Online Gambling For A Living

Gambling for a living might sound like a great deal. After all, who wouldn’t want to play games of chance for a living?

The problem is that it’s impossible to make a living playing most gambling games. And when you get good enough at a gambling activity to earn a living at it, the game often loses its “fun factor.”

That being said, some people do gamble for a living and enjoy that lifestyle. If you think professional gambling might be something you’d like to do, this post offers some insights into the pros and cons of gambling for a living.

Con – No Benefits Package

Whether people can make a living sports betting or not is a long-disputed subject, and discussed everywhere like gambling forum or sports betting for a living Reddit. There are 2 obvious facts. The first fact is that there exist people who live off of sports betting/gambling. The 2nd fact is. Clearly if you hope to make a living gambling you will become an expert on one (or more) of the four major games that can be beaten. They are horse race betting, sports betting, poker, and blackjack. The authors introduce the games with an emphasis on the circumstance and milieu in.

Make a living online gambling, It runs the National Gambling Helpline (0808 8020 133) and also offers face-to-face counselling. National Problem Gambling Clinic If you live in England or Wales, are aged 13 or over and have complex problems related to gambling, you can refer yourself to this specialist NHS clinic for problem gamblers. See if you meet the criteria for this.

Gambling is the ultimate independent contractor position. This means that you don’t get paid vacation, medical benefits, or anything else you’d consider a normal benefit from having a job somewhere. Even your retirement fund is entirely your responsibility.

This isn’t the end of the world, though. Like other independent contractors, if you budget well enough, you can take as many days off each year as you like.

If you’re not sitting at the poker table, so to speak, you’re not earning. But if you know anything about being a schoolteacher, you’ll recognize a similar principle.

Teachers get summers off, and they still draw a paycheck. This doesn’t mean they’re getting paid for the 2 months they’re off in the summer, though. It just means that the administration is parceling out the money for a 10-month work year over the course of 12 months.

You’ll need to do something similar if you want to take paid days off as a professional gambler.

As far as health benefits go, you can buy your own health insurance now through Obamacare. Some might argue that Obamacare is more expensive than insurance through a company, but part of that is because some companies subsidize some of the cost of your health insurance.

As far as retirement goes, you could theoretically register a corporation and set up a 401k for yourself. But you also have the ability to set up a Roth IRA (Individual Retirement Account). Both of these options have tax benefits, but it’s up to you to determine which is more appropriate for your situation.

The hassle of putting together your own benefits package is one of the biggest drawbacks of being a professional gambler.

Pro- No Boss to Answer To

Obviously, if you don’t get along with authority figures, gambling might be better for you than working for some suit in an office somewhere. You do still deal with some authority figures—casino personnel—but it’s not like they have much control over you. They can’t fire you—although they can ban you from the casino if you’re counting cards.

A friend of mine once told me, “It sounds like you have problems with authority figures?”

“You have no idea,” I replied.

I’ve been an independent contractor and owned my own companies for years now. I don’t miss having a boss, I can promise you that.

Con – Inconsistent Earnings

I had a good friend who played professional poker online during the poker boom. He told me that he earned 6 figures a month, 5 months out of 6.

But 1 month out of 6, he saw a loss for the month.

Not everyone has the wherewithal to handle swings in their income like that. That’ll just plain rattle some folks.

No matter what kind of gambling you do for a living, you’re going to deal with short-term variance. In layman’s terms, even when you’re getting the best of it, you’ll have streaks of bad luck.

Being able to continue to gamble with an edge in the face of that streak of bad luck requires a certain temperament that many people don’t have. It also requires a large bankroll, because without a bankroll, you’re out of action.

And if you’re out of the action, you can’t earn a living gambling.

Pro – You’re Playing a Game for a Living

Okay, so this might be the biggest draw. If you enjoy playing poker or blackjack, or if you enjoy betting on sports, you’re basically getting to do what you love and get paid for it. That’s a hard pro to ignore.

The problem is that it’s not enough to just enjoy the game you’re playing. You have to be good enough at it to make a profit on a consistent basis. And some people learn that playing a game to such high standards isn’t as much fun as playing for recreation.

Remember, there’s nothing wrong with being a recreational gambler. It’s your money, and as long as you’re taking good care of the rest of your financial commitments, losing a little money betting on football, playing poker, or playing blackjack is just fine.

In fact, it’s probably important that you don’t overestimate your skill level. You’ll find plenty of blog posts describing how easy it is to count cards. But the number of people who can make a living at it is smaller than you might think.

Gambling professionally requires a certain kind of temperament that most people just don’t have.

Con – Social Pressure

Some people won’t approve of the way you make your living. Your wife might want you to do something more traditional to support the family. Your parents might be disappointed that you’re not putting that degree (that they paid for) to use.

If you want to succeed as a professional gambler, you need to be able to withstand this kind of social pressure. It’s not easy.

I quit my job over 10 years ago to run my own business. My wife was terribly distraught. I made a fortune, though, and it was the right decision for me. It was just so far outside her comfort zone that she couldn’t handle it.

Some people won’t understand your dream. That’s okay. Follow it anyway if it’s that important to you.

Pro – A Sense of Agency

When you work as an employee of a company, you have little control over your destiny. Your day-to-day activities are usually decided for you by management. Your compensation package, including how much your salary increases year-over-year, is also determined by management. If you want to take a day off, you must comply with corporate policies and ask for approval/permission.

This doesn’t lend itself to a sense of agency on the part of the employee. Sure, some companies allow their employees more latitude to decide what to do and when. And some companies pay you salary plus commission, or even commission only, which puts your income back in your influence. Some managers might be really flexible with your time off, too.

But these are the exceptions, not the rules. Even if you get to adjust your own priorities, you still have a job description that was written by someone else. The company decides your commission percent, and they can (and often do) change it any time they want to.

And even if you do your job well, that doesn’t mean the company succeeds. If management is incompetent, you might lose your job just because the company goes out of business.

None of this compares with the amount of control you have as a professional gambler. You decide when you want to gamble and what you choose to bet on. How well you do determines your income. And if you want a day off, you just don’t place any bets that day.

That’s what I mean by “agency”—it’s the ability to choose your destiny in a real sense. The only limits to your agency are those imposed by your bankroll and skill level.

Not everyone needs or wants this sense of agency. Some people prefer to have someone else making the decisions. They might think it’s a fair trade to get a benefits package and a reasonable sense of job security.

Con – Dealing with Unsavory Types

You’re not necessarily going to deal with the criminal element as a professional gambler, but you’re more likely to deal with shady characters as a professional gambler than if you were in some other profession.

Think about it—if you’re betting with the neighborhood bookie you met through your buddy at the local bar, you’re dealing with someone who’s a career criminal. Sure, it’s a victimless crime, but bookmaking over the phone violates federal law. Some people think that’s a big deal.

The people who open and operate underground poker cardrooms are sometimes the nicest people in the world, too. But they’re not usually the upper crust of respected citizens, either.

I like dealing with shady characters, but only up to a point. I don’t like drug dealers, for example, especially the ones who deal in harder drugs. But not everyone you meet as a professional gambler is that unsavory.

Pro – Social Status with Some Groups

In some circles, being a professional gambler will earn you a lot of respect. This is the opposite of one of the earlier cons, which suggested that there’s a social stigma attached to gambling for a living.

The difference is the people who have disdain for gambling versus the people who have respect for it.

Some people are religious or have other moral objections to gambling. Some just have a Puritan work ethic and think you should earn your money via the sweat of your brow.

But some people admire and respect professional gamblers. They think it’s exciting or romantic. Or maybe they just realize how much self-discipline and skill is required to succeed as an advantage player.

You’ll need to decide for yourself which group of people you prefer admiring you.

Con – You Need a Bankroll

No matter what kind of gambling you’re going to engage in to make a living, you’ll need a bankroll—probably a big one.

If you’ve done the research and study to know how to beat gambling, you’ll know that in the short run, anything can happen. You can make all the right decisions and still go broke. The only way to prevent that is to have so much money in your bankroll that you’re confident that you won’t go broke before seeing the long-term mathematical expectation start to look like reality.

Poker players go broke. Blackjack players go broke. Sports bettors go broke.

But they only go broke for 1 of 2 reasons:

1. Their bankroll wasn’t big enough, and short-term variance did them in
2. They thought they had an advantage when they didn’t

If you want to make $20/hour counting cards at blackjack, your best bet of not going broke is having a bankroll of $20,000.

Being a gambler is like owning your own business. You need capital to keep that business running. One of my earliest mentors was David Litman, founder of Hotels.com. He told me that the #1 reason businesses fail is because they’re undercapitalized and have cash-flow problems. He impressed on me the need for a business to be profitable as soon as possible.

Let your career as a gambler be advised by his wise words.

Conclusion

Let’s face it. Being a professional gambler isn’t for everyone. It has its perks, but it also has some serious drawbacks. A lot of your decision about whether professional gambling is an appropriate career for you should be based on your own temperament.

What pros and cons on the list above matter more to you than others?

If you’re seriously considering a career as a pro gambler, I suggest using the Ben Franklin close on yourself. Make your own list of pros and cons on a sheet of paper. Cross out the pros that outweigh the cons. Sometimes a pro might matter so much that it will outweigh 2 or 3 cons, so keep that in mind on your personal list.

And don’t fret. Even if gambling professionally doesn’t work out, you can always return to the rat race if that’s what you want.

Every gambler has thought about what it’d be like to earn a living through casino games. This spawns visions of making a 6-figure salary, feasting on comps, dressing like James Bond and traveling the world.

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But is being a professional gambler really this lucrative?

Let’s begin discussing the matter by defining what it means to be a pro. You and I will also cover the salaries that pro gamblers make in different games.

How Do We Define a Professional Gambler?

The term “professional gambler” is sometimes used interchangeably for both people who earn part-time and full-time income through gambling.

This makes sense because both groups have the skills to earn long-term profits. Therefore, you can technically be considered a pro gambler as long as you’re making profits of any kind throughout the year.

But I keep a much tighter definition of a professional gambler.

A true pro not only makes profits through gambling, but enough to pay all of their living expenses. This includes rent (house payment), utilities, car payment (transportation), insurance, meals, clothes and anything else deemed necessary.

A semi-professional is somebody who makes enough to supplement their income, but doesn’t earn full-time living through gambling. I’m only going to cover full-time professional gambler salaries in this post.

What Casino Games Offer the Chance to Make a Living?

The gambling world doesn’t offer an abundance of opportunities to make a living, but there are a few different games where you can earn some nice profits.

Here’s a list of the most common games that you can make long term profits with:

• Blackjack card counting
• Daily fantasy sports (DFS)
• Poker
• Sports betting
• Video poker

Blackjack and video poker both see you try to win money directly from the house.

Casinos do everything in their power to hinder successful card counters. This includes using continue shuffling machines, multi deck shoes and watching for counters.

Anybody who’s caught counting cards is often kicked out of the casino and banned. This is why it’s so important for card counters to blend in with normal players.

Casinos don’t usually worry about advantage video poker player. In fact, some games are set up to offer positive expected value (+EV) to players who use perfect strategy.

Another problem is that it’s now harder than ever before to find video poker games offering over 100% payback like Deuces Wild (100.76% payback), Double Bonus (100.17%) and Double-Double Bonus (100.07%).

DFS and poker both see you compete against human opponents. The house merely takes a small cut of tournament fees or cash game pots (poker).

Sportsbooks create lines in an effort to get equal betting action on both sides. The sportsbooks make their money by taking 10% vigorish (juice) from the losing group.

Every form of advantage betting has its pros and cons, but the key is that each of these activities offers the chance to make a full-time living.

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Salaries for Professional Gamblers in Different Games

Card Counting

People have been making a living through card counting since the early 1960s, and despite all the obstacles that casinos have put in players’ way, it’s still possible to earn profits with card counting today.

You need a sizable bankroll in order to properly spread your bets and survive variance. The bare minimum you should aim for is $20,000, but it’s better to have closer to $50,000.

How much you make depends upon several factors, including the following:

• Skill level – Successful counters have between a 0.5% and 1.5% edge on casinos.
• Hands per hour – 50 to 200 depending upon dealer speed & table size.
• Bet spreading – Difference between your lowest and highest bet.
• Deck penetration – The further into the shoe you get, the more confidence you can bet with.
• Counting system – Some systems are more accurate than others.
• Game rules – You want the best rules possible in order to lower the standard house edge.
• Tips – $5 per hour for the dealer is standard.

Now, let’s set up an example by creating variables behind your counting session:

• You have a 1% edge based on the rules, your skill level and using the Hi-Lo counting system.
• The dealer is dealing 100 hands per hour.
• Your minimum bet is $25, and you spread up to $175 during favorable counts (i.e. 1 to 7 spread).
• You get 70% deck penetration before the shoe is reshuffled.
• You tip $5 per hour.

Here’s how this example would play out in terms of profits:

• Your average bet is worth $50 ($25 minimum; spread up to $175 for favorable counts).
• $50 average bet x 100 hands = $5,000 in hourly bets.
• 5,000 x 0.01 edge = $50 hourly win.
• $50 hourly win minus $5 tip = $45 hourly profit.

Some counters make $100 or more per hour by improving their edge up to 1.5% and/or increasing bets, but many players are happy with a $45 per hour rate to start with.

The final step is to figure out how many hours you’ll play and convert this into an annual salary. Here are a few different figures on how much you’d make per year:

• $45 x 40 hours per week x 52 weeks = $93,600 per year
• $45 x 30 hours per week x 52 weeks = $70,200 per year
• $45 x 20 hours per week x 52 weeks = $46,800 per year
• $100 x 40 hours per week x 52 weeks = $208,000 per year

The last figure shows what’s possible for a really good card counter who makes $100 per hour. The $45 calculations show that even decent counters can make good money.

The keys, though, include keeping an accurate count amidst casino distractions and blending in with normal players.

Daily Fantasy Sports

DFS is the newest game that offers skilled gamblers an opportunity to make money.

Daily fantasy sees you pay an entry fee to enter contests and compete against other players. The goal is to create lineups that score the most points and rank the highest in tournaments.

Daily fantasy sports experienced a big boom in 2015, thanks to clever marketing campaigns that make it seem like any sports fan can win.

The truth, though, is that only a small percentage of those who play actually win. A McKinsey study from 2015 showed that 1.3% of daily fantasy baseball players collect 91% of the winnings.

Despite these long odds, many people still enjoy trying to win in daily fantasy, but what exactly can you expect to win if you’re among the small percentage of DFS pros?

The potential for big winners is there for the most skilled daily fantasy players.

Saahil Sud, profiled in a WBUR piece, said he made over $3 million in profits in a single year. Former poker pro Aaron Jones switched over to DFS and won a DraftKings contest worth $5 million in early 2016.

Of course, the average professional DFS player doesn’t earn quite this much. To determine a standard DFS salary, let’s consider the following factors:

• Entries per day— Most DFS pros enter several hundred contests every day.
• Stakes – Typical entry fees range anywhere from $1 up to $1,000.
• Fees— DFS sites tack on a 10% fee to each buy in, which is where their profits come from.
• Skill level— Some pros have a bigger edge than others.

Now, let’s input variables to come up with an average daily profit:

• 300 entries per day
• $100 + $10 (fee) average buy in
• 300 x $110 = $3,300 daily fees
• You’re playing for $3,000 after subtracting fees
• Expected value based on skill is 115%
• $3,000 x 1.15 = $3,450 winnings
• $3,450 – $3,300 = $150 in daily profits

If we multiply $150 by 365 days, you’ll earn an annual salary worth $54,750.

Of course, DFS is filled with variance, and you won’t always feel like you’re on the path to a solid $55k per year. This is why it’s key to have a large enough bankroll to survive the ups and downs.

Poker

Poker has long been one of the most viable options for becoming a professional gambler. The reason why is because you’re competing against other opponents instead of the house.

It’s tougher to make a living in poker these days because strategy is more prevalent. Online poker gives players a chance to rapidly accelerate their learning curve by seeing more hands per hour.

You can still become a profitable player with enough hard work and experience though. In fact, some pros still make six or seven figure annual incomes with the game.

However, the vast majority of pros these days earn between $40,000 and $100,000 per year.

Poker is unique in that there are essentially two types of professionals: tournament and cash game pros.

Most rounders mix up their play between both platforms. However, the majority of poker pros also specialize in either tourneys or cash games.

Let’s look at the different considerations for cash vs. tournament play:

Cash Games

• Profit measured in big blinds (BB) made per hour.
• House takes 5% rake from cash game pots for running games.
• More control over annual salary than tournaments.

Tournaments

• Profit measured by rate of return (ROI) on buy ins.
• House adds 10% fee to buy ins (e.g. $10 + $1 fee).
• Only top 10 15% of field makes money.
• Tournaments have more variance than cash games.

A cash grinder needs to figure out what stakes they must play to make a comfortable living based on BB earned per hour.

An example is if you played $10/$20 no limit Texas hold ‘em and made 1.5 BB per hour. This equates to $30 per hour, $1,200 per week for a 40-hour workweek and $62,400 for a full year.

A tournament pro must decide what buy-in level they must choose to make a high enough ROI to live comfortably.

If you spend $20,000 on tourney buy-ins in a week and make $22,000, then your RIO is 10% ([22,000 20,000 / 20,000). This means that you’ll earn a $10 profit for every $100 you spend on tournament buy-ins.

One more consideration here is whether you’ll dedicate the bulk of your time towards live or online poker.

Online cash games and tourneys offer more volume because you can play multiple tables. Plus hands and tournaments go much faster, giving you an opportunity to boost your hourly wages.

Another Internet poker advantage is that you cut out extra expenses like traveling, hotel stays, meals and dealer/waitress tips.

Nevertheless, many players find that their win rate is higher in live games. The most lucrative tournaments are found in land-based casinos, too, such as the World Series of Poker events.

Sports Betting

The good thing about sports betting is that you don’t need to have a massive win rate just to book profits.

Sportsbooks only take 10% juice from the losing side. This differs from DFS and poker tournaments where you must pay an extra 10% fee regardless of whether you’re a winner or loser.

The juice can be lowered or adjusted based on where the sportsbook is trying to push action, but 10% is generally the amount you’ll see taken from the losing side.

The end result is that you need to win 52.38% of your bets to break even. How do we arrive at this number?

You need to bet $11 to win $10 when the juice is 10%. You must win 11 out of every 21 bets to break even at this rate, which is a 52.38% winning percentage (11/21).

This doesn’t sound intimidating when compared to how good you must be at poker or DFS to win long term, but it’s also really tough to continually find value because sportsbooks are so good at setting lines.

Professional sports bettors usually win anywhere from 53.5% to 55.0% of the time.

Some handicappers brag about higher win rates ranging from 58.0% to 60.0%, but these figures are almost impossible to sustain long term.

Pro sports bettors must be very adept at handling their bankroll since they’re dealing with such a small profit margin. They also need to make larger wagers than the average bettor to increase potential profits.

The general rule of thumb is to never bet more than 1% to 2% of your bankroll on any given contest. If you have a $100,000 bankroll, you’d never put more than $2,000 of this on any single event.

Professional Gambling For A Living

Some sports bettors like Billy Walters and Haralabos “Bob” Voulgaris have made millions of dollars with this model. But the average bettors are looking at more modest salaries ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 annually.

The key to figuring out how much you can make involves determining your ROI just like a poker pro. For example, if you make $10,000 worth of bets during a week and earn back $10,500, then you have a 5% ROI for the week ([10,500 10,000 / 10,000).

You then need to expand this to cover an entire year. Let’s look at an example below:

Online Gambling For Real Money

• You place $1,000,000 worth of bets during the year.
• You win $1,060,000.
• Your profit is $60,000 for the year (1,060,000 1,000,000).
• Your ROI is 6% ([1,060,000 1,000,000] / 1,000,000).

A 6% ROI is extremely high for sports betting, but this is just a simple way to show how to calculate your ROI and salary.

Video Poker

Video poker has good and bad things going for it these days.

The good news is that you can virtually guarantee yourself profits if you become a skilled enough player. The downside is that there are fewer and fewer +EV machines in casinos today.

Your best bet is to find a full-pay Deuces Wild machine, which pays back 100.76%. You also need to take advantage of as many double and triple comp point promotions as you can.

You can find which land based casinos offer full pay Deuces Wild by visiting the site vpFREE2.com.

Once here, navigate to the “Casinos” tab and look in the Las Vegas section. I see 13 different casinos that offer full pay Deuces Wild at the time of this post.

Unfortunately, the highest coin denomination for these machines is only $0.25. In past decades, you could find $1 denomination machines that quadrupled your potential profits.

Even under the right conditions, the odds of you making a good living with video poker are slim. Let’s run the math on what you can expect:

• You play full pay Deuces Wild (100.76% payback).
• You bet 5 coins per hand on a quarter denomination machine ($1.25 per hand).
• You play 1,000 hands per hour, which is extremely fast.
• The casino is running a triple loyalty point promotion.
• The casino comps 0.1% of your total bets, or 0.3% for triple points.
• 1,000 x 1.25 x 0.0076 = $9.50 regular hourly winnings.
• $1,200 total bets x 0.003 = $3.60 in comps
• You earn $13.10 per hour.

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Even if you spend 50 hours in the casino, this only works out to $655 per week, and you’d earn $34,060 when we stretch this out for an entire year.

Most people can get by on this salary, but it’s far from what anybody envisions when becoming a professional gambler.

Conclusion

Being a pro gambler has some obvious benefits, including flexible hours, being your own boss and the ability to increase your income.

Some gamblers, such as Saahil Sud and Bob Voulgaris, have even gotten rich with their skills. Of course, you may be perfectly happy making mid 5-figures, as long as you get to enjoy the aforementioned benefits, but there are also some downsides to be aware of. These include risk, highs and lows, no sick days and the potential to lose everything.

It’s up to you to weigh the good and bad before ultimately deciding to pursue a professional gambling career.

Online Gambling For A Living Will

The potential rewards can be great in the case of card counting, DFS, poker and sports betting, but you also have to be disciplined and good at handling risk.