Minimum Limit You Can Play To Make A Living

[scott405]

I think that everyone looks at the high side of playing ie consistently winning. Everyone has downswings and if you are constantly cashing out for living expenses you will be destroying your bankroll. I think you need a huge bankroll which can not be used for anything other than playing. Your profits above your bankroll can be cashed out, but if you go on a losing streak you won't be cashing out much. That is why it is so difficult to live off of poker.

That is a good point. But thats also why you need a MINIMUM of 50 buy ins to consider playing for a LIVING as your only or main source of income. It is to account for variance which even really good players experience. There are VERY good pro players who have lost up to 40 buy ins in a row during bad downswings. A safer number is 100 buyins. If your bankroll falls to around 30-50 buyins its time to drop down a level. I would withdraw enough winnings to live off while i still allowed my bankroll to grow.

Once you build up a cushion in your bankroll you will be able to better deal with variance and hopefully you wont see many 40 buyin downswings.

 

[straytfrush]

Like most people, win a donkament.

All you need is a dollar and a dream

 

[bush2008]

it all depends on WHERE u live. Here in Reno, rent, food, internet, phone, laundry, transportation, all that combined is about $1200 a month. so u need very little to live on and grow a roll by about $1000 a month.

several good casinos to choose from, due to the fact anyone can straddle from anywhere. buyins are a very wide spread from $40 on up to matching the chip leaders stack.

hourly rate for about 165 hours of play since moving here is $17 per hour, which is a lot better than i used to average in vegas. so 200 hours a month which is only 50 hours a week (easy to do when u play all 7 days). would be $3400 a month in income.

 

[denisthemenys]

so my opinion if u want to make money for live u need a big bankroll witout big bankroll imposibil to make money its just my opinion ) so god luck

 

[Wickedonesin]

How expensive is the Atlantic City area? I live on the East Coast and would prefer to stay on EC if possible.

 

[ILIKEFISH31]

Think about winrates and hands/month. Let's say you need $4k a month to live nicely - rent, car, food, internet, girlfriend, whatever.

A really good player will win at 3BB/100 at $1/$2.
A good player will play (at the minimum) 500 hands per hour.

Playing 100 hands = $12

10,000 hands = $1,200
40,000 hands = $4,800

So let's just call it 35,000 hands are needed per month at $1/$2 if you're a GREAT winning player to make around what you need to live.

35000 (hands) / 500 (hands per hour) = 70 Hours

So that's not bad. 70 hours in a month. Seems kinda doable lol. Go go go!

I have been spending a lot of time doing math like this lately trying to come up with what one could earn by playing online and live poker for a living at different limits.

Where you can really push your income over the edge and turn that "livable" income into six figures is with marketing and coaching. Think about it - You can't really find a decent poker coach for less than $50/hr. So, let's just say that this poker coach who charges $50/hr is a winning $1/2 player like you laid out and he also coaches for just 15 hours a week, as well. Fifteen hours a week @ fifty dollars an hour comes out to $750. That's an additional $3,000 a month, tax free. Not bad, huh? Throw that in with just that player's cash game wins for the year (ignoring any possible big tournament wins) and we're talking ~$7,000/mo income while just working 32 hours a week. From home, with no commute, and virtually no overhead or expenses.

For $84,000/yr? I'd take it...

 

[lilnewtdog]

I make 2 to 3 an hour on .05/0.10 tables. At the same win ratio in an 1/2 that's 40 an hour, lol.

 

[dmorris68]

I have been spending a lot of time doing math like this lately trying to come up with what one could earn by playing online and live poker for a living at different limits.

Where you can really push your income over the edge and turn that "livable" income into six figures is with marketing and coaching. Think about it - You can't really find a decent poker coach for less than $50/hr. So, let's just say that this poker coach who charges $50/hr is a winning $1/2 player like you laid out and he also coaches for just 15 hours a week, as well. Fifteen hours a week @ fifty dollars an hour comes out to $750. That's an additional $3,000 a month, tax free. Not bad, huh? Throw that in with just that player's cash game wins for the year (ignoring any possible big tournament wins) and we're talking ~$7,000/mo income while just working 32 hours a week. From home, with no commute, and virtually no overhead or expenses.

For $84,000/yr? I'd take it...

Not that the vast majority of you have the skill and tenacity to earn a living solely from poker (it's a helluva lot harder than most of you think, and very very few succeed at it), there is no such thing (for the most part) as tax-free income in the US. Just because taxes aren't withheld doesn't make it "tax-free." Your poker winnings as well as your income from coaching or anything else is taxable and you should always pay your taxes. If you're doing so, then your earnings need to compensate for that, so add 25-35% (just for federal, possibly much more depending on your state taxes) to your target.

I would not recommend anyone in the US try to make any kind of living "tax-free." While the IRS might (no guarantee) turn a blind eye to discovering a few hundred or thousand in unreported income, earning a true living wage in the 10's or 100's of thousands is going to catch up with you very quickly. Not to mention the penalties, interest, wage garnishments, and property liens that can result, you can serve prison time or go busto defending yourself in court. Not worth it.

Finally, IANAL but if you are considering committing tax evasion/fraud, I'd highly recommend you not discuss doing so on a public forum. Just sayin'...

 

[ILIKEFISH31]

add 25-35% (just for federal, possibly much more depending on your state taxes)

Right...because that's fair. Uncle Sam has always done enough for me to warrant taking $35%+ right off of the top.

Your post offers others very sound advice...even though you're not a lawyer. That said, I think you took it a little too far. The point of my post really had nothing to do with defrauding the federal government and everything to do with earning a living playing poker.

My advice to you: Live and let live. You want to throw Washington and your state 35%+, go right ahead. If someone else decides not to well, that's their prerogative.

 

[dmorris68]

Fair or not, the law is what it is, and I wouldn't be doing my duty as a moderator of this forum if I didn't discourage illegal poker-related activity that's publicly communicated here. So while yes, whether you pay your taxes is your prerogative, what you're allowed to get away with on this forum is mine along with the rest of the forum staff. So deal with it.

And with that said, if we as poker players want society and our legislators to respect us as law-abiding citizens worthy of a regulated online poker environment, then we need to act like law-abiding citizens and not publicly encourage tax fraud out of one side of our mouth while we clamor for US regulation out of the other side.

 

[Vazh93]

Try moving to a different country. Much easier to make a living if your great at poker. Here in the Philippines, you would have a great life if you have a win rate of at least 100$ per day.

 

[IM deusXmachina]

I believe the pros also would say that you should have 6 months of cash reserves
I.E. all rent, bills, and other expenses like food gas etc. covered, NOT included in your Bankroll, if you plan on embarking on a professional poker endeavor.
I seem to remember reading that somewhere at some point in my poker learnings, although I couldn't quote the source for you....

 

[cotta777]

I mean it really depends on how much you wanna earn.
Personally I can earn alot more money through sales and Telesales

there are jobs out there oversee's in my sector that pay 100k-250k also no tax.
Where as If I played poker because of the currency I need to make $3,000 a month to earn around 2,000 GBP
and I only 4-6 table preferably 4 table.
Just not feesable so I end up taking shots for the big prizes in donkaments

Back to the point I believe 1/2 is enough to make a living if were talking earning freedom
2/4 and 3/6 to make 50k plus a year,

 

[sergios]

I would have to say, it depends on how much you need to live. I'm disabled and live on 934 dollars a month. I have to stick to freerolls and micro limits and most of the time make a profit of 70 to 130 dollars a month,not much but it's 10 to 15% of my monthly income. So it's all relative.
Ya'll take care

very good mentality! many want to earn more than they can, and do not realize that they lose more than q can win, I'll consider your tactics!

 

[TeUnit]

its all about $/hr, think you could play $1 dons or $.02 - .05 cash if you could find enough tables

rakeback and incentives could provide a large portion of the income

but to comfortable make it- think $1 -$2 cash or $5 sngs but you would have to play a lot

 

[trent32la]

It all depends how much time you put in to studying/playing and what limits you play. You can make a decent living playing micro-low stakes MTTs for sure, however you have to mass volume multi table profitably in order to sustain. Your location and your lifestyle can also determine this aswell. Are you young? Do you live alone? Are you single? Do you live in a poorer or richer country? Are you living in a cheap house/apartment etc etc etc I have seen plenty of micro-low stakes mass multi tablers make a living playing online just making 10-15k a year!

 

[nc_royals]

If I tried to make Poker my living then I'm sure I'd probably grow to hate poker.
I'll stick with my 9 to 5 and try to supplement my life with poker... hopefully both financially and entertainment.

 

[sergios]

People are so interested in living off poker.

These are the reasons why:

1) You enjoy playing
2) It looks easy
3) There IS money to be made.

There are also people who are interested in living off of selling real estate.

These are the reasons why:

1) You enjoy selling
2) It looks easy
3) There IS money to be made.

OK, so now...

Just to let you know Real Estate agents in Santa Fe, NM are supposed to have at LEAST 2 years of income before they start trying to sell houses full time. Why? Because the market sucks. You'll go months without selling a single house. That million dollar mansion you promised yourself you would sell will take a lot longer than expected.

This is a lot like any freelance work (poker included). If you want to make a living playing poker at the ghetto stakes $1/$2NL Live... You have huge ambition but not much thought involved.

If you're going to play live, you need to at least have the BR for 150 BI's @ $3/$6NL (my suggestion 600x150=$90,000 to start) If you drop 50 BI's you should really re-think your options and go back to your 9 - 5. Because you've blown through thirty grand by this point. And still have $60K to live off of.

You DON'T want to try to play $1/$2NL for a living. That is the minimum stake at all casinos (that I am aware of) so anyone who's watched a shitty poker movie or a couple heads-up hands from the WSOP, has the WRONG idea. I kid you not, you cannot price out a rookie no nothing from playing his A4o, because he doesn't know any better. These idiots don't play the $3/$6 NL.

Sure the skill level at $600NL is better online but, I don't see a change much live, somewhat a little bit better skilled players are playing this game (in my area anyway) but they still have a fetish for dominated hands. Easy money here IMO.

What you could also do. Is play $10/$20 Limit. If you win one big bet an hour you are making $20/hr and you don't have to risk your entire stack with top 2 pair when some sucker on $3/$6NL called a 4 bet PF with pocket 3's and hit his miracle 3 on the flop. But still you need to bank at least 100 Big Bets to play Limit and you have to be extremely disciplined.

This is not a road for the weak. This is not a road for the hobbyist who plays against rec players on the weekends and comes out with profit. This is a road for a true Card Player, not a poker player. All the other variations of poker that are available, YOU NEED TO KNOW. They all help your game. If you kill Omaha on a regular basis. If you can make a profit with 2-7 lowball. If you make profit on 5/7 Card Stud. If you make money playing Razz. Then you're a card player.

I don't think you could stomach playing for a living unless you have all the equations in your head, you know your percentages, you're good at picking out hands, you're good on picking up reads, semi-bluffs, and acting tells. We all have good runs, we all have bad runs... You're asking for disaster though if you honestly think you can make a comfortable living playing $1/$2 NL.

Regardless, as many people have said and no one listens. You need BR management. Whatever job you work is probably killing you. If you want to attempt to play $1/$2NL for a living my only suggestion is 150 Buy-Ins $30,000 to start. Which is going to take most of us who work 9 - 5 with bills, car payments, mortgage payments/rent, groceries, gas, cigarettes, etc. Too damn long to save up to even think about it and, I honestly think you should just stick to playing on weekends and taking the recreational players money at the table.

The players you see on weekdays, are going to be there for the exact same reason as you. You want to play on a table with other sharks? Or do you want to easily take some money off of that rich old retired lady or rich old retired man, or that kid who's trying to look like a pro and pulled off a preflop bluff with 27o?

The choice is yours, I thought about it for a long time, had 40BI's @ $1/$3NL which was $12,000, started testing the waters out while still working full time, I'd get off work and go to the casino and made a couple hundred here a couple hundred there, lost a couple hundred here a couple hundred there, then my transmission blew in my car. $5K to replace it with a rebuilt one. Pretty shitty right? I could not handle shit like that so I stopped and pretty much just play on weekends now.

Hopefully, you rethink it. And Hopefully other people will stop asking this same question over and over again. It seems like fun, it won't be when you most need it to be profitable.

Murphy's Law sir, Murphy's Law

-Sean

I think that to live poker, you got to be very good and q have the clear stuff! is not easy as it looks! most are very far from it! I always thought of living cruso that poker! but I prefer to work and play in my free time! no live poker !! but once in a while out sacaele! xd !!

 

[S3mper]

Problem with that is rakeback promotions are typically only offered for first-time promotional signups, so if you (like most of us here) already have an account at the sites you want to play at, you're out of luck on getting rakeback. If you've already signed up under some affiliate promotion deal, such as where you get a prize, bonus, books, software, discount, etc. in exchange for your signup, then you can't go back later and get the rakeback.

I've been told that sometimes if you signed up blind (unreferred by an affiliate) you can get a rakeback affiliate to negotiate your existing account into a rakeback arrangement, but I've not had any luck doing so with the affiliate I tried -- all of my signups were apparently referrals even though I remember only one for certain, where I signed up to Sportsbook to get a free copy of Hold'em Indicator. I think I may have signed up to FT under CC's affiliate link. Not sure where I signed up for Stars, but as I understand it they don't offer rakeback anyway.

If anybody knows any way to convert old accounts into rakeback accounts, I'd love to hear them...

On WPN you can choose from Player points or 27% Rake back without any tags to an affiliate or promotional signups.

Also RakeTheRake does what you mentioned and negotiates with site reps in trying to get already existing players (With no previous affiliates) however they probably aren't that successful with many sites.. In fact they probably only get sites like WPN to agree to this where you can already get 27% RB lol

However with new regulations (Which I almost don't want - I just want pokerstars and easy depositing/withdrawing ) their might be some new poker site opportunities for these type of first time promotions

 

[lilnewtdog]

I have been spending a lot of time doing math like this lately trying to come up with what one could earn by playing online and live poker for a living at different limits.

Where you can really push your income over the edge and turn that "livable" income into six figures is with marketing and coaching. Think about it - You can't really find a decent poker coach for less than $50/hr. So, let's just say that this poker coach who charges $50/hr is a winning $1/2 player like you laid out and he also coaches for just 15 hours a week, as well. Fifteen hours a week @ fifty dollars an hour comes out to $750. That's an additional $3,000 a month, tax free. Not bad, huh? Throw that in with just that player's cash game wins for the year (ignoring any possible big tournament wins) and we're talking ~$7,000/mo income while just working 32 hours a week. From home, with no commute, and virtually no overhead or expenses.

For $84,000/yr? I'd take it...

You have to pay your taxes on all or any income.

 

[lilnewtdog]

Right...because that's fair. Uncle Sam has always done enough for me to warrant taking $35%+ right off of the top.

Your post offers others very sound advice...even though you're not a lawyer. That said, I think you took it a little too far. The point of my post really had nothing to do with defrauding the federal government and everything to do with earning a living playing poker.

My advice to you: Live and let live. You want to throw Washington and your state 35%+, go right ahead. If someone else decides not to well, that's their prerogative.

That seemed to me to be soundly advice take it or leave it. Left will most likely face consequence. Also, US taxes pays for the school most get an education at, the police that protect, and legislation for rule. We all no with out rule and order we have chaos. I'd say that's fair and it would not be 35%. To name a few.

 

[slash407]

you can if you make money from tournaments as well. sit and goes too. poker tournaments are really long however over 3 and a half hours is really long

 

[Mase31683]

This is what I've got on playing for a living, keep in mind my perspective is as a live player.

1) You absolutely do need 6 months of bills up front. I guess this is all about your standard of living but I spend the crap out of money. So six months of bills is a lot. This also means the first few thousand dollars I earned every month goes into my rent/bills fund. I don't start earning money for my roll until I've put away the next month's money. For me, this was a peace of mind thing. I honestly somehow went through my time without a single losing week, let alone month. But knowing that I was covered for 6 months allowed me to not ever even think of needing to worry about paying a bill. I just went and did my thing with no worries.

2) Haven't started talking about the taxes. As people mentioned, you're getting your soul owned by taxes. And pre-tax dollars don't pay the rent. At least I hope they don't, I didn't have a tax lawyer and I probably should have. Anyway, I liked what Harrington said in one of his books, and it hit home for me. I like to invest, and I'd rather pay taxes on my winnings now and be able to do what I want with my money not having to worry about getting audited or needing to hide funds.

3) It can be really hard if you have a wife/girlfriend. That's actually what drove me away from poker (girlfriend), but now we're done and my wife is fully on board with me going back to it because she is amazing. However, I don't know if everyone's significant other/family will be cool with the lifestyle. When I was playing, my normal week was Wednesday-Sunday. I took Monday/Tuesday off cuz they were slower days, and you're working a kind of 2nd/3rd shift hybrid. I'd generally aim to get to work between 3-5 PM and could be there anywhere from just a few hours if tables weren't great to my longest session was a little over 36 hours. Normal long sessions would be more like 12 hours though, that one was just insane.

This can put stress on you and your relationship because you're leaving for work just as wife/kids are getting home. Then when you'd normally be having dinner, helping with homework, watching a movie, whatever you're at work instead. Oh now the weekend's here though so we can....oh right you're going in to work because Friday and Saturday are the two best days that exist for your job. Then even if the wife or kids have a day off, you're sleeping during the day because you're on a schedule where your day starts in the early evening.

 

[GWU73]

I made ~$16 per hour at $50nl over a pretty large sample + (seeing 900 hands per hour playing TAG - pre Black Friday), plus about $1 - $1.50 per hour in rakeback. For me that is the bottom of what I would need to live on, and quite frankly the time needed to grind it out sucks the fun right out of the game, and weathering 10-15 buy in swings can be stressful when you are counting on the money. $100 nl would be a bit more comfy if you can beat it for a decent amount and you can take the swings.

 

[mikeisanace]

It depends on your luck and how good the games are.

In no limit it's nearly impossible to make a living live in cash games because one day you win 1000 the next day you lose it. Same goes for most poker in general but I think the best is 4/8 limit or 5-10 to 10/20 etc.. In limit you can grind per hour with proper play and a little luck. If you run bad you can be patient get about even and call it a tiring non productive day but it's better than losing it all. You need to float even and win about 300-400 on the week ends and call it a week it's the safe play that amounts to about 700-1000 a month. In no limit say 5-10 with a good bankroll and you being a great player could get hot and win 6,000 in a month or a week then the next time get stuck and go bad... In gambling even is king in fact you could be a professional slot player if your could play for free until you hit then take your winnings. Think about that principal in poker it's about floating -70 +70 even then run good and your up 180 for the day or maybe better depends on your limit. 1/2 no limit is kinda like 3/6 except when you get bad luck you lose your 300 buy in wheres limit your down 150 until the next hour or so where your at 280 easily remember floating is king for cash game success.:deal: