[shibeskie]

@OP: I'm a professional online poker player, and yes it is possible to make a good living at this game . One thing to understand however is that poker is a combination of luck and skill. In the short term luck plays a huge role in your sucess and failure, but in the long term skill predominates. And by long term I don't mean 50k hands or so, I mean a Million+ hands of poker, which is the number of hands I play in a year.

Another way to look at it is like this:

Say you have a theoretical winrate of 5 big blinds per 100 hands, so if you play 5/10 NL you win on average of $25 per 100 hands. Now, because of the luck factor in poker, over a small sample size of say 10k hands the divergence between your theoretical winrate and actual winrate can be tremendous, but as every Russian school boy knows the larger your sample size become, the smaller the divergence between your actual winrate and theoretical winrate becomes, and of course if you are so able to play an infinite number of hands your actual winrate should equal your theoretical winrate.

So the conclusion is if you are able to beat the rake you will never lose money at poker in the longterm. The caveat is that the longterm can be very very far away.

[logline]

Originally Posted by danj55

I've been acquainted with positive expectation gambling most of my life.

About a year ago I seriously researched the #'s on video poker in Las Vegas.

I discovered that you can work about as much as you want per week with an expected value of $20-$40 per hour on a bankroll of $50,000. This was without my having any particular pro connections, just stuff I figured out.

After about 100 hrs of my part-time experiment playing video poker, I decided that I have much better options in life than living that sort of boring, hellish existence.

But it is possible.

Dan,

Being a bit of a math geek, I would love to see some of the research you have done. Can you point me in any direction for me to do my own research? Thanks in advance.

[aggrofish]

Originally Posted by shibeskie

...winrate of 5 big blinds per 100 hands, so if you play 5/10 NL you win on average of $25 per 100 hands.

?

So the conclusion is if you are able to beat the rake you will never lose money at poker in the longterm. The caveat is that the longterm can be very very far away.

Assuming you're a winning player of course.

[cdaq]

Originally Posted by aggrofish

?



Assuming you're a winning player of course.

Ah, the BIG assumption. In my experience most players tend to vastly overestimate their actual edge. It's understandable though as calculating your expectation is pretty tough to do. It takes a pretty big sample space and variables like table conditions and mental sharpness vary, often wildly.

[CoreCore]

Are there are a lot of professional Sports Gamblers who live in Vegas who make their living doing it?

[dynimagelv]

yes no

[bxlefty23]

Originally Posted by JohnG72

There's a thing called variance. Another thing called game and table conditions. Those things wildly fluctuate. We will see if your friend is still doing it five years from now.

Anyway, its possible to be a pro at poker. And thats it. However, the number that actually do it for an extended period of time without busting out is very very small. And those that do it at the lower games($2-5 NL and $15-30 LHE) are in a situation where they have to play very long hours to make an amount of money that they can reasonably save.

It MIGHT be possible to make a living at the following:

-Sports betting

I'm not sold on this one. It seems that the really great handicappers wind up working for someone.

-Craps shooting

After experimenting at dice setting, I'm convinced it works to an extent, but I'm not sold that someone can do it consistently enough to make a living at it. Also, bankroll requirements are through the roof so that would disqualify almost everyone from being able to attempt being a pro at this.

-Blackjack

Yeah right. Card counting of course does work. But the bankroll requirements are monstrous. The number of people that can count down a shoe are few. Yeah, there are beatable DD games around town...mostly the El Cortez(Just try to bet $25-100 there...I got 86'ed for a $5-40 spread) and the DD games at MGM properties with $25 minimums....but those games are watched like a hawk. So you are stuck with shoes. And I guarantee that unless you are a master of diguise, you are not going to be able to put in any appreciable amount of time at any of the Vegas properties if you are counting. Bottom line is that a few ex card counters now play poker online and the mid stakes limit hold em games at Bellagio.

As to video poker...I just find that the margin is so small....I'm surprised anyone can get in enough play at +ev machines that they could make a living. Supplementing income is totally different than making a living at something. Put another way, at a .8% advantage, if you ran $10,000 a day through a machine, you make $80 for the day. And as you mention, the variance is hell. Say you could play 100 times an hour. At $1 machines, thats $500 an hour. I don't think 20 hours a day is possible. And thats if you play absolutely perfect.

most of what you say is true
a monkey can be trained to count down a shoe that's not hard at all
but finding good games and not getting kicked , having a large bankroll and playing through huge swings as you point out is not easy
if you have the money you can make a lot more with a lot less swings in poker than you would in blackjack

there are people that make money sports betting
but again you need a huge bankroll as your edge per bet is very small and to be making any real money you need to be betting a few 1000 a game
it was also a lot easier when people from the us had easy access to repuatable online sportsbooks
the juice is a lot lower and there were decent scalping opportunities
a lot has changed in the last few years

[bxlefty23]

Originally Posted by iloveparadise

I have heard a few people claim that they gamble for a living but I just don't see this lifestyle lasting too long for them. Whatever strategy they use probably works because of coincidence. (Luck)

You have to be extremely disciplined. Know when to leave when you are losing AS WELL AS when you are winning. Most people win but they lose it back PLUS more. Lose your cool for just a minute and you could find yourself digging out of a hole which gets deeper and deeper.

Generally, people who claim they can make a living gambling are addicted. I know one
person who lost everything because of gambling problems and she still claims that she can make a living IF she had a big enough bankroll. Pulease!

knowing when to leave is basically nonsense
if you have a big bankroll and you're playing a +ev game you're gonna make money in the long run
leaving because you're up for the night means absolutely nothing
if you're playing a -ev game you're gonna lose in the end anyway
you can't trick math

[jfpinlv]

"a monkey can be trained to count down a shoe that's not hard at all"

I agree, but counting cards is more work than working...maybe because it is boooring, waiting for that hot deck.