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Professional Poker – How Difficult Is It To Make A Living?

Many people have hobbies they would love to turn into full-time occupations. The same is true of some casino gamblers. After all, they are always reading about wealthy winners at poker tournaments. So it's only natural to dream that you could be in those same shoes. But the truth is that launching yourself into a professional poker career is not an easy undertaking. For a start, you'll need to spend all your life in the casino. Then you'll need a huge bankroll to survive the lean periods.

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Professional Poker Players Don’t Have It Easy

To the question of whether you should consider playing poker professionally, the answer is most likely “it depends.” First, we must thoroughly examine the figures and consider every factor involved with playing professional poker. We must do so from the perspective of a legitimate job. With set hours and set taxes. Anyway, let’s pretend for the purposes of argument that you are playing $2 to $5 no-limit Texas Hold’em in your neighborhood casino. We’ll use this as an example because it’s the game and stakes that most casinos offer on a regular basis. In general, if you can defeat other players in this game, you’re a player with some serious skills. However, if you simply want to play mindlessly, go to one of the online jackpot websites like 22Bet Casino.

The Realistic Hourly Pay

So let’s look at the money. For the sake of argument, let’s say your hourly wage is $50. Yes we know, everyone is aware of players who can play 10 big blinds each hour with a high win rate and make double that. But if we use our more conservative estimate, playing these $2–$5 games requires 40 hours per week or $8,000 per month. That sounds like a very good salary. But before we all jump up with a triumphant fist pump, let’s consider the use of such a work ethic, in real terms.

It’s About The Grind

It’s true that making $96,000 a year playing professional poker sounds fantastic. But in order to bring our egos back to reality, there are a few topics we should address. The first is that no one wants to spend their entire day in a casino. Playing 40 hours a week will quickly lose its appeal and turn into a chore. It doesn’t matter if you’re winning or losing since you’ll need a break or you’ll get totally burnt out. Therefore, in order to be more practical, we recommend a 30-hour work week. This means that your overall compensation will now be $72,000. Still, not bad for a professional poker player.

You’ll Need A Big Enough BankRoll

At the end of the day, whenever we’re speaking about gambling, our money is the decisive factor. You’ll require enough money to cover at least 5,000 big blinds for no-limit Hold’em or 100 buy-ins for tournaments over the course of a year. Therefore, if we frugally allot $3,000 every month as playing money, we’ll need at least $60,000 before we can even think about becoming professionals. Also, keep in mind that starting any business takes time. With that aim, we categorically advise that your kitty have no less than one year’s worth of living expenditure available. You’ll probably need the same amount if you want to try to win the jackpot online.

Playing Professional Poker Is Tough On Your Family

If you have a family, that’s another thing you should consider before taking the professional route. If you do, your recurring costs will only rise over time, especially if you have young children. With you spending so much time at the casino, your family life and marriage will certainly suffer in various ways. Of course, you’ll respond that playing during off-peak hours will help to mitigate this. However, bear in mind that because there is less activity during these times, your earnings will also suffer. Once again, we’re faced with not-so-good poker news.

A Huge Change In Monthly Income

It will be challenging to give up your current normal employment and embark on a career in gambling if you now enjoy it. There is really no need to depend on poker if your household receives a consistent monthly income from your regular job. The fact of the matter is that your monthly earnings from playing cards will fluctuate greatly. Just like they do with all table games. Therefore, even though your current position may be a little “ordinary” and you must answer to a boss, at least you have a general idea of how much money will be deposited into your bank account at the end of each month.

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Remember The Taxman Wants His Cut

Unfortunately, the taxman comes next. Let’s presume that you’ll be paying the tax office 20%. This means you’ll still have $57,600 left over, which is, let’s be honest, still quite a bit of money. Then, taking into account that you’re in the US, we must subtract health insurance. And at about $250 a month, that brings our yearly total down to $54,600. Let’s imagine you need to put money aside for your retirement. How about $10,000 a year, which will be paid back to you later? However, it is still a legal deduction for the purposes of these amounts. You will now have about $45,000 to live on and put toward your bankroll.

Ask Yourself Are You Good Enough To Play Professional Poker?

Few players are prepared to question if they’re actually as good as they believe themselves to be. Similar to the wife making supper for some friends who all compliment her and advise her to launch a restaurant. At the gaming table, you’ll need to have a lengthy and reliable casino table games career under your belt. In other words, if you’re even thinking of giving up your day job for a seat at the poker table, you need to already have a proven winning track record of consistent wins. The majority of experts believe you’ll need at least 500 hours of practice before you can consider these jackpot games as a source of income. The problem is that you can burn through many bankrolls during this period whilst deciding if the game is right for you.

You’ll Need Lots Of Practice Time

We advise you to spend a significant amount of time gambling before quitting your normal day job. You’ll get a flavor of what life would be like if this was your daily routine by doing this. Remember that playing poker with your buddies for fun requires a completely different mentality than playing professional poker for a living. Much more attention is required in the areas of necessary focus in order to prevail. A significant quantity of table time is necessary if you want to become a successful poker tournament player in order to reap significant rewards. Keep in mind that at regional and local casinos to win the jackpot, the small tournament stakes are pitiful and scarcely enough to be profitable. This is brought about thanks to their shoddy game designs and hefty house rake.

The Cold Hard Reality

Here’s a basic reality check: Suppose you can enter a tournament with a $200 buy-in and a $30 rake. This happens every day at the casino near you. You can win about $50 an hour in this game, which moves along very quickly. As a result, each tournament offers a $5 hourly prize ($50 game – $30 rake). Therefore, even if your jackpot poker games are extremely soft, you might still make $20 an hour. Any extremely skilled player, who may not be you at the moment, might win this much playing $1 to $2 cash games. Keep in mind, it’s more or less the same story playing online at a casino like 22Bet Casino. The only plus point is that the table betting limits will be much lower.

You Will Not Be Wealthy From Playing Professional Poker

Let’s say you work a 4-hour day just to play in tournaments. Your hourly win rate is $20. As you can see, playing professional poker at a casino won’t make you wealthy! Another thing to keep in mind is that most casinos don’t offer tournaments with buy-ins of $500 or above. We advise you to stay with comparatively lesser cash games because of this. Although tournaments may appear to provide generous cash rewards, keep in mind that these prizes were only made possible thanks to hefty buy-ins. You can make some fairly significant bank if there is a large buy-in but a soft field. But you’ll still be needing significant sums in a bankroll to make such large buy-ins.

At the end of the day, you are the only one who can decide whether to play professional poker. Only you know your true level of skills and have a realistic understanding of what’s needed to increase your jackpot winning chances. Just be sure you actually possess the essential talents or else you’ll burn out very quickly.