Talking Betting With……Adam Norman
Published: 28th March 2025
In the latest in our popular Talking Betting series, our racing editor Stephen Harris talks with Adam Norman, full-time professional punter and superb blogger who has enjoyed a varied career across the industry with a long period spent at SkySports.
How were you first attracted into horse racing and betting? What jobs have you done in the industry?
My Dad, and his Dad before him, were keen Saturday punters. Dad took me to Market Rasen when I was seven and I was instantly hooked. I still have the programme from the meeting, which was decimated by non-runners, but featured non other than future Gold Cup winner Burrough Hill Lad in a novice hurdle. We saw him win at Cheltenham in 2025 and were back there for Dawn Run's famous win two years later. I never bet big but thought I had a pretty good idea of what I should and shouldn't do.
I got a job as a clerk with a midlands-based Silver Ring bookmaker when I was about 20, it was low-key stuff but I got to go racing a lot and see life from the other side. The whole year was based around the success or otherwise of Royal Ascot, usually the former as we would be down at the two-furlong marker where we'd be betting to about 150%. It was pretty outrageous. Derby Day on Tattenham Hill was always a bit lairy. We'd pitch up and it would be a slight shade of odds-on that the ring inspector wouldn't get up there to charge us for the privilege.
By the late-90s I'd got a job at SIS around the time the first Racing Channel went on air, but after a couple of years my career moved in a different direction, and after clerking at Reading dogs for a while focused on journalism while going racing whenever possible trying to supplement my income.
What is it like now concentrating on punting solely for a living? What are the hours like and how do you handle the stress?
You've got to strike the right balance but it's never easy. You could really put in as much work as you want and in that sense it's easier if you're young and single with plenty of spare time to study. Being an on-course player the turn-around time can be very short due to all the travel and sometimes it's just not possible to prepare as one would like. If time is short I'll focus on the chases on
