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The Hard Truth About Being a Professional Poker Player

The Hard Truth About Being a Professional Poker Player
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Arved Klöhn Content Writer
  • Fact Checked by: PokerListings
  • Last updated on: February 20, 2025 · 16 minutes to read

So, you want to make a living as a professional poker player? When we look at pros such as Daniel Negreanu and Fedor Holz, we all see dollar signs and great lifestyles. Every year thousands of players ante up in the hope of doing what Chris Moneymaker did in 2003. However, for every player that does enough to make a living from poker, there are thousands that don’t. Beyond the perfectly straight pro poker faces, there’s a world of ups and downs.

The reality of professional poker players is best described using the famous quote: “It’s a hard way to make an easy living.” Most people have no idea what it takes to play poker for a living. So before deciding to choose this path, let us warn you of the considerations you must make first. This guide is constructed by a few of us who have actually played for a living for some time and can help you make the right decision.

PROS & CONS OF PLAYING PROFESSIONAL POKER IN 2025

There are many advantages that help balance out playing poker for a living. But to help you distill everything we’ve discussed so far and provide a quick overview of the pros and cons of playing poker full-time, check out the lists below:

Pros of Playing Poker for a Living

Flexibility: You get to choose your own hours to work on any day you wish. You can also take off any day and not have early mornings.

Competition: You’ll be playing one of the most intriguing games in the world for money. The game is both challenging and stimulating.

Upswings: If you go on a heater, you can potentially make more money playing poker than many other jobs.

Lifestyle: It’s a great way of life if you’re a winning player. Even offering the chance to travel the world to play games.

Money: Poker can offer a big earning potential – more than most jobs – which can make for a very comfortable living.

Life Skills: Poker teaches you valuable money management, risk vs reward, fast decision-making and how to deal with stress.

Cons of Playing Poker for a Living

No set income: Some months you’ll have a loss in total earnings. You’ll not only have to cope with this, but also maintain the confidence to win.

Exhaustion: You’ll get tired grinding all day, every day. Higher stakes may require less hours of play though.

Less Social time: Making money playing poker tends to happen at odd hours, and for long hours, which can take away time spent with loved ones. Or time spent meeting new people.

Patience Required: To play poker for a living, you can’t let bad beats affect you and you need to deal with the swings.

Social Stigma: We’ve come a long way but gambling for a living is still not 100% accepted as an honest living in 2025.

PROFESSIONAL POKER CONSIDERATIONS

1. Work Ethic and Commitment

Poker players generally don’t get much respect for their profession from the general public. Most parents are horrified when their child tells them they are quitting their job and/or school to go pro. Whatever you think about the morality of taking money from weaker players, you can’t question the amount of work and intelligence it takes to become an elite player.

In the early days of online poker, a fortune could be made with very little poker experience and knowledge. But now, you need a proper work ethic and ability to make a living playing poker. For those who have what it takes to put in the time and effort, the reward may be a job with lots of freedom.

how to be a poker pro - work ethic and commitment
Mr. Negreanu at work

However, becoming a professional poker player takes a serious commitment. You have to put all of your heart, mind, and soul into the game for long periods of time. Be weary of not attaching self-worth to your success at the tables. Because no matter how good you are, you’re going to have big downswings. This causes some to suffer negative effects on their mental health, productivity and life outside of poker. You need a healthy mix of other things in your life, like friends, other hobbies, a fitness regimen, travel – anything that has a positive impact on your life.

A great book to read if you’re struggling with tilt is the Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler. In it, he explains the hierarchical structure of the brain and how our unconscious behaviors determine how well we play when emotions take hold. Even if you’re not a pro, it’s a good book to read. 

2. State of the Live and Online Game Today

Back in 2003-2010, the days of Taylor Caby and Brian Townsend, online win rates were ridiculously high. A strong player could expect something in the region of 10bb/100 or better in mid-stakes games. Today, various forum threads on poker will tell you win rates in 2021 are more like 2bb or 3bb/100. Naturally, win rates at the lowest stakes will be higher than tougher games. 

If you want to play poker for a living in 2021, you really have to be sure that you’ve got the skills, the bankroll, and the temperament to do it. Beyond that, you need to consider whether you’re playing cash games or MTTs, then what types of cash games and MTTs.

3. Devaluing Money

Another rarely discussed downside to being a professional poker player is that it causes you to greatly devalue money. When money comes and goes from your hands that quickly, it becomes impossible to be frugal. Many purchases have no emotional impact on them; so it feels like it’s free. As players mature, they sometimes learn how to handle money better, but often it remains a challenge for many. 

A poker pro lifestyle can make you start devaluing money

4. Constant Search for Better Games

If you’re going to play poker for a living you need to continuously evaluate which games provide the highest hourly win rate for your abilities and experience. The poker landscape changes constantly and games that used to be easy money don’t remain so. 

For instance, in 2007-2008 I was 20-tabling full ring 1/2 NLHE online and could average $15,000 a month of profit. My poker skill and knowledge was relatively low by today’s standards. Had I continued to play these games daily, my income would have declined as the games got more difficult. 

I later transitioned into 6-max pot-limit Omaha which cost me some income the first few months. Within a year, I was making more money than I ever had playing Hold’em. These days, both 6-max PLO and Texas Holdem are difficult to beat, so I’m putting effort into learning other games that may prove more profitable in the future.

The Poker Player Ceiling

What most players don’t talk about is how their income has a ceiling – the highest level stakes you are capable of beating. Poker players depend on fish, and good games, and out playing their opponents. When they hit that stake level they can’t beat, they’re stuck on the stake below it. There’s really not much room for growth.

Every couple of years there is a massive turnover in the regulars playing at a particular level of stakes. Most of the regulars in the 5/10 games running two years ago are now playing 2/4 or lower or have completely left the game.

Fedor Holz - few can make it as a poker professional
Few have the work ethic to make it

There are some who have the ability and work ethic to continue winning at the same stakes they’ve been beating as the games got tougher (or even move up in stakes), but the majority of professional players reach their ceiling and then their income steadily declines as the games become more difficult to beat over time. Yes, you can spend time and study and get better, but your opponent is always doing the same thing.

A very common mistake that players make is moving up in stakes whenever they run good for a short time and win several buy-ins. Most of the time they aren’t prepared to beat the tougher games at higher stakes, and they end up losing a significant amount of money in games that they have no business playing in.

5. Cheating and Collusion

If you play poker for a living for a significant amount of time, you’re at risk of being cheated and colluded against. It happens less now, but we still see this both online and live. The most common is collusion because it’s hard to detect, but fortunately it’s the least detrimental. The key is to make yourself aware of ways that you can be cheated and to constantly be aware of the things you see happening at the table. These are just considerations and don’t happen often enough to outweigh the benefits of becoming a successful professional poker player. However, here are a few examples to be weary of.

  • In 2009, a well known online player had his computer hacked by someone overseas and lost over $200,000 before he realized what happened. He has absolutely no chance of recovering it.
  • In 2019, the poker world was rocked by the Mike Postle cheating scandal where he won 62 out of 69 sessions over a year. Up to 76 whistleblowers and involved players who outed him are still facing charges in a $30 million civil lawsuit. 
  • For years, players were chipping-up by throwing in fake chips into their stack at the end of the day while in multi-day events. Nowadays video camera footage makes it harder to disprove.  

6. Are You a Winner?

A good way to judge if you’re ready is to review your results over time using a significant sample size. This doesn’t mean you can look at a three-week heater or your results over a two-month period, but more like 200,000 hands. Tools like PokerTracker allow you to filter and analyze them. If you play live, record your results over a year and see how you stack up.

You’ll be able to see if you really are a winner and, more importantly, where you’re winning and losing. Based on this information, you can determine whether you’re ready to play poker full time and, if so, what level you should start at.

How to Become a Pro Poker Player in 2025

What does it take to become a poker pro? In reality, there are no set entry requirements unless you count knowledge and dedication. Unlike traditional jobs where you need certain skills or qualifications, anyone can play poker for a living. However, there’s more than the theoretical side of playing poker for a living that you need to take care of in order to play like a pro. You’ll need:

phil galfond - professional poker requires patience
Playing like a pro takes a lot of patience
  • Bankroll: This is money you’ll use to play poker with. A proper bankroll should be money you can afford to lose. Otherwise, you’ll be playing with scared money, which affects your play. To help build a bankroll, scroll through our list of poker bonuses and see which sites offer cashback. In a game as swingy as poker, it pays to get as much added value as possible.
  • Location: Are you going to play online poker or live? If you’re going to play online, you need to have an account with at least one real money poker site. Our poker reviews will help you find the perfect place/s to play. If you want to become a live pro, you need easy access to a casino. It’s hard making a career from poker if you live 200 miles away from the nearest cardroom.
  • Research: EPT champ, Niall Farrell, said: “{poker} attracts young guys who can’t be assed doing anything but want to make a lot of money.” Swedish psychologist, Dr K. Anders Ericsson believes it takes something like 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master something. What does it take to be successful in the game in 2025? Best do your research by speaking to other pro poker players and understand the challenges.
  • Studying Resources: Later in this guide we’ll direct you towards some poker strategy books and training sites. However, as well as taking advice from others, you need to study your own game. Tools like PokerTracker help you analyze poker stats and hands. As a pro, you should dedicate almost as much time to learning and refining your game as playing. Also remember, imitating high stakes TV bluffs may not help your game long-term.
  • Patience: Playing every day, all day, can get extremely tiring. Staring at a computer screen for hours on end can drive you insane. You can occasionally sit down at a table and not get any cards for hours. You have to have the patience to fold. Your online fortunes are also prone to wild swings – from the worst beats to huge soaring runs – variance is real. And there’s a difference between liking something and having passion.
  • Self-Management: Playing poker for a living requires extreme mental discipline and a steady game plan. It’s a good idea to record how many hours you play each day and what your total profit for the day is. Do this for a month or two before playing full-time to analyze your play and find out how much you make on average. Make daily hand goals, or hours-played goals, or tournament-volume goals for the day, week, month and stick to them.
  • Mindset: Thoughts are critical and determine your confidence when you play. The one thing that stands out amongst professional poker players is their undeterred belief in their ability to make it. It’s somehow helpful if you want to become a pro poker player. Grit and grind is how poker players get great.
  • Mentors and Tribe: Find a mentor whose lead you can follow, not just when it comes to the game, but also emotional well-being and habits away from the felt. Someone who has already trodden the path is so useful, as well as a tribe of other players whom you can discuss the game with.
  • Game Selection: Critical when you play real money online cash games. Perhaps, the tables where you earn the most money are not NLHE, but mixed games and 8-Game. Are you a winning player over a significant sample size, like 200,000 hands?
  • Well-being: Both mental and physical. Some meditate, some do yoga, some exercise X times a week. This helps counter the many hours you’ll spend sitting in a chair and improves your stamina and tap into better reserves of energy than just adrenaline. These daily practices can also have an effect on your mental as well as technical game, helping you get off tilt faster, for example.

How Much Bankroll to Play Poker for a Living?

What is a bankroll?

A bankroll is money you can afford to lose. If you’ve got $2,000 in your bank account, that doesn’t mean your bankroll is $2,000. You need to make sure that everything else in your life is covered (bills, rent, food etc.) before you take money out and use it for poker.

The first rule of poker is bankroll management. Make sure you have enough buy-ins and then some. The best players will make a profit over time (Expected Value – EV), but if you held a microscope to their results, you’d see that their positive trajectory is marked with downswings. To avoid going broke, you need a bankroll that can let you ride the positive waves and keep you afloat when things come crashing down.

  • For cash games, 50 buy-ins should be considered the minimum in today’s climate and, if you want to be safe, go for 100. In practice, this means someone playing $50 NL needs between $2,500 and $5,000 in their bankroll. Remember that when playing online, players are better, and rake can be higher.
  • For tournaments it’s a little different because Income from MTTs is a lot less stable than cash games. You can hit a big score but there can be gaps in between scores. So, you need to be ready to play through dry spells. If you want to play poker for a living in 2021, you should have at least 100 buy-ins for MTTs and, if we’re being realistic, 200 is sensible.

How to Calculate Your Bankroll

You may be a winning player at $10NL, but the amount you stand to make may not support your lifestyle. You need to be realistic about the money you can make, your actual results, and what you need to survive on a monthly basis. If I went on a 12-month downswing and made ZERO money, can you survive? To answer that, you need to know three things:

  1. Your monthly nut.
  2. Your potential earnings.
  3. The amount of money you have in reserve.

If your expenses outweigh your earnings and savings, you can’t make it as a pro. Take a look at the amount you’ve got in the bank (not your bankroll), and assess the following:

Your Monthly Nut

In poker terms, your monthly expenditure is known as your “nut”. It includes living expenses, personal expenses, and poker expenses. This sum total is the amount you need to make from poker each month just to break even. In other words, it’s the bare minimum. How much do you need to live comfortably every month? 

Calculate your nut and then add 15 to 20% and you get a good idea of how much you’re going to need to make every month. This is your playing bankroll – Don’t touch it for anything but poker. On top of that, you need at least three months living expenses saved up in case of emergencies. Naturally, if you want to make some money, you need to exceed your monthly nut.

Your BB/100

To determine how much you’re likely to make per hour, you need to calculate your big blinds per 100 hands aka bb/100. You can work out your bb/100 using the following equations:

(winnings/big blind amount) / (number of hands/10)

For example, if your results show that you’ve won $1,000 playing 5,000 hands of $0.50/$1 NLHE, your bb/100 would be:

1,000/1 = 1,000

/

5,000/10 = 500

=

1,000/500 = 2

This means, on average, you make $2 for every 100 hands you play. The question now is how many hands can you play per hour? In a live setting, you’ll probably see around 25-30 hands per hour. Online, a full-ring game will deal approximately 70 hands per hour, while six-max games race through around 100. Fast-fold cash games like Zoom can help you play somewhere in the region of 250 hands per hour.

Then, of course, you can play multiple tables. If you’re adept at fast-fold poker, this means you could play as many as 1,000 hands per hour. Based on this and the above bb/100, you could make $20 per hour. That’s not a small amount but is it enough to sustain your lifestyle? What’s more, you need to remember that playing more than one table could increase the variance.

Should I play Poker for a Living in 2025?

So, there you have it, that’s everything you need to know about making a living from poker in 2025. It’s not easy but, if you’ve got a solid foundation and you can handle the lifestyle, the game has a lot to offer. As well as being flexible and exciting, there are opportunities to travel the world, plenty of fantastic people to meet, and, of course, money to be won. However, before you make the leap and give up the day job, just make sure it’s the right career for you.

Make it a serious part-time job first. If after a year or two you’re making more from your poker job than your “real” job, then start thinking about going pro. Don’t ever leave a good job to play poker for a living. Remember that if you ever stop playing for a living you’ll have to explain that massive gap in your resume. 

Although we talked about playing online poker for a living, you can still play for fun and make profits. Even players at the highest levels don’t dedicate 100% of their time to poker. Maybe you feel like having a go at playing poker for a living for a while, maybe you want to play on the side, or even move between the two. Poker will always be there. You can start or stop playing for a living whenever you like. Find what works for you and always remember to have fun.

Where Do Poker Pros Play Online?

Recommended Resources for Going Pro in 2021

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a complete beginner or a veteran, poker is a process. No human has ever solved the game 100%. Even if you’re at a very high level in terms of skill, things are constantly evolving. Poker books and resources will give you a solid foundation. Beyond books, we’ve got plenty of poker strategy articles you can scan at your leisure. Alternatively, you can learn about the latest concepts in real-time by watching training videos like those by Phil Galfond, Doug Polk, Fedor Holz, and other poker coaches. You’ll get advanced GTO (game theory optimal) skills used by pros winning in the modern era.

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Alternative Poker Jobs and Careers

Bending cards forever isn’t for everyone. Even the best players go broke when they can’t keep up with competition as well as they used to. Or they grow older and discover they don’t want to pursue professional poker for the rest of their lives. However, once you leave poker as a career without work experience or education – what’s next for you? 

It’s likely that you can transfer the advanced skills you need to play poker as a career, like probability, psychology, and game theory, into other poker jobs. So let’s walk you through a few alternative poker careers that can fit nicely for former and/or recreational poker players.

1. Casino Industry Professional

This is a broad term because there are lots of poker jobs in and around the casino/gambling world that a former poker player can transition into. Many players either started their careers or subsidized their playing days with a job as a poker dealer. While not exactly glamorous, good dealers can earn tips or make extra dealing private games. Plus, it’s an entry-level position that can help to lead up to better poker jobs in a casino. Like floor attendants, tournament directors and pit bosses.

A Button for the Dealer
Dealers jobs always in demand

You may run poker events, ensure they go smoothly, hire and train new dealers and make sure players are paid properly. These jobs in the poker industry require intimate knowledge of poker and/or casino games along with great customer service skills. Also, a good dealer can also earn quite a bit in tips/dealing private games.

2. Poker Writer

Online poker requires writers to handle poker media, which requires broader knowledge of poker, rather than just how to play the game. Jobs in the poker industry related to writing can include being a site content writer or video content creator, as well as covering live and online poker tournaments. And fortunately, you don’t need a journalism degree, but if you have one, you probably have a leg up on other candidates. 

3. Coach or Teacher

It may seem counter-intuitive, but many players make excellent poker coaches because of their advanced knowledge of mathematics, probabilities, and bankroll management. However, you can also go the traditional route and pursue a teaching job in maths, for example. 

4. Finance/Stock Trading

It’s no secret that many top players are also heavily involved in finance, stocks or crypto. So it’s pretty easy to transition from jobs in the poker industry into being a broker or trader. As with poker, investing involves measuring risks vs benefits, analyzing future potential and making quick decisions. You need to be comfortable with numbers as in poker (odds, implied odds, calculating risk, etc). Knowing some players who have gone into it after playing poker as a career can also be a good foot in the finance/trading door. But on a smaller level, any company/organization needs finance service. It can also provide consistent incomes. 

5. Sales

Sales requires certain aggression at the right times. Much like poker your financial success can depend entirely on how well you can find those spots. In many companies, sales people have a base salary and commission on top of it. Making your income ceiling high with less of the inherent risks of poker. Also, sales is revenue-driven and thus highly-regarded in any sector. Show a knack for it and it won’t take you long to move up the corporate ladder and write your own ticket.

Playing Poker for a Living FAQ

Can poker be a career?

Yes, but it’s not easy. There are players who make a living from poker, but many don’t. If you want to become a pro, you need a winning record, a large enough bankroll, and the right mindset.

Can you make good money playing poker?

Yes, it’s possible, but not guaranteed. You may be a winning player at low stakes but that doesn’t mean you’ll make enough money to live on. You have to do the math to see if it’s viable for you.

Is poker still profitable in 2021?

Yes, but it’s harder than it once was. Online poker during the early noughties was extremely profitable for some but players have improved and that’s made it tougher to be a long-term winner.

How hard is it to play poker for a living?

Very – Even if you’re a profitable player, the emotional swings involved in playing poker for a living can be dramatic. This makes it extremely tough, even if you’re a winning player.

Do you have to be smart to be a poker professional?

Technically, no. You can be lucky and win money at poker. However, if you want to rely on something more than luck, you need to be smart. This means understanding the game, strategy, your results, and how to manage your bankroll.

How often do poker players win?

It depends. Some players will win consistently every day for weeks, others will go through a series of ups and downs. Poker is highly unpredictable, so you can never say for certain when you’re going to win or how long a streak is going to last.

When should you stop playing poker?

You should stop playing poker when you’ve had enough. This may be an emotional stop-loss limit or a financial one. Only you know the answer, but it should be a point where you can no longer make rational, +EV decisions.

Can you make a living off online poker alone?

Yes, but it isn’t easy. A lot of people can make a nice side-income from poker if they’re smart about it. In reality, there aren’t many people who make 100% of their income from poker.

How many hours do pro poker players play each day?

The average pro will treat their sessions like a regular job. This means they could be playing for eight hours a day or more.

Can you make a living playing Limit poker only?

Possibly but the margins are very tight. Of all the poker variants out there, Limit has been solved more than others. You can make money but it’s going to be a lot tougher than Pot Limit and No Limit games.

How much money do you need to play poker for a living?

This all depends on the stakes you play and the amount you need to live on. If you do want to play poker professionally, you should have a bankroll that covers at least 100 buy-ins for the limit you want to play.

How much money does the average poker player make?

The average player at $1/$2 can potentially make something between $1,000 and $10,000 per month. However, it’s almost impossible to determine because there are multiple variables involved. To get an idea of what you could make, look at the stakes you play and your bb/100. From that, estimate how many hands you can play per hour/day.

Do professional poker players use their own money? Sometimes. But often they are staked. This used to be done in all sorts of ways, but now it’s a lot easier to stake someone playing online if you play on GGPoker.

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