How many players are profitable in the long run?

I've been having this thought ever since I started playing poker. I've read a few articles, other forum posts, and even just had discussions.

The number 1/10 comes up a lot, which sounds to me like it should be about right. Live poker tournaments tend to award money to the top 15% of players, while online ones are sometimes pay as high as 30% of people. The same is true for SNGs - from what I can see, most 9-handed games pay the top 3, while most 3-handed ones have a single winner. If you assume that, online, about 50% of people probably just get lucky while the other 50% are fairly consistent winners, that's about 10-15%.

How many players do you think are able to consistently make money playing the different kinds of poker?

I believe any player who adopts a proven winning strategy and sticks to it can be a winning player. It takes time and practice, but it is possible.

there are many players who are constantly playing major tournaments and often fall in the money and sometimes occupy the first place, that they have enough for a living

I was told that 95% of all players are not actually profitable and only gamble recreationally. The amount of professionals are usually low anyway.

There are a lot of new players, but there are also a lot of experienced ones. This is known only to poker rooms, who is reckless, who is average, and who plays professionally.

Let's ignore rake and buy-in fees for a minute.

Suppose there was a fixed number of poker players. 50% would be above average and 50% would be below average. You might assume then that 50% would be winners.

But there's new players. Given that, it would be at least theoretically possible that more than half of all players were taking the money of the constantly renewing fish. But poker's not like that. There's no constantly new fish. Fish trickle in. So we're back to assuming that maybe around half of players might be profitable / above average.

But next, realize that a decent win rate of, say, 3BB/100 is only a 3% margin on hands played.

Now...add rake and fees.

Bye-bye 3BB/100. Even though you might be better than most players and win more than most do, you have to give some of that to the house.

So no, most players are not winners. I want to say that blackrain79 estimates that something like 70-85% of players are losing money. I imagine most of his data is from micro and small stakes, but I see no reason the large stakes would be any different.

Some stated 95% of players are losers over the long haul. I think this figure is true. Enjoy poker as a hobby .

I think that many good players play in plus, regardless of the tournament or sng

The best in each variant achieve a profit - I think it is 5% of players. You can not forget about players who are brake even - they can be up to 10%. The rest are losing players, but most of them do not care because they play for fun not for profit .

It seems almost every gambler is a loser in the long run. Even the pros who supposedly make a living at poker lose everything at some point. I think that less than 1% make a reasonable living at it.

Millie232 said:

I've been having this thought ever since I started playing poker. I've read a few articles, other forum posts, and even just had discussions.

The number 1/10 comes up a lot, which sounds to me like it should be about right. Live poker tournaments tend to award money to the top 15% of players, while online ones are sometimes pay as high as 30% of people. The same is true for SNGs - from what I can see, most 9-handed games pay the top 3, while most 3-handed ones have a single winner. If you assume that, online, about 50% of people probably just get lucky while the other 50% are fairly consistent winners, that's about 10-15%.

How many players do you think are able to consistently make money playing the different kinds of poker?

Click to expand...

I think 20 percent of the players only earn good poker.

I believe its in 10-15% range.

Have any major poker sites announced?
If NO, then closer to 10%

Rake is killer for the average.

Dont forget many play to keep their brains occupied or recreational shoving, no better place than online cards room to be aggressive today.

Poker is a brutal game for those playing professionally. I'm glad it's just a hobby/game for me, I don't think I could handle the stress if it was my primary source of income. :afraid:

Even the best players in the world are not winning consistently. Like Negreanu explains in 2017 he cashed $2.79M but his buyins were $2.87M so his profit that year was -$86K. :vollkomme

1/10 is actually accurate, roughly 8-12 % of the people profit in poker, 1% being the group that takes in most of the profit

The fees kill the rest that would have broken even or made profit, the site milks us dry

it seems to me personally that in large tournaments many should earn at least to increase the number of games in the tournament .. and in the wilderness in my opinion, there is a normal installation there ... poker rooms ... in principle, most of them get their money well, at least 30 percent to be in prizes .. and in live tournaments about 25 percent there is a fourth part

It really comes down to how the person adapts to the games.

Message :8

I think so if the third wins in the tournament then it's 33% more of them there are three categories of people, those who benefit those who are around zero, and those who are in the red thus obtained 33/3 11% of those who are in the black and the green are those which are included in the prizes is consistently about ten percent receive 1.1% of all players. And the main winner, the one who takes the rake.

In fair play, all will be in the black

YungWan

Xaxa