Dirk Paulsen, born in Berlin in 1959, showed a special talent for numbers from his earliest childhood, which was almost simultaneously paired with his pronounced passion for football. The inclination to play(s) that dominates his life makes him combine these two characteristics in the ever-expanding search for the “perfect” game. On the one hand, this game should represent reality as faithfully as possible, and on the other hand, it should be reproducible on a daily basis – in comparison to the Bundesliga, which is only played weekly. The Bundesliga is simulated, by Tipp-Kick, if in brotherly or fatherly company, with 11er-Raus playing cards, if alone. The rule modifications he has driven to perfection produce table pictures that can hardly be distinguished from the actual ones, since all the variables he has gradually determined and verified statistically, such as home advantage, goal average or draw frequency, are taken into account. In addition, it should be mentioned here, as proof of the objectivity required for later elaborated content, that as an absolute Hertha fan in those years he always left his father, who also loved Hertha, as his number 1.
When he discovered chess at the age of 14, he took a longer but very serious excursion into this world of his own, which brought him several tournament successes, a 10-year participation in the 1st German Federal Chess League, as well as an appearance in the national team in 1981. The income, which existed but was recognised as too low, made him decide against continuing his professional career. In 1983, he discovered the games of backgammon and blackjack, in which luck and skill factors seem to complement each other perfectly, and succumbed to the temptation to make these games his profession. His successes were manifold, for example winning the super jackpot at the Backgammon World Championship in 1988 ahead of the entire world elite – with a prize money of about 65,000 DM.
At the same time, he used his access to the mainframe computer system at the Free University of Berlin, which he had obtained through his enrolment in the Mathematics Department, to determine and/or improve winning strategies for both Black Jack and Backgammon in computer programmes he had developed himself. At the same time, he also developed there – not surprisingly, since this passion accompanied life – the first football simulation programme, which included prognostics for the first time.
Both blackjack and backgammon may not be unattractive, but they are burdensome ways of earning the necessary living, as one discovers over the years, especially since the lifestyle with expensive trips and stays in posh hotels devours a fair amount of the budget. Apart from that, the competition does not sleep and the casinos are also gaining the realisation that you can never earn enough as an organiser. They make the conditions more difficult or ban them from the premises.
When the acquired football knowledge and mathematical mind matured in 1988 for the European Championship, he made his first foray into the world of football betting. There, too, he was immediately successful, but initially based more on intuition reinforced with mathematical insights.
The excursion into the world of work from 1987-1990 at SEL/Alcatel – the software industry, which he reaches “easily” through a retraining measure – enables him to realise the further development of his ideas and perfect the forecasting programme in parallel home work on the first PC he acquired. By the time of the 1990 World Cup, it is ready and the decision has been made: The betting market offers a wide range of possibilities and allows money turnover in sufficient amounts to make a profit, so that the employment is terminated and the path to becoming a professional football bettor is taken. Despite the “Super-Gaus” Germany becomes World Champion – the only thing that should not have happened – profits of 4,000 DM remain.
The successes are splendid and he points with some pride to the 3.5% profit on turnover that he has “earned” over the years. Nevertheless, there too, conditions were becoming more difficult due to the increasing spread of information on the Internet – the so-called mass intelligence. Besides, the plan had long been made to use the knowledge not only to earn money directly, but to make it accessible to a wider public at some point. The various media appearances led him to believe that the interest was great enough to reveal the knowledge gained. Many of the insights gained have a scientific basis, the insights of which meet higher standards.
It is astonishing to see how much the eye for football, trained at an early age, brings to light special observations – to a large extent owed to the necessary objectivity and the absolutely necessary acknowledgement of the best possible assessment, unknowable for defeating the betting market – that one would hardly have heard or read in this form.
Today, he works mainly with a group of professional players, for whom he makes predictions on football matches – the main basis is of course the figures, but a knowledge of leagues, teams, tables, developments are a prerequisite nowadays – and who successfully convert these into cash on the highly complex betting market, which requires skilful and better timing as well as constant market movements, to this day (2017).