The Biggest Considerations for the Aspiring Professional Gambler

I’m not a professional gambler, but I am a professional gambling writer. I’ve read dozens (if not hundreds) of books on the subject. And I’ve read more blog posts and website articles about gambling than I can count.

So, I have some expertise related to becoming a professional gambler.

Based on this research and a close reading of How to Make $100,000 a Year Gambling for a Living by David Sklansky, I’ve conclude that if you aspire to be a professional gambler, you need to consider the following 7 things more than anything else.

Your Plan to Make Money as a Professional Gambler

If you’re serious about becoming a professional gambler, you need to do more than just read a blog post or even a book and then drive to the casino to stack up cash. You need to make a plan, and that plan’s going to have multiple pieces.

If you’ve read anything about the difference between strategy and tactics, you realize that putting together your plan to make money as a professional gambler is a strategy. How you count cards or what your starting hand requirements are just tactical considerations in a much broader overall plan.

I suggest planning on paper and keeping a written plan handy just to clarify your thoughts on the subject.

When putting together your plan, you should think about where your talents and interests really lie as a gambler. If you don’t like sports much, you probably won’t make a lot of money betting on sports in the long run.

Different kinds of gambling require different commitments. Poker players must be patient and willing to wait for great opportunities. Professional blackjack players travel more often than other professional gamblers, and they engage in subterfuge.

Are You Really Cut Out for Professional Gambling?

Most people are NOT cut out for the life of a professional gambler for multiple reasons.

But even one reason might mean that gambling as a pro is a poor choice.

For one thing, can you handle huge swings in your bankroll?

It’s inevitable in a long-term gambling career to see some huge losing streaks. That’s how variance works. Being able to handle these swings involves having enough money to play with, sure, but it also involves being psychologically able to continue in the face of a losing month.

I had a buddy who played real money poker professionally online when that was still a popular choice. He explained to me that in a 6-month period, he’d show a profit 5 months out of 6. That profit was always in the 5 figures.

But he also had a losing month 1 month out of 6, and that was also a loss of 5 figures.

If you assume the bottom end of that, he was making at least $10k a month during his winning months and losing at least $10 a month during his winning months. He was making at least $100k a year, but he must have been discouraged during his losing months.

Gambling professionally requires other sacrifices, too. You might have sleepless nights while you’re taking advantage of a profitable (but temporary) situation. You might have to relocate. You might have to skip out on other things you’d rather be doing to make money gambling.

And are you able to walk away from a game?

Even talented poker players have trouble walking away from a poker game. Sometimes they’re just chasing their losses. Other times they’re unwilling to admit when a game is too good for them.

Finally, do you have the strength of will and the calm to weather those downswings in fortune that happen inevitably during a gambling career?

Or will you get so emotional that you’ll start making bad decisions and lose even more money?

Where Do Professional Gamblers Live?

Gambling is available throughout the United States. I haven’t done any studies, but I suspect that a majority of Americans live driving distance from some kind of gambling.

But there’s a big difference between trying to be a professional gambler living in Dallas, Texas and trying to be a professional gambler living in Las Vegas, Nevada.

You just don’t have as many different opportunities in Dallas, Texas as you do in Las Vegas, Nevada. You might be able to find some juicy poker games in Dallas, Texas or within driving distance, but you might have trouble betting on sports or finding a decent blackjack game.

You sure won’t find a profitable opportunity on a blackjack game in Oklahoma. I can promise you that.

Don’t relocate to a gambling destination like Vegas for the sole purpose of launching a pro gambling career, though. You might not have enough money to move home if things don’t work out.

In fact, if you’re a poker player, you can probably live wherever you’re living now. You can find home poker games where you can win more money than you would in a cardroom anyway. After all, if you’re playing in most cardrooms, you’re paying a 5% rake. For some borderline players, that rake might be the difference between profitability and losing money.

The biggest thing a poker player needs isn’t a geographical location. It’s the willingness to put in the time at the table.

And I’m not even considering the possibility of playing poker professionally online. I honestly don’t know how possible or likely that is anymore since Black Friday. I suspect it’s a lot harder than it used to be.

Obviously, if you’re planning to bet on horses, you should live near a track or at least a racebook. You might need to move to somewhere with a bigger racebook if the size of your bets get big enough to warrant it. All racebooks have betting limits, but the biggest betting limits can be found in Vegas.

Vegas is perfect for sports bettors, too. You have multiple books to choose from, and shopping lines is going to be an important part of becoming profitable.

Depending on your family and relationship status, you might just become a nomad and live in an RV or out of hotel rooms. It’s hard to get your cost of living much lower than living in a van, which might make more sense earlier in your career than later in your career.

If you’re a serious about being a pro, though, you’ll want to live where you can find the most profitable gambling opportunities.

Bankroll Is a Huge and Often Ignored Factor

If you want to be a professional gambler, you must have money. Without it, you can’t work. It’s like trying to be a handyman without a toolbelt.

And since gambling involves short-term luck, you need more money than you think to avoid going broke in the short run.

In fact, without this short-term luck factor, you probably wouldn’t be able to get any action. If the fish couldn’t win an occasional hand at the poker table, they wouldn’t play. And you can’t go fishing without fish.

When I worked at Hotels.com, the owner of the company explained to me once that the #1 reason most businesses fail is because they don’t have enough capital to make it to a profit. He was relentless about making a profit.

There’s an important lesson her for the aspiring professional gambler.

Also, if you’re losing money, it doesn’t matter how big your bankroll is. If you’ve save $25,000 as a bankroll to play cards, but you’re a losing player, you’re just going to lose your $25,000 – and probably quicker than you think.

Card counters in blackjack need 200 of their bigger bets as a bankroll. This means if your betting range is $5 to $25, you need to have at least $5000 just to play. Of course, you won’t make a lot of money at this level per hour, but you can go up in limits as your bankroll grows.

You should assume that you’re unable to play blackjack more than 20 hours a week, so if you want to earn $100,000 a year, you need to be able to earn $100 per hour at the table. Most counters earn the equivalent of one of their big bets per hour, so you’ll probably need a betting range of $20 to $100, and you’ll need a bankroll of at least $20,000.

You still might go broke with a bankroll that size.

You can find plenty of bankroll guidelines for other betting activities in other posts on this site or by doing a quick internet search. The bigger your bankroll is, the more confident you can be in not going broke, though.

Sklansky suggests that you need a bankroll of at least $30,000 to start with, and a bankroll of $50,000 is more realistic. That’s to avoid going broke, though – he also suggests that you can “take a shot” with a smaller amount, maybe $15,000 as long as you set aside winnings and grow your bankroll.

Quitting While You’re Ahead

One of the biggest misconceptions you’ll hear about gambling is that it’s important to know when to quit. Money management proponents like John Patrick and Frank Scoblete are fond of giving this kind of advice. The idea is that you should quit once you’ve lost a specific amount of money or won a specific amount of money.

If you’re a professional gambler, though, whether you’re winning or losing doesn’t affect your decision to quit. You’ll keep playing as long as the game is good. Short term variations in your bankroll don’t matter.

You might quit if you’re tired or hungry, though.

You’ll never quit just because you’re trying to predict whether you’re due for a winning or losing session, though. If you really have a mathematical edge, you’ll win more the longer you play, and you’ll increase your probability of profiting the longer you play, too.

This assumes that you’re not playing with cheaters. It also assumes you have a big enough bankroll to avoid going broke because of bad luck.

You should think of your entire career with real money gambling as one long session. Don’t even think about how much you’ve won or lost per session. Think about how much you’ve won or lost over the career. Of course, keeping detailed records of your results is a necessity if you’re serious about being a pro.

It requires a lot of mental fortitude, though, to be way ahead for the first few days of a gambling trip only to lose all that money on the last day of the trip. If you don’t possess that level of mental toughness, professional gambling might not be for you.

You only quit when you’re tired and start making bad decisions, or when the conditions of the game change so that it’s no longer profitable. You should also quit if you’ve lost so much money that you no longer have a sufficient bankroll to support your career.

Don’t quit because you’ve won a lot or lose a lot. Don’t quit because you dislike how the other gamblers are playing.

Conclusion

Bankroll is probably the most important consideration for a professional gambler, but there are other considerations, too. You need to be able to afford to play in games where you stand a realistic chance of winning money.

Your goal as a professional gambler is to make your own luck, which means that you’re ready for the long run. Short term results shouldn’t bother you.