How many pro pokers players are there worldwide?

How many players do youthink make enough money to live on - say $20,000 a year or more, which is about the minimum you can afford to live on.
There must be thousands.
Could there be tens of thousands or is that a bit excessive?

I'd think more definately with online play, there's tournament play, and hold'em all sort of different types of games. Just IMO im shooting blind that there more!

Id say theres like 4425 of them, but maybe like 9204

could be in the area of 12000-14500 though

who can live on 20k a year?

I'ld be willing to bet ..world wide...5000..pros..that make a living playing poker...and that doesn't count the one time wonders that win once and think ...now I can make a living at this!

i've always seemed to. man its awful! but that's not poker that's manual labor. that's real job though, i usually get an extra couple hundred or a little more with football betting(weak bankroll there too), practically nothing from horses cause i just don't ever stick with it. an actual poker withdrawal has never happened but i always played play money. god what an idiot. been building bankrolls slowly, haven't deposited many places or very much (oh, because i'm poor). i'm conservative though and patient so every penny is gold to me. i'd love to be a one hit wonder, haha. all my jobs are really slow on top of it all right now so its awesome i'm extra broke right now...anybody hiring?

10% of world population

Making $20k+ a year does not make you a pro.

At 100nl+, you can do that playing recreationally, i.e. an hour or two a day while spending most of your time on a real job.

I know a lot of people who only earn that much where I live, working full time, or slightly more or slightly less.
You must live in a very rich area if you think noone lives on that.

Anyone who makes a living playing poker is a pro, even if its only $20,000.

Lolled at this, good point

That's not what i meant. What I meant is that you can make more than $20k/year and still be a recreational player because poker is not your main income/activity, your job is.

So if someone was making $200k+ a year but still did a 9 to 5 job as well u wouldn't consider them a pro?

Depends on their salary. It this someone earns $500k at his job and $200k at poker, than no. If he earns $50k at his job, than probably yes, but he should quit his job anyway.

And it's not strictly about earnings. A student who lives on poker income but studies full time is still primarily a student in my book, not a poker pro. How much time you spend on each activity is a pretty huge factor.

We have had this discussion before.

Basically to be a pro it has to be your main source of income AND take the majority of your time.

Otherwise all lottery winners are 'pro' lottery players.. (as the lottery win is usually greater than their life times earnings).

Your profession is the activity which earns you the majority of your money and takes the majority of your time.

If you play 40 hrs a week poker and earn 20K a year from doing it, so long as you dont do anything else for as long or earn as much from another source, then poker is your profession and you are a pro.

Usually when people talk about pros they don't mean all pros, they mean the top pros.

You could start by taking the numbers from PokerListing and BluffMagazine pro rankings.
PR2 13782
PR1 +7526
Add the number online player rankings which only include the top 1500 in each buyin category (Gold+Silver+ Bronze).
+4500 = 25,808
Multiply that total by x (your guess) to include the underground economy in non-ranked events.

Assumption: the majority of the players in reported ranking events (PR1, PR2, online) have additional earnings from poker in casinos, online or locally.

How about the "pros" who are very unprofessional? One "pro" i played with at the Horseshoe in Hammond, IN was berating all the fish for bad play, telling everyone how to play their hands, and complaining about bad beats. They were very rude altogether, yet they still made a living off the game. Imo that is not a pro...

lolitsimpossibletocalculatearealnumber

So, this makes Phil Helmuth what?

BTW the worst ranked online player 1500th in the Silver level (lowest) made $215,489 in three years between 01/01/06 and 08/19/09 on one site PokerStars. That said, there are thousands more online players across multiple sites that earn a living to qualify as a professional poker player.

A very talented yet unprofessional individual .

Good call Kenzie. PH needs to work on his etiquette fer sher.

There are pro's in every industry whom have behaviors which deem them unprofessional but you still cannot deny even the white collar criminals earned a living. That is a philosophical question of moral values - not economical.

I have read somewhere, that in Denmark where I am from - the estimation is that about 75 players have poker as their profession

Population: 5,4 millions

You are correct, therefore I respectfully retract my statement. I guess we could then ask the question of how many professional pro's are there?

I agree with Stu Ungar. To become a professional, your main source of income has to be from poker. I had bankroll upto 20k but it doesn't make me pro because I'm not dependent on poker and still pay for my apartment, food, car, insurance, etc from my job aka teaching students. Poker is my hobby. To become professional, I have to be able to make a lot of money through poker where I can quit my job. Poker has to be your main income. 20k is just an amount to START playing professionally but not an amount to determine if you're professional or not. My bankroll is currently at 11k and has been dropping a lot lately. But I do know what I'm talking about because I've had my hands on 20k but it didn't prove me as a professional.

I don't think it matters everyone feels that they might have a pro in them or something like that but if your not making bank than can you call yourself a pro i don't know.

Too many people gets confused with being a professional poker player and being "pro". Stu is right on the money.

that's the percentage of lefties in the world

so how many left handed poker pros are there then? hahahaha

and what would happen if the earth stopped and started spinning in the opposite direction?

none of us will ever truly know the answer to these questions.

I know there are a lot of people who live on less than that. I couldn't do it now with my mortgage and bills. Sorry I made the comment.

But there is only 1 real lefty.........

As far as poker goes it is hard to say how many pros there are ot there.

coincidence obv

there are easily tens of thousands who try to make a living playing poker, most of which are not successful. Just look at Vegas alone and think how many of those people try to make a living playing poker

If you had seen his behavior in the last NBC Heads Up Championship you'd have seen he's trying to turn a new leaf. He took his victories and his eventual defeat against Elky without any outbursts. He even mentioned in interviews during the tournament that he was actually trying to get a handle on his temper and change for the better.

Lets see if he can keep it up

no it wont