name to John Wilson , Wilson being his wife's name more smoke and mirrors because it's time for a fresh start he's , laid the groundwork he's built up a huge betting bank and now he's ready to play for real with a . small team of trusted partners and their funds too he calls them the bankroll punters club and this time they'll be chasing the big money Global horse racing he privately assembles an elite team , of analysts and mathematicians there are rumors about the extraordinary questionnaires applicants , are given to test their skills he doesn't employ anyone directly and many of them won't even meet . their fellow work colleagues it's an overseas operation that will run 24/7 acting in a similar way to his Keno operation so non-disclosure agreements are signed and a Code of Silence is agreed a code which years later under oath will be revealed in full soon the money that he and his . Syndicate are earning is staggering a book labels him the biggest punter the world has ever seen . and the top racing pundit says he has no chall allers but he remains elusive so rare his sens . that even some journalists dub him the lockless monster he knows that secrecy is Paramount for . this to work properly he's not on any rich list so no one knows his true net worth but just from , a few of his assets ad joining clifftop Mansions worth $20 million in mosman Sydney a holiday place . up the coast in Wimberal and a place in London's One Hyde Park where Apartments go from upwards , of $90 million his rapidly growing wealth is clear meanwhile his right-hand Man David Walsh is doing okay too back in Hobart he builds a $70 million Museum to house $100 million worth of art is drawing serious attention to the tab and the Australian tax man is watching many on the outside , are wondering where is all this money coming from his team of 300 analyzed racing through computer , video and mathematical analysis to find the right bets then once again they wait and until racing pools reach a specific size and then as before The Syndicate wages massive amounts of money and
wins Big it's a trick they've repeated many times before with Keno and now they've adapted it to . betting exchanges and prize pools everywhere and it's not just in Australia either if the right . bet is in Japan France the UK Hong Kong or Russia so be it the numbers are mindboggling and that's . before you find out the real secret to his success his 2008 and Zeljko Ranogajec AKA John Wilson is . in federal court as he sets out to recover funds owed by a former associate in order to explain , his claim he must explain the real reason he can't lose as a big player xelo brings betting liquidity . to the market now the betting companies love this liquidity refers to the amount of money available in the market for placing bets High liquidity means that there's a large volume of bets being . Place leading to more competitive odds for pun and bigger profits for the Betting Company plus it makes those headline grabbing jackpots even bigger in the news the bankroll punters Club astonishingly account for 6 to 8% of all Australian betting on TABC Corp it's worth about , $700 million per year and as much as 33% of all betting on Betfair's exchange gelo's value . to them is huge because basically he is the betting Market it's alleged that he's offered , an office on the top floor of tab Corps HQ and that he doesn't pay the $250,000 super tax which . bet fa impose on other big Winners but the real sweetener dished out to most value customers of . all are rebates and this is why he's been being so secretive rebates are when a betting company , gives you your percentage of your betting money back a spokesperson from tabort once said is common knowledge that rebates are offered by totes around the world to high volume customers , they don't like to say anymore but here because the legal case was about recovering rebates from an ex Syndicate partner xelo is happy too he's getting 10% back that's a 10% rebate on all of , his TABC bets his system combined with money back means a massive margin of guaranteed profit it's , very simple he tells the magistrate if you bet $100 and lost $5 but you get a 10% rebate you . still make 5% you always win now if a Betting Company always loses to a big player because . of these Kickbacks that shouldn't make sense and in fact fact tote Tasmania through which the Syndicate earned over $52 million across 3 years with a staggering 85% of that cash coming from , rebates is forced to close but with any well-run Betting Company that won't happen instead they simply manage the situation to their advantage the large number of bets the big player makes and , the Kudos they bring attracts extra business from ordinary punters and if that doesn't cover those . costs then those ordinary punters pay the price directly in the form of reduced odds you see this , is how zoko has negotiated the ultimate Advantage his Syndicate are called bankrupt and they are literally Bank rolling the platform they need him as much as he needs them if not more and when the magistrate asks Yoko how much the bankroll punters Club turns over a year he answers my guess would , be $1 billion the magistrate can hardly believe his ears it's 2012 and to the ordinary punter the , rebates seem unfair and that brings heat but the real problem the one Joko is always worried about is that with these numbers now in the public domain the Australian tax office have . decided enough is enough they've been sniffing around for years but now it's clear that there's so much money in play hundreds of millions of dollars that understandably they want more of you , see in Australia money won from gambling on horses is not liable for tax unless you're operating as a business from xelo in his Syndicate the line is clear it's a hobby the Australian tax office say . maybe but they're conducting it in a businesslike manner the tax office are determined but Zeljko . ensures that he retains an advantage it's clear he's earned billions but any business it may resemble is concealed by a maze of different companies and that Code of Silence documents , reveal that right from the start if the bankroll punters Club are asked about winnings they should . simply say no records are kept therefore it's difficult to estimate turnover or profit would . prefer not to make it guess and fair enough after all it's just a hobby plus xoko knows that if . the Australian tax office taxes past winnings they'll have to tax everyone else's it's a can of , worms they're simply never going to open after a court ordered mediation session a confidential , settlement is agreed in 2017 new Australian taxes were levied at bookmakers of course the bookmakers just swallowed them up by adjusting the odds in their favor all the punters pay the , price but amongst those worst affected are big players placing large bets on small margins so in the same year xoko moves to the UK to operate out of the aisle of man a tax Haven today he's rumored to live in the UK's most prestigious address One Hyde Park London where apartments are now selling . for $170 million he drives a $600,000 Lamborghini as seen online and treats his wife and daughter to . the best of everything despite those who tried to stop him the kid from Hobart won and he carries , on winning and his wealth continues to rise here remains one of the most powerful men in the world , of gambling thanks for watching please subscribe