Is poker about to be killed in the UK?

So my results and prospects in poker are looking stronger then ever I have been researching looking at my game results and basically with a few adjustments I will be making more then twice the income my job brings me by playing in the evenings and weekends.

Of course theory is nice and all but I would not dream of quitting my day job until actual results show this. I am doing a statistics degree I do have a statistically significant data set that suggests I can make these figures as a living.

the challenges are can I multi table without suffering a significant loss of ROI It is obvious as I add more tables my ROI goes down but how much etc is a big question. that been said if my roi dropped by less than a third I am all good.

The real concern is current news that a group of MPS want to significantly curb gambling in the UK. they want to Ban all advertising for gambling not sure how much this would or would not affect the online poker scene.

They want to restrict online slots to £2 a game I dont really care about that does not seem relelvant but becomes very relevant if uk poker games get cut to £2 a game.

They want to force gambling sites to do financial assessments of online players, this could be a massive threat. Eg if I play £10 games I obviously play 100s of these a day I am plus ev statsitically significant but that does not matter if my income shows I make £1200 a month from my day job after taxes then it appears to regulatory standards that I cannot and should not be betting £1000s of pounds a day. the argument that I am a winning player with a statistically significant proven winning record and that this is not really thousands of pounds but the same £10s been staked again and again may not hold water. The Law and common sense do not always have to go hand in hand. I thus could be limited or banned.

the banning of vip reward programs this would reduce all my poker income by 25-33% that hurts but I would still have a significantly better income then my day job.

These are the threats I see and I am wondering if people have insight to whether this is or is not a major threat.

This is a concern, but try putting yourself in the place of your government. They see that most players are likely to lose rather than win. By the way, the same thing happens in stocks and exchange trading.

I think that they rather proceed from good intentions and want to prevent the loss of money from citizens. In any case, the government will proceed from what kind of people and what qualities prevail in total. Usually, any decisions are aimed specifically at them.

alexand8r said:

This is a concern, but try putting yourself in the place of your government. They see that most players are likely to lose rather than win. By the way, the same thing happens in stocks and exchange trading.

I think that they rather proceed from good intentions and want to prevent the loss of money from citizens. In any case, the government will proceed from what kind of people and what qualities prevail in total. Usually, any decisions are aimed specifically at them.

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I am aware more money has to be lost then money that is won. The site take a rake and any money I win has to come from other players not the site.

I am not to fussed about our government having good intentions they have literally sold our country to foreign powers when it is completely not in the interests of our people for their own gain. I do not want to get political here as this is not the place for it but suffice to say I really do not believe our government is benevolent or has the populations best interests at heart.

It may be politically expedient for them to distract from other issues, I just dont get what your point is with all due respect. I am not going to be comforted with they have good intentions or they want whats best for us. if I lose a major source of potential income it will suck.

Poker can't be killed. If there is a desire players will always be able to hold the game. I can tell you that for sure. In Russia, poker has long been recognized as a gambling game. For the Russian government, poker is not a sport. However, you can often see the players themselves at the tables.Or am I wrong?)

Poker can't be killed. During the COVID when the people are at home wondering what to do , they are playing games . For the poker players it is more confortable , during the home office (as me) to play. The life events are cancelled , but online are growing. So it is impossible to be killed.

No chance. Don't sweat it.. :five:

Good job on the results, keep on keeping on!

biggest mistake of my life - quit my job for poker

Suzana2304 said:

Poker can't be killed. During the COVID when the people are at home wondering what to do , they are playing games . For the poker players it is more confortable , during the home office (as me) to play. The life events are cancelled , but online are growing. So it is impossible to be killed.

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well if they bring in rules that mean i can no longer sustain a profit or a reasonable wage, then I sure poker would survive but it would be dead for me. eg if I am playing cash games then every time i put money into a pot i am staking money tecnically. heck if i played the equivelent of £5 no limit cash games across six tables then adding up all my bets one could say i am staking hundreds of pounds a night.
same for sit and goes and tournements. obviously I am staking the same money over and over again but if they want to financially asses me based on my income not including poker and wanted to count that as staking hundreds/thousands a night they could argue I cannot afford to be doing this and thus stop me playing or limit me playing. this is a fear but thinking it through a possibility just an unlikely possibility as such regulation could potentially bankrupt the betting industry entirely. Sports Bookies have only a 2% edge on bets if people cannot recycle bets whether sports poker or casino games the industry likely goes bust. I mean even on roullete a game i hardly touch (when i bought into live tournements and was due £3 change they gave me in chips and i cant be assed to walk to the counter and say can I have £3 cash so i just spun it on roullette probably should not do that) someone sits down with £30 they bet across some numbers and have a few wins now the casino has to say sorry dude you staked £60 already we need an income assessment if you want to bet more no casino is surviving or any online casino.

in regards to if desire there will always be games fine but playing on illegal sites or underground games is not ideal for me.

my complete assessment is that it is a potential threat and something i should definitely be aware of but the likely scenario is i can continue making money from the game.

i have thought like never before of quitting my job and going full time poker simply because all the evidence shows that i can and i can make more money doing so, plus their is a deadly virus out there and i risk that killing me or my girlfriend if i go to work. the issue is that there are several threats to poker as an income that are completely beyond my control, some much more likely then others. ultimately they are all unlikely however it is a huge risk and in this economy quitting my job then finding out the unlikely happens would be a total disaster. covid is on the retreat and thus for now it makes sense to keep my day job and do poker in the evenings.

i have not multi tabled to this extent before so would think my roi would go down I am a maths and statistics degree student, i have statistically verified my results with a 99% confidence interval so they are highly likely to be correct.
I have recently been watching training videos from a very respected player and have come to one harsh realization, my game is ****ing terrible!!!!!!!!!!!!

yet the fact still remains that if I maintained this win rate when multi tabling my income would be 2-3 times that of my job. My girlfriend says I am very harsh on myself and i hold myself to a very tough standard so maybe others would not call me terrible but lets just say even with all these weaknesses i have been crushing it. so if i plug those gaps its possible my win rate could actually be even higher when multi tabling not lower thats what has me realizing i have a real oppertunity to make good money here.

LukeSilver said:

I am aware more money has to be lost then money that is won. The site take a rake and any money I win has to come from other players not the site.

I am not to fussed about our government having good intentions they have literally sold our country to foreign powers when it is completely not in the interests of our people for their own gain. I do not want to get political here as this is not the place for it but suffice to say I really do not believe our government is benevolent or has the populations best interests at heart.

It may be politically expedient for them to distract from other issues, I just dont get what your point is with all due respect. I am not going to be comforted with they have good intentions or they want whats best for us. if I lose a major source of potential income it will suck.

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Ok, well I don't really agree with the stuff about selling the country off for their own gain and I think you are being ambitious saying you don't want to get political here while making those sort of assertions.

Nevertheless, I can see you are genuinely concerned about this so I will endeavour to ease your worries on this as best as can. In short though, it almost certainly won't happen in any meaningful way.

This grouping is not an official body who have the power to legislate, in fact an all party parliamentary group are about as informal as it gets. They usually release reports with the goal of inspiring some legislation which often goes nowhere as far as initial report.

In this case the groups members are largely opposition MPs (possibly the ones you prefer from what I can gather ) who are a million miles away from power and will have little impact beyond their own individual vote (there are 50 of them in a house of 650).

It's the Conservative government that will initiate any actual legislation and they are generally pro-business and reluctant to impose restrictions on people's choices. They are also currently keen on the 'blue collar' demographic who typically like to have a bet, so they won't want to upset them either. It's politics and it's also very likely that some of these businesses will be amongst their donors too. Basically, they have almost no political will for this.

The most likely thing is that at some point they'll introduce some meek,ineffective legislation around things like advertising to minors/slots/problem gamblers etc which will have very little impact but allow them to say they care and have sorted this issue.

So don't worry about it.

I agree that it must be worrying for a pro or would be pro (its just a hobby for me). Historically we have a relaxed attitude to gambling in the uk - as long as governments can make money via the tax system, and look like they are protecting citizens while also protecting our rights and freedom of choice gambling will be fine.
They cannot claim a moral high ground if they allow smoking and alcohol.
The argument could even be extended to diet. Obesity costs the NHS millions, and has a devastating effect on people's lives - are they gonna restrict those with a high BMI their freedom of choice to eat what they want? No.

LukeSilver said:

I am aware more money has to be lost then money that is won. The site take a rake and any money I win has to come from other players not the site.

I am not to fussed about our government having good intentions they have literally sold our country to foreign powers when it is completely not in the interests of our people for their own gain. I do not want to get political here as this is not the place for it but suffice to say I really do not believe our government is benevolent or has the populations best interests at heart.

It may be politically expedient for them to distract from other issues, I just dont get what your point is with all due respect. I am not going to be comforted with they have good intentions or they want whats best for us. if I lose a major source of potential income it will suck.

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Agreed.

I participated many times in a thread concerning this very subject in another area of the forum a while ago. I have no issue with anyone trying to curb excessive gambling.

However I find it ludicrous in terms of a sticking plaster on a deep wound. For those unaware (around the world) I noted how betting/gambling had wound its way into the fabric of British society. I underlined the number of betting shops found in every corner of the UK and noted half the Premier League teams are sponsored by betting companies which means millions watching and wearing the corporate logos/brands on a daily basis, etc.

None of this is changing. There are too many vested interests making staggering amounts of money through betting. Successive governments have all played their role in allowing such companies free rein within the the British economy.

So all I see is some genuinely well intentioned pressure groups managing to move the needle a little - but I doubt anything will seriously undermine the British gambling/betting infrastructure in the longer term.

LukeSilver said:

i have thought like never before of quitting my job and going full time poker simply because all the evidence shows that i can and i can make more money doing so, plus their is a deadly virus out there and i risk that killing me or my girlfriend if i go to work. the issue is that there are several threats to poker as an income that are completely beyond my control, some much more likely then others. ultimately they are all unlikely however it is a huge risk and in this economy quitting my job then finding out the unlikely happens would be a total disaster. covid is on the retreat and thus for now it makes sense to keep my day job and do poker in the evenings.

i have not multi tabled to this extent before so would think my roi would go down I am a maths and statistics degree student, i have statistically verified my results with a 99% confidence interval so they are highly likely to be correct.
I have recently been watching training videos from a very respected player and have come to one harsh realization, my game is ****ing terrible!!!!!!!!!!!!

yet the fact still remains that if I maintained this win rate when multi tabling my income would be 2-3 times that of my job. My girlfriend says I am very harsh on myself and i hold myself to a very tough standard so maybe others would not call me terrible but lets just say even with all these weaknesses i have been crushing it. so if i plug those gaps its possible my win rate could actually be even higher when multi tabling not lower thats what has me realizing i have a real oppertunity to make good money here.

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I just wanted to add to my first post (which dealt exclusively with the legislation threat referenced in the thread topic) to give you my thoughts on the rest of what you saying regarding taking up poker. Given your field of study and results in poker, you sound like you have a high earning potential in the future, and your job right now is probably not a reflection of that. Don't just think of the comparison against your current wage. Think about whether grinding multiple tables, day in, day out, with low income security and high variance is likely to be a better prospect than getting a job as (for example) an Actuary and playing poker for fun in your free time.

I think you're going to be fine playing online poker for many years to come, the question is really whether it's the best choice for you. Good luck either way.

Oxinthewater said:

I just wanted to add to my first post (which dealt exclusively with the legislation threat referenced in the thread topic) to give you my thoughts on the rest of what you saying regarding taking up poker. Given your field of study and results in poker, you sound like you have a high earning potential in the future, and your job right now is probably not a reflection of that. Don't just think of the comparison against your current wage. Think about whether grinding multiple tables, day in, day out, with low income security and high variance is likely to be a better prospect than getting a job as (for example) an Actuary and playing poker for fun in your free time.

I think you're going to be fine playing online poker for many years to come, the question is really whether it's the best choice for you. Good luck either way.

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Poker has always been a back up option, realistically the top level I can reach which I am not currently at btw is probably about £100,000 a year if I can get a high paying job in statistics I can make that anyway.

I would struggle to make it in live poker I have a terrible poker face which i cover up with sunglasses and a baseball cap, which is fine for playing £1 £2 blinds no limit or maybe even £2 £5 no limit. players at these games and low stake tournements (£200 or less) wont often be astute enough to gather tells from me the odd player here might but they wont be a large enough proportion to notice. However as soon as I started stepping up to proper stakes cash or tournements there would be plenty of players who could get a world of tells and I would not be profitable. I know I could still make a living at those stakes live but I doubt a very big one.

This might seem irrelevant but online poker will be killed by bots its not a matter of if its a matter of when I have been saying this for years so maybe its decades away but maybe its only a matter of a few years now. poker legislation in the UK can always change as I have mentioned here even if as i think is highly likely to be okay for the next several years there is always the risk of that. Plus the standard keeps increasing in poker unlikely to push me out but a few very strong regs hit my games and income is gone i can move sites but if it spreads I am done. poker sites can change games and their business model at a moments notice.

There are just far too many risks to justify poker as a full time income if I can get a similiar income elsewhere. This is why I have not made the jump previously.

However I struggle to get decent work heck if I want a job as a burger flipper or kitchen porter or shelf stacker I remain confident I can always get that work I have never struggled for that but If I want a job as an acturary or an analyst it probably wont happen. In school I was always the bullied kid with no friends at work I am always the outcast and I have a degree already in accounting and finance. I applied for literally thousands of jobs int hat field and got no where then I realised wait a minute I hate accounting i did the degree for the wrong reasons and so decided to do a maths and statistics degree later which I am currently doing. My most ridic experience was I travelled 2 and a half hours for a job interview for an accounting position the person interviewing me the manager of the firm knew this and within 30 seconds decided he could read people really well and I was terrible and said thankyou goodbye 2 and a half hours to be rejected in 30 seconds.

I have been thinking of quitting my job for the short term to only make money from poker so as to leave myself less exposed to this deadly virus it wasn't a long term plan. I am doing my degree with the open university but see hypotehtically if I got a first class here and applied to and got accepted for a masters at Oxford and graduated that with a first class honours (or is it different grading for masters I should know that lol) I still think i would get rejected for all high paying jobs. realistically I see myself with a masters degree in statistics probably not from Oxford but somewhere respectable applying for a load of decent jobs and been rejected consistently keeping a minimum wage part time job so I have something relevant on the CV and playing poker and making a decent income from that until one day poker is taken away from me for good by bots legislation or something else. Hopefully by that point I have bought a house outright and have other investments so that I can only work part time or outright retire.

Sorry for taking a while to respond Lukesilver.

Your circumstances are more complex than I envisaged with my first reply , but overall I think your analysis of the poker situation is sound.

As for the last 2 paragraphs, I empathise with a lot of what you are saying. I can only imagine that employers are discriminating against some aspect of your personality/demeanour if your educational profile is good. If that's the case then don't lose hope as things are changing albeit slowly. I'm glad you have poker as a backup. Also glad you dodged the bullet of accounting

I've also heard that they're planning (or have?) to restrict the use of Credit Cards for deposits to online gaming. (&/or gift cards... the info. I got was vague and not specific at all. It was actually from an investing standpoint, suggesting the stock(s) would be falling. (GVC skyrocketted during the first part of COVID).

What about moving? This still wouldn't solve the problem with UK online poker but is it an avenue for you currently?

PS - I remember watching you win that big cash in that huge freeroll they held on Stars many years ago. (Goodman... or something like that? (I won't post what I think your screename was so as to not put it out here publicly).
Cool to hear you are still at it and able to be winning some $$'s.

Side question (maybe I should've reserve this to a pm?.. ). What games are you currently playing? I've been attempting to make a go of some micro MTT's ... but am off to a slow start (lots of other life commitments as always).

Poker Orifice said:

I've also heard that they're planning (or have?) to restrict the use of Credit Cards for deposits to online gaming. (&/or gift cards... the info. I got was vague and not specific at all. It was actually from an investing standpoint, suggesting the stock(s) would be falling. (GVC skyrocketted during the first part of COVID).

What about moving? This still wouldn't solve the problem with UK online poker but is it an avenue for you currently?

PS - I remember watching you win that big cash in that huge freeroll they held on Stars many years ago. (Goodman... or something like that? (I won't post what I think your screename was so as to not put it out here publicly).
Cool to hear you are still at it and able to be winning some $$'s.

Side question (maybe I should've reserve this to a pm?.. ). What games are you currently playing? I've been attempting to make a go of some micro MTT's ... but am off to a slow start (lots of other life commitments as always).

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its correct I won $20,000 it was my biggest ever online poker win, and still remains so. I had, people regulary looking me up and mentioning when i lost money or won money I emailed stars about this at the time and exceptionally they allowed me to change my player name. I wasnt ever supposed to mention that but its been many years since this happened. and was a complete one off.

For this reason though I wont mention the stakes game type or site I play on.

What I will say is that if your going to play on any other site other then poker stars it is very difficult to get the games to make any decent returns sure you can beat games but you just cant get them to run often enough to make a living wage.

which leaves us in a the position of either playing on pokerstars or playing across various sites I choose to do a mixture of these options. I wish I could say that its just this game variant on this site the games are really easy here.

Well I cant say that, it is true for some game types but the games dont run enough so your making like a few quid an hour at best.

there are many game types to exploit my advise would be either get really good at one game type with a lot of effort and head over to stars or get competent at one game type and play across multiple sites.

Poker Orifice said:

I've also heard that they're planning (or have?) to restrict the use of Credit Cards for deposits to online gaming. (&/or gift cards... the info. I got was vague and not specific at all. It was actually from an investing standpoint, suggesting the stock(s) would be falling. (GVC skyrocketted during the first part of COVID).

What about moving? This still wouldn't solve the problem with UK online poker but is it an avenue for you currently?

PS - I remember watching you win that big cash in that huge freeroll they held on Stars many years ago. (Goodman... or something like that? (I won't post what I think your screename was so as to not put it out here publicly).
Cool to hear you are still at it and able to be winning some $$'s.

Side question (maybe I should've reserve this to a pm?.. ). What games are you currently playing? I've been attempting to make a go of some micro MTT's ... but am off to a slow start (lots of other life commitments as always).

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I think the banning of credit cards is good for poker, people should only be playing with what is in their accounts. This is to stop addicts going thousands and thousands into debt.

I don't think it can be killed. Depends on your age group and interests. I play in a league. they're all around the Uk and since this Cov19, I've found more people interested in learning to play Poker, especially the younger ones.
Timewise, also depends if you've been furloughed or had to work all through the crisis.
Plenty of bored gamblers out there, I'm sure...

pjokay said:

I think the banning of credit cards is good for poker, people should only be playing with what is in their accounts. This is to stop addicts going thousands and thousands into debt.

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"People should only be playing with what is in their accounts" Perhaps this is how many fund their accounts... due to ease of access.

Should we also limit the amount they can spend at Walmart? Or what about high-end fashion stores? Perhaps they are compulsive shoppers? Maybe there shouldn't be credit cards allowed for anything? (except car rental... < but what if they're renting high-end sports cars on weekends which they cannot really afford at all??)

Using a credit card to deposit doesn't necessarily indicate the player doesn't have money. In fact, in order to get Credit, the person typically does have money. I was referring to it as a matter of convenience. On many sites it has become increasingly difficult to deposit & more so, Withdrawal from the sites. Closing out one of the easier options makes it more difficult and will inevitably decrease player numbers = bad for poker.

If gov't. is that concerned re: addicts overspending, then perhaps instead of limiting online poker deposits via credit cards, they could consider eliminating online casino games, & Lotteries??

Poker Orifice said:

"People should only be playing with what is in their accounts" Perhaps this is how many fund their accounts... due to ease of access.

Should we also limit the amount they can spend at Walmart? Or what about high-end fashion stores? Perhaps they are compulsive shoppers? Maybe there shouldn't be credit cards allowed for anything? (except car rental... < but what if they're renting high-end sports cars on weekends which they cannot really afford at all??)

Using a credit card to deposit doesn't necessarily indicate the player doesn't have money. In fact, in order to get Credit, the person typically does have money. I was referring to it as a matter of convenience. On many sites it has become increasingly difficult to deposit & more so, Withdrawal from the sites. Closing out one of the easier options makes it more difficult and will inevitably decrease player numbers = bad for poker.

If gov't. is that concerned re: addicts overspending, then perhaps instead of limiting online poker deposits via credit cards, they could consider eliminating online casino games, & Lotteries??

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Well this is the REAL problem as far as I am concerned....they want to have ever incresing control over us...why don't they just mind their own bloody business and leave us in peace

gon4iypes said:

Well this is the REAL problem as far as I am concerned....they want to have ever incresing control over us...why don't they just mind their own bloody business and leave us in peace

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EXACTLY! I 100% agree!

gon4iypes said:

Well this is the REAL problem as far as I am concerned....they want to have ever incresing control over us...why don't they just mind their own bloody business and leave us in peace

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If by 'they' you mean the current government, they really don't. The prime minister is a well known libertarian. If instead you mean the establishment more broadly, then I'd agree.

However, the current government should be here for at least the next 4 years, and anything that happens in this field will be done as a response to pressure and thus probably as light touch as they can get away with.

I doubt they'd go as far as banning credit cards, but if they did then I don't think it's a bad thing that would have too much impact.

Poker Orifice said:

"People should only be playing with what is in their accounts" Perhaps this is how many fund their accounts... due to ease of access.

Should we also limit the amount they can spend at Walmart? Or what about high-end fashion stores? Perhaps they are compulsive shoppers? Maybe there shouldn't be credit cards allowed for anything? (except car rental... < but what if they're renting high-end sports cars on weekends which they cannot really afford at all??)

Using a credit card to deposit doesn't necessarily indicate the player doesn't have money. In fact, in order to get Credit, the person typically does have money. I was referring to it as a matter of convenience. On many sites it has become increasingly difficult to deposit & more so, Withdrawal from the sites. Closing out one of the easier options makes it more difficult and will inevitably decrease player numbers = bad for poker.


If gov't. is that concerned re: addicts overspending, then perhaps instead of limiting online poker deposits via credit cards, they could consider eliminating online casino games, & Lotteries??

Click to expand...

I think all the other reasons you have mentioned for using a credit card are completely different. The reason people should not use them for gambling is because it is normally seen as a cash advance therefore you rake up a whole load of extra fees depositing this way. If you go shopping or but a car and you pay the card off you incur no other fees. Why would people use credit cards for gambling instead of bank cards? If your going to incur a load more charges surely it must be through desperation?

The point I was making was not because it was credit but because of the extra fees. You already have conversion charges and site rakes and in some countries tax, so to add credit card fees would just make the costs to high imo.

The gambling commission have three key objectives.

Ensure gambling is conducted in a open and fair way

Ensure gambling is kept free from crime and disorder

Protection from children and vulnerable adults.

Poker sites will have a duty to ensure these objectives are met. So when they assess your finances they are looking to see that your funds are legitimate and that it is your money being spent. You don’t have to spend up to your monthly income so long as you can prove the money you are spending is yours.

When it comes to children and vulnerable adults. I assume you have proven your age but the vulnerability has to be assessed. So if fo instance you’re spending £5000 a month and only earning £1000 a month they need to know how that is possible. If this comes from personal funds then that is acceptable. They also have a duty though to ensure you are aware of what you are spending and that you are gambling within your means, gambling for fun and NOT gambling with an addiction. Now so long as the gambling companies have made every possible attempt to ensure you are not vulnerable then they have done their job and you can carry on to gamble how you wish. If your habits change they will have to speak to you again.

Changing stakes to £2 is beyond the control of the poker sites but I very much doubt they will. There was a big problem with roulette where people were losing £100’s of in a short space of time and their gambling was getting out of control which is why the industry had to change. Poker doesn’t have that issue on the same scale so I think it should be ok.