Where does the money come from?

Hi guys,

This is my first post on a poker forum. I'm interested in learning to play poker and from my research I see that there are people who are winning consistently over a large sample of hands.

Where is this money coming from? Are there people who deposit their paychecks every week and play it all out? Is it "moving up" from micro-stakes where people don't care about depositing $20/month?

Thanks,

Take 10nl. There will be a huge number of people who deposit $100 a week for fun and just consider it entertainment costs. Strange as it may sound, lots of people dont actually play to win, they just play to have fun. They tell themselves they want to win, but really its just entertainment.

You get it at all levels.

a lot of people deposit just to have fun. there arent too many people compared to the entire poker population who play to make money and show a steady profit

...

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Take 10nl. There will be a huge number of people who deposit $100 a week for fun and just consider it entertainment costs. Strange as it may sound, lots of people dont actually play to win, they just play to have fun. They tell themselves they want to win, but really its just entertainment.

You get it at all levels.

This makes plenty of sense at the micros, but I can't quite get my head around it at higher levels.

As you move up the player pool gets thinner and the standard of play gets better. How many people are playing purely for entertainment at 1000NL? Or 600NL? There will be some, but surely not that many. So how can you sustain a decent winrate when poker is a negative sum game (due to the rake) and almost everyone else at your level is a decent player, trying to maintain the same sort of winrate, and presumably not likely to hang around if they lose more than they win?

My instructor had a contract with the PGA to teach them how to use their laptops to register for events, etc. One of the most asked about apps was Party Poker.

So do PGA players enjoy going busto at 10/20 or something? Where does the money come from at the really high stakes? This is something I've been wondering for a while, too.

I have a friend who won a few games at live 200NL at the local casino so he tried his hand in online. I told him to start lower since he didn't have the bankroll nor experience, but he wouldn't listen and played 200NL online. He busted in a little more than a week. And the money people tend to get at higher stakes is from the people who are moving up and aren't comfortable at the higher level. I think here's how it goes: micro stakes players win money and moves up -> loses money to low stakes regs -> low stakes regs move up and loses to medium stakes and so on. With the exception of the occasional idiot or rich guy, a lot of the money is from people trying to move up.

Originally Posted by ColdDecked

I have a friend who won a few games at live 200NL at the local casino so he tried his hand in online. I told him to start lower since he didn't have the bankroll nor experience, but he wouldn't listen and played 200NL online. He busted in a little more than a week. And the money people tend to get at higher stakes is from the people who are moving up and aren't comfortable at the higher level. I think here's how it goes: micro stakes players win money and moves up -> loses money to low stakes regs -> low stakes regs move up and loses to medium stakes and so on. With the exception of the occasional idiot or rich guy, a lot of the money is from people trying to move up.

This is how it really goes:

Degenerate keeps depositing to play 200NL because he "knows" he can beat the game... just when he stops being unlucky, that's all.

Bill Gates deposits $40 million a week into the international poker slush fund to keep people using microsoft products. True story.

Originally Posted by ColdDecked

I have a friend who won a few games at live 200NL at the local casino so he tried his hand in online. I told him to start lower since he didn't have the bankroll nor experience, but he wouldn't listen and played 200NL online. He busted in a little more than a week. And the money people tend to get at higher stakes is from the people who are moving up and aren't comfortable at the higher level. I think here's how it goes: micro stakes players win money and moves up -> loses money to low stakes regs -> low stakes regs move up and loses to medium stakes and so on. With the exception of the occasional idiot or rich guy, a lot of the money is from people trying to move up.

I think this is most of it. The other aspect of it is that remember the huge variance in poker means that lots of people start off strong. I experienced profitable swings when: (1) I first started playing online, (2) I first started playing live, and (3) I first switched from no limit to limit live. In all 3 circumstances, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. But the amazing thing about poker is that you can totally not know what you are doing and still win in the short term if you catch cards. Remember, if you actually have the best hand, being a fish and calling others' aggression is +EV in the short term.

What this means, though, is that I bet a lot of poker players follow this pattern:

1. They start playing.
2. They experience some beginners' luck, like I did.
3. Said beginners' luck convinces them that the game is beatable.
4. They pour a bunch of money into the game, maybe moving up in stakes or playing more tables or more hours, and lose a ton more than they made during the period of beginner's luck.

And the money in step 4 funds a lot of your poker winnings.

Thanks guys... seems like I'm not the only one who wonders these things.

The way I think of the economics is that it's a pyramid based. Using no limit as an example, most of the player pool is probably at the bottom of the pyramid @ $2NL because it's the cheapest, then $5NL, then $10NL, and so on. As you move up, the player pool thins some and the skill increases, too. The majority of new, fresh deposited money probably does come in on the low end, but it's fully supported as far up as the economics will allow. So, while there may not be a lot of new players making deposits @ $400NL, there probably are a lot of players taking shots @ $400NL from $200NL and a lot of players from $50NL taking shots @ $100NL and the like. It's likely the green, new players who deposit plus players with gambling problems plus the ones that move up and take unsuccessful shots that supply the bulk of the money at any level. Otherwise, the losing players continue to deposit or they move down or go bust - those are the only options.

This is why bankroll management and actually moving up through each level is so important because you risk losing your entire bankroll to players who are clearly better, more seasoned, and properly rolled or you lose it because your roll can't support the swings. The system is set-up so that the long term winners will be where they belong and the long term losers who don't belong will lose.

A buddy I work with shed some light on it the other day - I asked him what stakes he played and if he ever won. He said "I usually sit down with like $50 or maybe $100 and I play for maybe an hour tops. I play until I have to go have a smoke. If I'm down a bunch I'll usually take a shot at a big hand and either bust or try to finish with a win. If I'm ahead when I feel like quitting, that's ok too."
So he has no freaking clue what stakes he's playing, he sits at any table that he can buy in with how much he wants to use. He also has a very high expectation of not just losing some of it, but all of it.
Interesting no?

The money comes from a long time of playing and sizing your bets correctly.

Originally Posted by bb2

The money comes from a long time of playing and sizing your bets correctly.

no, the money comes from deposits

That's why I'm a big fan of making a minimum deposit, and grinding it up from there... the most you're ever going to loose is the minimum.

A funny trend is that people who constantly berate other people in the chat for making bad plays, are usually among the biggest donators... it's a funny thing with poker, you can win over a small sample, think you're the greatest player in the world, but then you loose over a large sample and think you just got unlucky... never even considering that it was the other way around.
It's the same with people who think the sites are rigged. They win over their first 5000 hands, then they keep playing and loose, and assume the only way that is possible is that the sites are rigged against them... not realizing that by the nature of the game anyone can be a big winner over the short term, and the only results that matter are over tens of thousands of hands.

Also:
live players and tournament players who just made a big cash.

Originally Posted by oskar

That's why I'm a big fan of making a minimum deposit, and grinding it up from there... the most you're ever going to loose is the minimum.

A funny trend is that people who constantly berate other people in the chat for making bad plays, are usually among the biggest donators... it's a funny thing with poker, you can win over a small sample, think you're the greatest player in the world, but then you loose over a large sample and think you just got unlucky... never even considering that it was the other way around.
It's the same with people who think the sites are rigged. They win over their first 5000 hands, then they keep playing and loose, and assume the only way that is possible is that the sites are rigged against them... not realizing that by the nature of the game anyone can be a big winner over the short term, and the only results that matter are over tens of thousands of hands.

Also:
live players and tournament players who just made a big cash.

Whether you make minimum or maximum deposits isn't going to matter unless you are good enough to win.

And if you are good enough to win, you want to be playing at a level where you can consistently win and you want to have a big enough roll that you survive the variance.

Originally Posted by LawDude

Originally Posted by oskar

That's why I'm a big fan of making a minimum deposit, and grinding it up from there... the most you're ever going to loose is the minimum.

A funny trend is that people who constantly berate other people in the chat for making bad plays, are usually among the biggest donators... it's a funny thing with poker, you can win over a small sample, think you're the greatest player in the world, but then you loose over a large sample and think you just got unlucky... never even considering that it was the other way around.
It's the same with people who think the sites are rigged. They win over their first 5000 hands, then they keep playing and loose, and assume the only way that is possible is that the sites are rigged against them... not realizing that by the nature of the game anyone can be a big winner over the short term, and the only results that matter are over tens of thousands of hands.

Also:
live players and tournament players who just made a big cash.

Whether you make minimum or maximum deposits isn't going to matter unless you are good enough to win.

And if you are good enough to win, you want to be playing at a level where you can consistently win and you want to have a big enough roll that you survive the variance.

yeah, but depositing the minimum makes sure you're only playing NL2
it also makes sure you are good enough to win despite what your ego says about how soft NL200 is

How can you assume you're a winner if you haven't beaten the level below for at least enough hands to build a roll for the next level?

I'm pulling this out of my ass, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of FTR members who can beat 25NL+ consistently, started with a 2-figure deposit. It just makes the most sense: see if you can beat the level -> build roll, move up; repeat.

Originally Posted by oskar

How can you assume you're a winner if you haven't beaten the level below for at least enough hands to build a roll for the next level?

I'm pulling this out of my ass, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of FTR members who can beat 25NL+ consistently, started with a 2-figure deposit. It just makes the most sense: see if you can beat the level -> build roll, move up; repeat.

$10 free bankroll here

$50 free BR here...shit, WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM? arent they just giving it away???

Seriously, 2NL, and then up from there is the way to go for the reasons mentioned IMO.

Originally Posted by iopq

Originally Posted by bb2

The money comes from a long time of playing and sizing your bets correctly.

no, the money comes from deposits

lol, fkn hell

It`s a question of when does losing a set amount bankroll not become fun or entertainment.
For me it`s only entertainment if I lose,i.e I don`t play poker to blow off steam,I play where the donkeys don`t go.
If i play ring tables,I will study the players for 30 minutes minimum before playing a blind.and see who`s playing with discapline and who`s fooling about.
it`a always nice to find players that are upset.lol.
if there`s been a lot of cussing in the chat window,I`ll sit down and zip my mouth,and wait for the load mouths to slip up.

Originally Posted by Beefheartz

It`s a question of when does losing a set amount bankroll not become fun or entertainment.
For me it`s only entertainment if I lose,i.e I don`t play poker to blow off steam,I play where the donkeys don`t go.
If i play ring tables,I will study the players for 30 minutes minimum before playing a blind.and see who`s playing with discapline and who`s fooling about.
it`a always nice to find players that are upset.lol.
if there`s been a lot of cussing in the chat window,I`ll sit down and zip my mouth,and wait for the load mouths to slip up.

This basically answers the question pretty well. Great post Beefheartz!

Originally Posted by Beefheartz

It`s a question of when does losing a set amount bankroll not become fun or entertainment.
For me it`s only entertainment if I lose,i.e I don`t play poker to blow off steam,I play where the donkeys don`t go.
If i play ring tables,I will study the players for 30 minutes minimum before playing a blind.and see who`s playing with discapline and who`s fooling about.
it`a always nice to find players that are upset.lol.
if there`s been a lot of cussing in the chat window,I`ll sit down and zip my mouth,and wait for the load mouths to slip up.

You think the loud mouths will slip up? Ever heard about table image sir ?

I used to wonder about things like the opening question.I started out on a site that had micro guaranteed MTTs.The guarantees range from $25 to $1000 with entry fees from $1.25 to $33.A$100 guarantee which is the most common MTT there (6 per day) would have an entry fee of $5 plus the .50 tourny fee,,total $5.50.
However there is rarely if ever 20 players in these.The avgerage number of entries was 15 and still is to this day 3 years later.I would often lay awake at night and wonder how they can be short on every tourny there and make a profit?
Well I started making $500 plus a month just playing the MTTs there.My first profitable site.I still play there when I reach a $1k ballance I withdrawl $500 of it and move it to other sites I play now like cake and Absolute.
I believe I would of quit long ago had I not discovered this crazy little site.It's a newbbies wet dream.Well I still don't know how they make a profit and I don't care so long as I'm a benafactor.
Concentrate on your game and improving it.Let others worry why they do things that don't make sense to you.Everyone has different reasons for what they do,weather it's chasing inside straights drawing to a 1 outer etc.Just do your thing and try to turn a profit.G.L.

money also comes from people that are moving up a level.

My Dad thinks of poker like golf. He loads up $150 and plays a few "rounds." He can usually withstand the variance playing at 5x his maximum "good bankroll management" BI for SnG's and MTT's for like six weeks, then another $200 goes in. I played for two years before I got to play some of the games he was playing after a month of poker.

He started reading/studying to stop the bleeding after six months and maybe a grand down. But he won't get active on FTR, despite me helping him set up an account.

I'm interested in how much they are making at PS.

Let's say there are 60,000 player online at all times. That isn't unreasonable as an average... i see many more than that normally.

There are 24 hours in a day. In each hour the average player pays, let's see... a guesstimate of, we'll let's be really low... .25
60000 x .25 x 24 = 360,000 dollars a day.

Now, let's figure that the rake isn't that low on average, you have high stakes games, low stakes games, let's say the average player pays out $1 in rake per hour. so, 1.44 millon per day.

But, that doesn't figure in the progression of increased rake by stakes, tournament rake being higher, etc.

I think it is easy to see why someone opens a poker website... and why I'm in the wrong business. I do believe I heard somewhere that after expenses, taxes, salaries, etc... the sites like PS and FTP still clear around 2-3 million per day.

Funny how that works when rake is such a small percentage of the amount in the hands...

Ok, sorry for the diversion... back on topic.

Originally Posted by Monty3038

1.44 millon per day.

I think it is easy to see why someone opens a poker website... and why I'm in the wrong business.

It also explains why Doyle, Chip Reese and Amarillo Slim ran sports book operations in Texas before it became a federal crime to do it. Gamblers make more running the games than they can playing them.

im playing 4 $10 sng's right now and using sharkscope hud.

3 biggest losers on each table, and a few players have died already so may well have been even worse:

-£1141 over 571 games
- $952 over 1029 games
- $827 over 811 games

- $2112 over 74 games
- $895 over 472
- $311 over 403 games

- $1242 over 932 games
- $419 over 574 games
- $495 over 421 games

- $1786 over 1574 games
- $419 over 571 games
- $388 over 302

So there you have it, lots of people just keep losing and keep playing. And this is by no means an unusual sample. I think there are lots of players who don't have a clue how much they have lost and just don't think about it. Or maybe lie to themselves. But the important thing is, however they justify it, they keep coming back, and they're the reason we win.

And it's important to remember that if they didn't win every so often they wouldn't bother.

A mate of mine used to deposit £x at the start of every month as his poker fund. Normally it was gone by the 20th but SOMETIMES it wasn't! Then you get de-sensitised to losing this, get a better job whatever and start depositing £2x.

I think the games are probably a bit better on the last weekend of the month, rakeback days etc. as people have new money to spend for this reason (I think anyway).

well it seems the higher stakes sngs aren't any different.

Opened up the only $100 sng that was taking place, 7 players left at the table (from 10)

7 are down money

- $126 over 92
- $5465 over 444
- $2447 over 409
- $4999 over 634
- $3191 over 1845

one guy is breaking even and one guy up $3407 over 207 games.

I guess there are lots of consistently losing players at higher levels too. opened a $50 table, and exactly the same pattern, a few winners and a bunch of big losers.

lol just looked at the £200 & $500 level, similar pattern, but more of an even split between break even players, winners & losers. Saw 1 grinder in there playing all of the tables approx $15k up