For many established poker pros, online poker is the gateway to a multi-million dollar business that can make a talented player a millionaire within a few months. Online poker sites often serve as a springboard for young players to build a bankroll with which they can eventually enter high-paying online tournaments or live events and make their breakthrough there. Others are content to secure a significant side income each month by playing poker online. But how exactly can you make money with online poker? At what point is it worth quitting your job and turning poker into a career? Here you will get all the information on how to make money online with poker.
How much does a poker professional earn?
If your goal is to become one of the best poker pros in the world, you’ll want to know how much a poker pro makes. Here you can enter your current salary and find out how long you’d have to work at your job to earn as much as the top poker pros.
Note that these are only the professionals’ winnings from live poker tournaments and do not take into account online poker winnings and losses.
How much does a professional online poker player earn?
While there are only a few players breaking into the live poker scene, the number of players worldwide who will be able to make a living from their online poker winnings in 2022 is estimated to be well over 10,000. Of course, these players do not all play poker at the same stakes, and a distinction must be made between cash and tournament players. Basically, however, all online poker professionals are making between €20,000 and €80,000 in annual earnings, with some extreme figures at the top, especially among tournament players.
Should you play cash games or tournaments?
Both cash game players and professional online poker players who focus on tournaments enjoy advantages and disadvantages. For example, a good cash game player can earn a decent hourly wage with little variance by playing multiple tables at fixed blinds. Tournament players, on the other hand, often have to overcome longer periods of weakness and often find themselves without any significant income for weeks at a time. On the other hand, a tournament poker professional does not necessarily have to play consistently well all year round and consistently work 50 hours or more each week. Often, cashing in 20-25 large online tournaments per year is enough to generate a steady net income of €25,000 or more.
As a tournament player, you have the opportunity to make money quickly and climb the ladder with online poker. In return, cash game players have less risk and can count on a steady income with only small fluctuations.
How to Become an Online Poker Pro: The 7 Most Important Tips
First of all, you should realize that the dream of making money with online poker can quickly vanish into thin air. Only after you have been a successful hobby player for several months or even years and have managed to gain experience, it is worth putting all your eggs in one basket and taking the step to become an online poker professional. Almost all players who can live off their poker winnings are former hobby players who had already built up a decent bankroll and, therefore, could safely venture into a poker career. We advise you to take the risk only if you are financially secure and have a bankroll that allows you to cope with setbacks and get through a week of weak periods without any problems.
Below we list the most important tips from real professional players and experts that you should definitely consider before you dare to take the step to become a poker professional.
Poker Tip 1 – Don’t quit a good job to become a poker pro
Although the life of an online poker pro sounds like a fun and stress-free one at first, there is another side to the coin. Even as a professional poker player, you don’t get any more free time than you would in a regular job, quite the opposite, and it takes a lot of self-discipline to stay organized and stay on the ball even when you don’t feel like it. If you have a good job that is challenging at times, but you can still make a good living from it, we generally advise against quitting it with the goal of becoming a poker pro.
Poker Tip 2 – Get Enough Experience
Only if you have enough experience in online poker rooms, your poker career is under a good star. You should have played at least 200,000 hands and made a decent profit before you can even think about becoming a poker professional. Just a few successful weeks or months does not mean that you are an extremely talented player who can handle life as a professional poker ace with ease. Only when you have made enough profits over a period of at least 10 to 12 months of daily play to continue, you can consider making poker your profession.
Poker Tip 3 – Build Reserves for Downswings
Even the best players suffer from slumps that can last weeks or even months. Ask yourself this question: Can I get through several months without income in an emergency? Only if you can answer yes to this question are you ready for a career in online poker.
Poker Tip 4 – Calculate if you can finance your living expenses
Before you start your professional career, you should calculate exactly how much your living expenses are. Add up food, insurance, rent, utilities, and any other expenses you have each month, and add another 15 to 20% to that amount to calculate how much money you need to make from online poker to live well. If you are already active as a regular hobby player, you can roughly estimate whether or not your poker career has a future.
Poker Tip 5 – Match your bets to your bankroll
Bankroll management is the most important aspect of managing your finances and making money playing online poker. It’s not necessarily the size of your bankroll that matters, but choosing your bets to match your bankroll. As a cash game player, a buy-in to a table should generally not exceed 1% of your total budget. Only after you have built up your bankroll after several successful weeks should you venture to tables with higher blinds. So, for example, if you buy in with €10 at 0.05/0.10 tables, your bankroll should be at least €1,000.
Poker Tip 6 – The rakeback factor: Choose a generous poker room
Poker rooms are funded through rake, which can usually be as little as 5% per pot or as much as 10% of a tournament buy-in. Players who play a lot of hands receive rakeback offers from poker rooms, which can be as much as 30% of the rake paid. So once a month you will receive a refund for a portion of the rake you paid to the poker site. Choose a site that offers you a good rakeback program. You can read more about this in our online poker reviews. In addition, you can secure extra money for your bankroll at the best poker rooms through generous VIP offers.
Poker Tip 7 – Treat your poker like a business
As a professional poker player, you are not just someone who plays a card game for money for a living. Realize that you are running a small one-person business. This means that you have to organize your own work hours, carefully plan your free time and vacations, and have enough self-discipline to make your small business a success. It is not enough to get a lucky break and then hit the sack. Only if you constantly improve, remain disciplined, and generate profits in the long run, your business and therefore your work as a poker professional has a future. A good guide for this is the book “Treat Your Poker Like a Business” by Dusty Schmidt.
Conclusion: Professional poker player
So, to summarize, you should know, above all, that being a professional poker player requires you to overcome significantly more obstacles than it initially seems. You should also get rid of the idea that working as a professional means fun, games and excitement every day. Only if you are serious about your work, consider poker as your real job and have done the necessary preliminary work, will you be successful with this project. Regardless of what you decide in the end, we wish you good luck and success in making money with online poker.