percentage winning players

[Funky]

does anyone have any RELIABLE data about the % of online players that win money?

[johnny_fish]

Define winning..

[DaNutsInYoEye]

does anyone have any RELIABLE data about the % of online players that win money?

No. The majority are losers, but beyond that it's next to impossible to get an accurate number.

[Fnord]

My guess from a typical middle limit game (2/4 limit, 100NL stakes)...

5% big winners
10% substancial winners
25% marginal winners
40% marginal losers
20% super-donators

That is per the population of people currently online. Given that the bottom portion tends to burn and recycle it really depends on how you count.

The most interesting finding is that a small percentage of the table population is losing a lot of money. Then you get into the break-evenish class of guys (from losers to winners.) Then you move into the steady winners and onto the top tier of guys who crush it.

[lamaros]

Given that the bottom portion tends to burn and recycle it really depends on how you count.

I would suggest counting the other way would considerably skew the statistics you proposed.

[TalentedTom]

My guess from a typical middle limit game (2/4 limit, 100NL stakes)...

5% big winners
10% substancial winners
25% marginal winners
40% marginal losers
20% super-donators

That is per the population of people currently online. Given that the bottom portion tends to burn and recycle it really depends on how you count.

The most interesting finding is that a small percentage of the table population is losing a lot of money. Then you get into the break-evenish class of guys (from losers to winners.) Then you move into the steady winners and onto the top tier of guys who crush it.

I don't think 40% of total players are winners, especially given the massive rake.
I would drop big winners down to 2-3%
Marginal winners (2-5BB/100) 10%
Break even - 20%
Small losers - 50%
Big Donators - 17%

[Fnord]

I don't think 40% of total players are winners, especially given the massive rake.

o The rake isn't that massive
o I'm talking 40% of the guys online right now. A lot of them are pretty close.
o The other 60% are really that bad
o The super-donators "don't stand a chance against 8 sock puppets" to steal a line from Stellar Wind.

Fire up a PokerStars $100NL table. I'll show you 4-6 seats taken up by players who certainly aren't losing their shirt. Consider guys like FearFactor who is a rock among rocks. Horrible player, but where does he really fit in the big picture of chip flow?

[TalentedTom]

Rake is massive when it comes to 100NL.
Consider me winning a $60 pot (villian and myself both have $30 in the pot)

The rake will take $3, so the final pot I will win is $57. It cost me $30 to make a $27 profit, Esencially it takes 10% of your total profit if you exclude the money you put into the pot (money that comes back to you is not profit)

I use the $60 example because rake is peaked at $3 at pokerstars. So esencially, to profit at levels $200NL or under (where rake is significant) you need to be at least 15% better to me a MARGINAL winner. If you are only slightly better than the competetion, then you are preety much a break even player.

I think true big winners are EXTREMLEY rare, most of us just grind our profit, slowly yet surley. i think the VAST majority of players are indeed losers, but at very extreme scales, most of them being marginal losers.

Most big winners also have the ability to multi-table, when compared to most losers, who only play one table. One big winner can be dominating 4-8 tables.

Big donators seem to only play 1-2 tables at most. And the marginal are stuck inbetween watching the show.

[Pyroxene]

does anyone have any RELIABLE data about the % of online players that win money?

In a featured article on Internet Texas Hold em.com, Terry Wynn discusses a personal research project he did covering about 120,000 hands and 4,300 people. A quote from that article:

BB/100 – 62ndpercentile or lower LOSE MONEY in our sample. If you improve, you can go fishing. The high BB/100 rates at the top of our charts are caused by runs of good cards, which would be damped down by more hands.

You can find the complete article here.

Thus, in his sample, the top 38% of players did not lose money. That seems to jive well with the estimates of several others.

[Miffed22001]

my god does this mean im white, european/american and a oh my god MINORITY
wow thats good
makes a change too

[siknd]

it would be fascinating for the sites to release the numbers. numbers of who had withdrawn more than they deposited. but im guessing tht would be bad for business...

it doesnt take much dead money to make a game profitable. even one or two fish at a full ring game make it quite worthwhile. so i would imagine while there are a lot fewer winners than are predicted above, there are more likley more break-even players than losing players.

[mouteut]

What do you mean by big winner? how much BB/100 is that? Edud told me that 4.5/100 is more than enough.

From my experience, Fnord's estimation seems accurate.

I would add a 5-10% of MEGA donator who are simply free money(cap bet with nothing). Theres not 20% of these, because then it would be even easier to be a big winner.

[PokerPatNEU]

Terry Wynn discusses a personal research project he did covering about 120,000 hands and 4,300 people.

Is this really a big enough sample? If we assume its full ring 10-max, 120,000 hands played is 1,200,000 actual hands dealt, divided by 4,300 people thats only about 300 hands per person. One bad beat can throw a top player down into the <62 percentile easily in only 300 hands, just like 1 big suckout can put the worst player up near the top winners over 300 hands.

[Laeelin]

Terry Wynn discusses a personal research project he did covering about 120,000 hands and 4,300 people.

Is this really a big enough sample? If we assume its full ring 10-max, 120,000 hands played is 1,200,000 actual hands dealt

In the article he actually says:

All told I have stats of about 4,300 people, and about 120,000 hands.

So your right here...

divided by 4,300 people thats only about 300 hands per person. One bad beat can throw a top player down into the <62 percentile easily in only 300 hands, just like 1 big suckout can put the worst player up near the top winners over 300 hands.

Yes, be we are not looking to see if "that" player is profitable, we are looking to see what percentage are profitable.

I bet the numbers are fairly close.

[Aces]

We're forgetting the affects of bonus and rakeback. Depending on the site, and how hard it is to clear a bonus, if you're constantly working off a bonus and/or have rakeback you could be a marginally losing player w/o those things and marginally winning with them.

[TalentedTom]

A black guy walked into my home wearing a ski mask and politley asked for my TV while pointing a gun at my head. I said "sure man !" Then he quietly put me to sleep, before I knew it it was day and time to go to school/

[grnydrowave2]

A black guy walked into my home wearing a ski mask and politley asked for my TV while pointing a gun at my head. I said "sure man !" Then he quietly put me to sleep, before I knew it it was day and time to go to school/

[BankItDrew]

2% - substantial winners
15% - marginal winners
75% - eventually loose their buy-in
8% - substantial donators

[biondino]

A couple of months ago I checked the stats on Poker Tracker of all the players who I've ever played against. Just under 40% were in the black.

This was probably taking about 100,000 hands into consideration, 15,000 or so of which were mine (I'm in the top 39% naturally ). Which isn't a huge sample but I'd wager it's accurate to within 3 or 4%. And although hundreds of these players will have only played a handful of hands against me, because there's so many of them, averaging the stats of all of them gives pretty decent figures.

[PokerPatNEU]

Think about this:

The top winners are winning thousands of dollars a day. The people they are winning that much off of, for the most part(not counting MTT luck boxes, or just really rich people who wanna blow money on online poker), are other "top winners" playing high stakes. The people losing money at high stakes are still winning poker players who probably were able to beat certain stakes, but then became losers when they move up. The money all trickles up from the low stakes, where there are LOTS of losers. It takes like 20 people losing their entire 100$ deposit just to account for the net earnings of one high stakes player in a day...It's kind of like a big pyramid of money starting at the bottom, where there are lots and lots of players around 25/50 NL. X% of those players beat that limit, then move up...only Y% of the players who manage to win and move up are able to continue winning at the higher stake. Those people are then able to move up again, while others have to move back down to the lower stake in order to re-bankroll themselves and improve their game before moving back up. The money just trickles up to the top like this.

When you think about it that way, it's conceivable that numbers like BankItPayette suggests are actually close to what is probably happening.

[underminedsk]

Interesting topic. I've always wondered about this myself. Ive talked this over with my friends before and weve figured about 25-30% are winning players (of course we are not basing this on anything)

[lamaros]

The people losing money at high stakes are still winning poker players who probably were able to beat certain stakes, but then became losers when they move up.

Nah.

[TalentedTom]

Think about this:

The top winners are winning thousands of dollars a day. The people they are winning that much off of, for the most part(not counting MTT luck boxes, or just really rich people who wanna blow money on online poker), are other "top winners" playing high stakes. The people losing money at high stakes are still winning poker players who probably were able to beat certain stakes, but then became losers when they move up. The money all trickles up from the low stakes, where there are LOTS of losers. It takes like 20 people losing their entire 100$ deposit just to account for the net earnings of one high stakes player in a day...It's kind of like a big pyramid of money starting at the bottom, where there are lots and lots of players around 25/50 NL. X% of those players beat that limit, then move up...only Y% of the players who manage to win and move up are able to continue winning at the higher stake. Those people are then able to move up again, while others have to move back down to the lower stake in order to re-bankroll themselves and improve their game before moving back up. The money just trickles up to the top like this.

When you think about it that way, it's conceivable that numbers like BankItPayette suggests are actually close to what is probably happening.

Yeah thats what I thought. Most players start with very small BR's and move up while others seem to deposit $100 a week. That's probably the best / most logical explanation.

[PokerPatNEU]

The people losing money at high stakes are still winning poker players who probably were able to beat certain stakes, but then became losers when they move up.

Nah.

You think the people who are killing the game at 1000NL are taking fishes money for all that profit? There can't be that many people with that much money who just like poker so much but suck so bad that they deposit 1000's of dollars and just donk it off.

[johnnyawe]

Any way to leverage poker edge or similiar tools to get more information on this topic?

[bigboy5540]

i don't know or don't care about percentages. the bottom line is money flows in the poker world. it is always flowing constantly and infinately. think of it as a plumbing system. the good players are simply clogs in the plumbing. the clogs are not completely sealed, but let less water flow through than the rest of the plumbing. losers win money and winners lose money. the term winning player is relative. the good players are simply the ones who can hold on to their winnings. a player can be a winning player his whole life and suddenly donk it all away in one night of 50/100 on UB. It has happened to people I know of. Does this make him a losing player?? Is he still a winning player?? the term Winning player is relative.

[dpe8598]

This makes him a losing player.

[bigboy5540]

haha u right.