What is a Professional Poker Player?

I’ve been doing a lot of light reading lately and nearly every poker magazine article is written by “a professional poker player.”  Likewise, watching many of the televised poker events the commentators will often identify a player as a “professional poker player.”

But just what the heck is a professional poker player?

Is it someone who makes their living playing poker?  That would be my definition.  But how many supposedly professional poker players derive all or most of their income from actually playing poker?

I mean, if you’re a sponsored pro making $20,000 a month in endorsements and coaching and then losing it all on the poker tables are you really a professional poker player?

Or, what if you’re grinding out $40,000 a year playing poker.  Are you more or less of a professional poker player than someone who has a full-time job but consistently wins $80,000 a year playing part-time?

It just seems as if the title gets thrown around pretty easily these days.  As far as I can tell, the generally accepted definition is, “someone who plays poker and doesn’t have another job.”

Over the years I’ve been contacted on numerous occasions by self-billed professional poker players who want an in on some entry level job in online poker.  I also know of a few “pros” that have done multiple tours of duty in the customer support departments of online poker sites.  They stick around long enough to fund a bankroll and then quit and come back six months later looking for work again.

Or how about the poker pro who has $1.2 million in career tournament cashes but it’s over a 10 or 15 year period?  That’s only $80,000 – $120,000 per year when you average it out.  Granted, that’s still good money but it doesn’t count buy-ins and how much they’ve spent in tournaments where they didn’t cash.  Nor does it indicate how much of it they actually saw.  If they sold a piece of themselves or took backing then they may have only seen a fraction of that.

That’s sort of like looking only at a company’s gross income without knowing the cost of sales.  It gives you a very distorted picture.

Company A has $10,000,000 in revenue but only makes $500,000 in profit.  Company B has $5,000,000 in revenue but has a $1,000,000 profit.  If we were to judge companies like we do poker players, Company A would be considered the better company to own because we’re only looking at gross revenue.

Of course, I’m not counting cash games and such but the point is that many of the people who are considered professional poker players aren’t exactly living the balla lifestyle.

In fact, back in 2004 I wrote about this when Fortune Small Business ran a piece on Annie Duke. After all of the backing, cash game wins, appearance fees, sponsorships, etc she was clearing $228,000 a year.

Again, $228,000 isn’t exactly chump change but it’s not really big money.   Especially when you consider the risk involved.  And $86,000 of that total was for consulting and appearances so her take at the poker tables was only $142,000.

Several years ago someone asked me whether or not I was a professional poker player.  I laughed and said, “Well, maybe a semi-professional.  I never quit my day job.”  He responded, “Semi-professional?  To me that means that you’re not good enough.”

It was a fair take on the difference between professional and semi-professional but only if you look at it on the surface.  Let’s say that you’re a college student or just out of college or working some low-wage job.  Making $50,000 a year playing poker might sound like a dream job if you’re slaving away for $25,000 a year bagging groceries or flipping burgers.  But if you’re making $50,000 a year in a 9-5’er it’s a questionable decision as the $50,000 from your job is somewhat reliable income (far more reliable than what you make at the tables).

In poker, you could win $100,000 this year and nothing next year and average out to $50,000 a year.  I prefer not to live like that.  I like having a reliable source of income (strangely, my creditors prefer that as well).

Plus there’s no medical, matching 401K, paid vacation, annual bonuses, annual wage increases, etc, in poker.  So your $50K a year also pays for many things that are considered benefits by an employer.  So really, after you pay for all of those things you might only be making $35K – $40K.

I was just reading a blog post and the author started off saying, “As a former professional poker player . . .” I wanted to laugh a bit because I know that writing blog posts isn’t exactly lucrative.  How much money could he have been making as a “professional poker player” if hacking out articles for poker blogs seemed like a step up?

You see this on the affiliate forums as well.  A self-proclaimed poker pro will offer to write poker strategy articles for $20 a 600 word article.  Twenty bucks!!

I have a friend of mine who got a cushy consulting gig where he cranked out a report every couple of weeks and they sent him what most people make working all month.  He called himself a professional poker player because he played poker online.  When the company cancelled his gig he sent me a frantic email saying he needed to find a job asap.  Why?  Because he was never really making much playing poker.  He was funding his break-even/losing poker playing with income from his consulting gig.

Professional seems like it should be an indication of whether or not you possess the skills to earn a living doing something.  If I quit my job tomorrow and start playing bingo and eventually bleed away my savings and have to take a job in six months, was I really a professional bingo player?

Or how would this apply in other sports?  If I retire, start collecting a pension, and start playing in golf tournaments but only earn a few thousand a year, am I professional golfer?

To be honest, I don’t know what constitutes a professional poker player.  I do know that a large percentage of the people who claim to be professional poker players need more than one source of income in order to be a professional poker player which doesn’t sound like a professional at all.

10 thoughts on “What is a Professional Poker Player?”

  1. There is a certain middle ground that you are missing, and this is why I drew on the Tony Robbins example: there are certain players who were considered pros under missaceyducys definition (which you, and most likely everyone else has agreed with) whose other revenue streams have come to eclipse their actual poker income and create time restraints that prevent them from hitting the tables as much as they did previously. James “Split Suit” Sweeney and Ed Miller (whom you know) are prime examples.

  2. @Lorin: I guess my point was more about the fact that many of the top pros aren’t making huge, mega cash. And given all of the ups and downs (i.e. variance) involved in the game that making $100K – $200K a year might not be adequate compensation for the extra risk.

    Also, another main point is that there’s nothing wrong with Duke, Negreanu, Brunson, or other top pros diversifying their income streams. In fact, it’s the smart move. But, if you can’t make a living at the tables and the only thing keeping you in the game is endorsement deals (i.e. you can’t earn enough playing) then I’m questioning whether or not you’re really a professional poker player.

    But more importantly, I’m not saying someone is or isn’t a professional poker player. I’m asking where we define the line. I think misaceyducey makes a good point and that tends to be my definition.

    I also think your example with Tony Robbins is not a very good analogy. A psychologist is paid for giving advice (or helping people with problems). He has simply chosen to use all sorts of different media to help people. A professional poker player isn’t a professional because he makes a DVD helping other people. If he sucks at actually playing the game himself then he’s not really a professional player just because he teaches others how to play.

    Or, in another context, you can be a tennis instructor but have never won any major championships. But, in that case, you’re a professional instructor, not a professional player. Or, if you are an NBA coach and can teach players how to play at the peak performance that doesn’t make you a professional basketball player. It makes you a professional coach.

    Likewise, I’m asking if the guy who writes a monthly column in a poker magazine but hasn’t shown a profit playing poker in 10 years should he be considered a poker pro? It’s probably more accurate to call them professional coache or even journalist.

  3. I wrote an article about what constitutes a professional poker player for an online gaming company once. I defined it as a person who is able to support themselves by playing poker. They play poker for a living. It wasn’t about how much money they made, or how good they are, just that they were able to play poker well enough to support themselves.

    Professional is defined as: following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain.
    So if you are playing poker to support yourself, and you don’t have to borrow money from Mom and Dad, I guess you may be able to call yourself a professional poker player.

  4. I think a certain aspect of this has been misinterpreted. Not that I am by any means a fan, but Annie Duke’s priorities have certainly been altered once she aligned herself with UB. Naturally, if she has been getting paid to do other work or make appearances, she will have much less time to spend at the tables than she did previously. In fact, if we assume that she spent just a mere 15 hours a week on different projects, the quoted $140k figure is actually much, much more impressive. She may have even made a short term sacrifice in hourly pay to get these other projects off the ground.

    Though I cant quote any actual data, I assume that Tony Robbins makes much more money by book/audio/DVD sales, touring, and television appearances than he makes by seeing patients in his office. Does this mean he is not a professional psychologist? Certainly not. I am highly inclined to believe then that a potential element of being a professional poker player can include a regarded expertise that also generates an income.

  5. “It’s the easiest thing in the world, to become a professional poker player. All you have to do is quit your job.” (Tommy Angelo)

  6. A very good point about the net earnings. It’d be interesting to see what their earnings are after deducting buy-in costs.

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