Is it possible to make a living playing poker?

as much chance as finding a decent tipster ;)

It is scientifically impossible to make a living from online poker as no one in the history of the world has ever done it.

What £figure would you regard as "making a living"?

[ ] thread has potential.

More chance of making a living playing online i would have thought.

Making a living playing 'live' is almost impossible ;)

why do people call themselves professional poker players?

well 95% of online players wouldnt have a hope in hell of making a living from the game, but for the other 5% that do it for a living it can be very profitable indeed.....

punterfleecer 22 Dec 18:23


why do people call themselves professional poker players?

..........................

Becaus i like to be honest. :)

hmmm, well thats nice of you

Typical poker player you are, i can tell you think i'm bluffing ;)

It is not that difficult to win £20k a year. Not sure if people would consider that a living or not.
It is tax free in UK which helps.

It is not that difficult to win £20k a year

Really? Do you make 20K per year? How does one start to learn?

I read a few books then played plenty of £2 mtt's.
After 6 months or so I knew the basics.
To win £100 per day or so means you can avoid playing the really good players as they will be playing at higher stakes.

I'm a fairly average player and I've managed to make 20K a year for the last 2 years.
Finding the type of game that suits you and discipline are the 2 most important things.

I'd imagine coping with boredom must be the hardest thing.

Yep can be boring 9well was a bit for me) . I enjoyed the final tables.
Can get a bit routine like any other job. Need to make an effort to get out of the house, meet friends etc.

If you're easily bored you shouldn't play poker.
Patience is a virtue

This boredom factor is over stated. I mean 9-5 can be boring as hell.

if im on the grind i can be in the comfort of my home with the tv quietly on and access to the net (porn etc)

I think the key is when you are away from the grind to get into other things...basically have a life. and yes routine

" I'm a fairly average player and I've managed to make 20K a year for the last 2 years."

if you can make £20k a year you're far above average. I think the most important thing in a professional player is discipline. discipline in b/r management, game selection and tilt management.

many people are great card players but can't sort the rest of it.

the average salary in uk is £25k? i am guessing. therefore £2100 a month before deductions. i assume u take home about £1350 a month from that. if u are on this salary which numerous people must be u need to make £310 a week from poker to take home the same amount. therefore if you are a break even player at stts for example with 40% cakeback u need to spend a total of around £750 per week which is around $1250. therefore 155-160 $100 + $8 stts a week where u break even will give u a weekly wage of £310. before any leaderboard bonuses/other bonuses. this obviously excludes savings u make from not having to travel to work/expensive work lunches/work clothes etc etc which is a big saving when all added up

therefore on a 5 day week playing 30 $100 stts a day. i think that is perfectly possible and would easily be more enjoyable than most £25k a year jobs are and probably give u a better standard of living if u managed the time well.

its not for everyone but its very easily achieveable imho.

It's not for every one. And it's not as easy as you are making out there, else everybody would be doing it. For a start to have a roll for $100 stts, does somebody who has been messing around in $5 games and getting bright ideas have the cash to roll themselves in these games? Do they have the balls to play at these stakes? Alot probably don't, or if they do, the stakes have a determental effect on their game. Can they handle the downswings when they happen, and if they can't -ev.

lots of -ev things that somebody who wins would just take for granted, canna be arsed to name them but it's not easy money for the ppl who do it, so it certaintly isn't easy money to ppl who have no experience of playing for money and relying on that money.

The uK average earnings is £26K for a male, though not all of this is on a salary basis, particularly those over 26K making up the average. The average non salaried earner pays more like 15% in deductions, therefore the weekly equivalent would be nearer £425 for those.

Add to that a ton of other stuff like risk of ruin, boredom, tilt, off table work, hourly rate etc and it is not as black and white as you make out. Not saying it is or isn't worth it, and that is down to each individual really. Personally I would not put 40 hours per week in for £3-400 a week whilst carrying risk. There are a million things to do that are easier and next to no risk for the same sort of money.

It is just not black and white decision.

I hope you done your research Jim or a certain somebody will be along shortly saying you talk a load of** PMSL

lol

The Tax on Your Salary
Here is breakdown of where the tax on your salary goes. This is a guideline only, we can't guarantee that these figures are correct, so don't make any financial decisions based on them!

Annually Monthly Weekly
Gross Income £25,000.00 £2,083.33 £480.77
Tax-Free Allowance £6,475.00 £539.58 £124.52
Taxable Amount £18,525.00 £1,543.75 £356.25
Tax £3,705.00 £308.75 £71.25
National Insurance £2,120.80 £176.73 £40.78
Net Take-Home £19,174.20 £1,597.85 £368.73


take home pay on £25k a year is £368 per this tax calc so we are in the middle of the estimates.

out of curiosity, how do we get a tax allowance of £6450? I ask only because I might be missing a trick, not that it makes a difference to above.

Q - would you sooner grind 40 hours for that money or do a leisurely hassle/risk free job? Say gardening, or dog walking, or painting etc etc? that really was my point to OP.

Scrub that, it is £6450. I'm a year behind lol.

JIM IS A FCKN TURD IDIOT

Opps, sorry, wrong account.

Morning Jim ;)

I wonder what the average salary is without including salaries from Watford Junction and below

Thank you very much for all the sensible postings. The poker forum seems so much more friendly that the footie forum - over there it's dog eat dog. Any silly comment said in jest or otherwise immediately leads to a witch hunt!

The reason I asked the questions was two-fold. One is because I genuinely don't know how profitable poker can be in the long-term. I heard a well-known pro explain on TV how playing online poker makes it very difficult to actually earn a living, and that he makes much more from TV and guest appearances and the occasional high profile match.

The second is because I was trying to understand the physical conundrum of withstanding endless hours playing on concurrent tables, and the boredom that must come with that. I've played poker in the past, but must admit that boredom was very difficult for me to overcome (would eventually go all-in and blow the hard work). That's why I now stick to football - 90 minutes and win or bust!

As an aside another issue also cropped up when discussing on this issue on the football forum. What is "a living"? I consider a living to be earning a regular income which can be budgeted and relied on for future plans. For the life of me I cannot see how playing poker or sports betting winnings can ever be called "regular". In that case, I don't see gambling as making a living, more earning a one-off.

That's why I also asked the other question - how many people make xxx per year. To answer that question a person really has to have 5 years' worth of results to analyse. Even then it's impossible to say if that will repeat in the future. In other words, are we deluding ourselves when we say "I earn £20K per year" when what we really mean is "I have earned £20K this year and last, but that may well be the end of of"?

On average person will probably earn around £1million for salaried employment over his working lifetime. How many will earn that from poker? And of those that do, how many will blow it on cars and expensive holidays, and when it's all gone suddenly realise that they no longer earn from gambling and no longer have a career or other source of income?

how many people these days do the same job with the same company for their entire lives ?

why would playing poker for a living be any different ?

plenty of people grind it out between jobs. the bottom line is that a lot of us, if we needed/wanted to, could get by on playing poker to survive in the short term.

however most of us dont want to do it long term for the reasons already given.

personally poker allowed me to move from a well paid job i hated and which involved 10 hours commuting a week, to a less well paid job 5 minutes from my front door that i really love.

the time i spent commuting, i now spend playing poker and the money i make ( £4-£5 k a year tax free ) covers the drop in salary.

You cannot just wake up one day and say i want to be a pro poker player and earn 25k a year... first of all u have to be good enough at the game to win consistently and have the bankroll to play full time, a sng pro would prob need minimum 100 buy ins at level he plays at and also enough money to live on for say 6 months when the game isnt paying... If u are disciplined and truely enjoy the game you can make a healthy living at it...another thing is the potential earnings are not limited like a normal salary, you could take say a 5k bankroll and turn it into 1 million in a few years.... obviously this is few and far beetween but it does happen to some players...and you wont do that walking dogs ffs...

I really think theres lots of dissolusional people that think they cld all make a good living out of playing poker.

Playing and winning with a salary behind you is great. playing and losing with a salary behind you is copeable. When its your only income its a completley different ball game.

Im not sure I would want to do it full time,or could do it full time even if I did.

I know loads that do, and do well out of it. But the pressures from what i have seen, seem a lot worse than what i experience in running a business.

Oh and whilst im talking work after breaking down that tax calc Arbby if you ever need work contact me.

joffy - that's the point I was trying to make. "Winning some money" and "earning a living" are two completely different things, imho.

Sustainability/risk I will accept as issues worthy of discussion...boredom betfairy?? You are having a barney rubble.

If that is your job then i think the vast majority of 9-5 jobs are FAR more boring. You get the same repetitiveness and joys of commuting.

HTH

p.s. Generally speaking this forum is about as helful as lemon juice to a cut, so not sure where you get the notion its more friendly than the football forum.

If that is your job then i think the vast majority of 9-5 jobs are FAR more boring. You get the same repetitiveness and joys of commuting.

Really? I suppose it depends on the job, but I can think of few jobs which are more boring than looking a 6 poker tables for 10 hours per day.

HTH
You seem to have a flea up your @rse about me at the moment. I'm not trying to belittle anyone. If that's your source of income R0y then good luck to you. Not my cup of tea, I have to admit.

Listen i'm enjoying your threads so no flea whatsoever but the notion that playing poker for 10 hours as opposed to doing the vast majority of 9-5 jobs for 10 hours is boring is nothing short of ridiculous imo

If it is an enterprise you feel you will be pursuing, I would suggest like any other start up business, that you produce a personal business plan.

Most of the comments on this thread are helpful, however remember, your requirements/expectations are probably different to ours.

The first question you should answer to yourself, longest losing streak you can accomodate?

Okay R0y, my mistake, I obviously inferred something from your post that wasn't there.

Personally, I could play poker for 10 hours per day, by not every day, and not for the rest of my life. In other words, I could not do it for a living.

then it is not for u..... you have to love this game and really want to do it to make a living from it, as joffy said the pressure is immense especially when ur losing and have bills to pay...as long as you are a V GOOD player and have a good bankroll and management of it, you can make it pay.... if u can make a living doing something u love its the best job in the world isnt it?...........

Thanks o o o o o o o o. As it happens, I wasn't asking on my behalf, it was more a rhetorical question, and mainly to define the difference between "winnning cash" and "earning a living". I'm sticking to football betting :)

i dont follow joffy what u mean???

Oh and whilst im talking work after breaking down that tax calc Arbby if you ever need work contact me.

Well the way you showed me your knowledge of how to break down P60 details in terms of net, tax & ni would mean that i wld offer you a job running payrolls for my business if you go busto.

Im sure you wld be a valued asset to my company but maybe not quite worth a 100k a year salary.

can i have a job please joff?

lol jpj. If you say it it must be true.

I think the tax calc was pasted from an online calculator Joffy.

R0y, the boredom issue. yes a 9-5 job can be boring, but one one hand it is swings and roundabouts, you usually get to meet people socialise with work friends and have some "real life" experiences along the way. On the other hand the boredom over 8 hours can be forgotten whilst skiving/daydreaming, running on autopilot. When playing poker any of these traits is costly. So not exactly comparable in my book. I know, (as I'm sure you do), many an unhappy bored soles who grinds 8 ours in an office but in reality they do 4 or 5 hours of productive work. Playing online poker with this attitude is the fast road to the poorhouse.

As someone said above playing for a living requires a certain type of discipline and most people do not possess it imo. This becomes more so if the persons skills and or bankroll require him to play mutitables high volume repetitive type poker. If your rolled to high heaven and sit waiting for £10K fish to turn up once or twice per day then life is different to a grinder 10 tabling $0.50/$1.

I think the OP can answer his own question by acknowledging how much, what kind, and what stakes he would have to play to earn his desired living.

Mate yr already working for me ;), now get of here and get back to me.

WORK ffs

joffy i trained with a big 5 chartered accountancy firm before i joined the gambling industry. highly likely i could teach u a thing or two about accountancy.

my 2c on this is that to play poker full time i think you need to be really earning well above what you would in a normal full time job.
consider someone getting by on 25k a year playing poker. its only going to get harder, what happens in say 5 years time when your %'s have dropped and say you go through a bad patch.

If when you try and return to the workforce after 5 years its going to be tough unless you have a real solid background in something or are looking for a job in sports betting or similar. Chances are you won't find a well paying job and you are behind the 8 ball as won't have saved much from your poker playing days, so was there any benefit playing full time for that period?

Its a diff kettle of fish if you are earning 100k+ a year from poker. After 5 years you could easily have saved enough to buy a house, then you've gotten something out of it and can move forward. If it all goes tits up you at least have an asset and have something to fall back on.

Funnily enough when i was playing full time earlier this year I only tilted badly once, and i never strayed to diff stakes or games, something that can't be said for my part time game. I think playing full time concentrates your mind, at least it did for me, but i've not been in the position where i'm struggling and have bills to pay, that would suck.

^^

good post

Possibly your first sensible one too. Go lie down for ten ;-)

Six of Clubs is spot on.

Three other considerations:

- there is zero pension provision playing poker

- people who can make money playing poker are much more likely to be successful in other jobs anyway

- there will always be a steady stream of new 'pros' (especially youngsters) who will be willing to grind for marginal money. This will make the game progressively more competitive over the coming years.

A lot of people here are saying it like £25k a year is no money... this is more than a hell of a lot of hard working people could dream of making in a year..... there are scaffolders etc that although in london can earn maybe 5-600 a week, in some areas of the country they are doing it for like £7 per hour....these guys are knocking there**out for maybe 2-300 a week.... i know what id rather be doing.....

b o l l o c ks

thanks Jim, I've had a nice lie down. Now whats for dinner? :p

oooooooo - i think the point is if you can make 25k per year playing poker but would otherwise be earning 25/30k per year in a normal job, what is the point? if however you are only earning 15k per year with no great prospect of that increasing, sure go and play poker if you can get 25k a year out of it.

i think people get stuck in a trap and scrape by playing poker without thinking about their prospects 5 or 10 years down the line.

personally i would only play full time if i could clear over 80k a year, and thats not gonna happen.

fair point soc.... u are obviously eaarning a good wage from whatever you do and so it would be pointless playing full time, what i was saying is that for a lot of people earning 20-30k a year from poker it is a v good income and more than they could possibly earn in the real world....

poker is the real world imo

Marty Smyth is now on a milkman in Belfast.

In that case jof i am reporting you to the department for work and health if that exists and you will get a fine as im working for less than min wage and being forced to work too many hours a week ;)

I've had 2 jobs. One was working in Burger King of a weekend while in sixth form. The other was a factory job not long after leaving 6th form. Poker is far more enjoyable than those jobs!

cleaning peoples a ss holes would probably be more enjoyable as well Tank

There is a huge difference between 50K from full time work and 50K from poker (Probably in the region of 20-25k)

I think it is now around end May / start of June when i start earning a penny for myself in full time employment.

soap i've told you before as a giggolo/rent boy you'd get more business if you had a regular back, crack and sac wax!

They don't pay tax / NI either :D

Soap 23 Dec 18:35
There is a huge difference between 50K from full time work and 50K from poker (Probably in the region of 20-25k)

Its my belief this is lost on alot of people.

I PUSH YOU FOLD ! 23 Dec 18:26
cleaning peoples a ss holes would probably be more enjoyable as well Tank

You can say that again. I should really have gone to Uni and **ed about for a few years rather than go to that dreadful job.

uni is great for dossers/poker players