When most people think of poker, they think gun-obsessed Instagram party douche Dan Bilzerian and his legions of bikini-clad hangers on, smoky dens full of cigar-chomping Italians, or smooth-talking suaveness of Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Casino Royale.
In reality, the life of a professional poker player is much less glamorous. It requires a small amount of luck, a fair bit of skill, a lot of hard work, but mainly perseverance.
Dave, 30, who prefers not to use his real name, plays poker as a full-time job. He’s careful not to call himself a “professional” poker player, however. For various legal and tax reasons, which remain vague, he “officially” works in IT.
It’s a lifestyle that attracts a particular kind of person — the kind who doesn’t mind spending eight hours every night at the casino with some shady characters with disreputable backgrounds.
“There was one guy, a French guy — we called him ‘Frenchie’ — he got busted scamming people with fake World Cup tickets,” says Dave, who prefers not to use his last name. “Even after it became public he kept playing for two or three weeks. He was pretty shameless.”
He’s apparently referring to a Sydney father, who was accused last month of being behind a sophisticated ticketing scam which fleeced companies and families of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The matter is currently being investigated by NSW Police.
“A lot of the players have disreputable histories,” he says. “Some of the renowned players just basically scam people for money. They use [online poker site] Full Tilt as their personal bank account.”
It’s past 5pm by the time he returns news.com.au’s phone call — he apologises, saying he’s only just woken up. He’s just returned from a “scouting trip” to India to check out the poker scene there. It didn’t pan out.
“Too risky,” he explains. “The smaller games with $1000 or $2000 payouts would be okay, but the bigger games where they ask for a $9000 or $10,000 deposit, if something goes wrong I’d be on the bottom of the food chain — the chances I’d get paid out are low.”
The former CommSec stockbroker says he fell into this lifestyle by accident. He had accumulated some leave so he decided to spend the time playing poker. “In the first two months I made $40,000. I thought, this is easy — why work when I can play poker?”
While there is a luck factor — over a week it might be 50-50, but over a month it’s like 10 percent luck — there is definitely skill involved. You’re looking to find good spots to put your money in, and be able to recognize bad spots.
- Dave, Professional Poker Player
That was five years ago. Since then he’s saved up enough to build his own house, although he remains cagey on his exact income. It varies from year to year, he says, anywhere from $50,000 to well over six figures. “Most poker players have poor spending habits,” he notes.
So what does an average day look like? “Typically I’ll win or lose between $1500 to $2000 a day. They say the top 10 per cent of your winning sessions in the month is your month’s profit — the other sessions cancel each other out.”
In other words, unlike most forms of gambling where the house always wins, poker is a game that tends to average out the longer you play — and if you have an edge, you’ll make a profit.
In a good month he will play for around 200 hours, or 10 hours a day, five days a week. Typically that sort of effort will bring in around $13,000 in profit. He claims to have played for up to 400 hours in a month at various times.
Other players make a lot more than he does, but it all depends on your stakes, your style and your grind, Dave says. “Sydney has quite a big playing field but for the medium-stakes games you do end up playing against the same people all the time.”
That means you know which table to pick — the one with the worst players. What the “youngsters” don’t realise about the game, Dave says, is you don’t have to be the best player in the world — you just have to be better than the nine other players at your table.
“While there is a luck factor — over a week it might be 50-50, but over a month it’s like 10 per cent luck — there is definitely skill involved. You’re looking to find good spots to put your money in, and be able to recognize bad spots.”
The luck factor is what keeps bad players coming because they can get lucky day to day. The good players stick around. “It’s a long-term thing,” Dave says.