Percentage of Winning Online Players-According to Jackpot Jay

[Stacheman]

For those that don't know, Jackpot Jay (Jay Lovinger) has been writing for espn.com for the past year about his foray into the poker world. He is a retired magazine editor and is writing a book about his adventures as a "poker pro" for a year. Below is a quote from his final article:

"Since there are very few, if any, reliable studies available that demonstrate the percentage of winners -- and big winners -- from among the tens of millions who play the game, you are probably wondering how I "know" this. Well, as it turns out, there is one group that can -- and does -- track this kind of stat, though they are not about to publicize the results. That group consists of online poker site management, two members of which revealed to me at the WSOP that what intuition suggests must be true -- only 8 and 7 percent, respectively, of all players on their sites finish the year in the black. And I'm not talking about deep in the black, either. The vast majority of those winners are not about to give up their day jobs."

I found these numbers to be a bit surprising (on the low side), but I guess I based my estimates on what is posted on this site. Meaning, the frequent posters here are winning players. I am interested to see others' perceptions on the percentage of online winning players.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

If only 8% are winning those 8% must be winning quite a lot. =)

[emonrad87]

~5-10% is what is commonly estimated on this board. So that sounds about right.

[Stacheman]

Someone beat me to this post. There is a very similar post in the internet forum if anyone wants to check it out. Sorry for being redundant. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[emonrad87]

[ QUOTE ]
If only 8% are winning those 8% must be winning quite a lot. =)

[/ QUOTE ]

Not particularly - it's the sites that take the biggest chunk through rake.

[Stacheman]

It's pretty interesting to actually see that the estimations are right on target, provided his sources are accurate.

[nmt09]

wow that seems very low.

[mungpo]

Seems about right to me.

[cardcounter0]

Sounds right to me. Since party poker rakes multiple millions of dollars, how much money could be left over for the winners?

[4thstreetpete]

That percentage looks about right. If you were to sit down one day and try to actually calculate how much money a site like partypoker is taking in just from rake, the numbers would be mindblowing.

[Stacheman]

Anyone care to try to put a number on this? For every $1.00 deposited on Party, $.x goes to winning players and $.y goes to the rake. No one can be sure, of course, but what are x and y?

[nmt09]

I have to say I'm shocked and surprised that only around 8% of all people who play online make any profit from their play over the course of 12 months.

[Paxosmotic]

It's unfortunate that rake is so high that only 8% are winning. I wish they'd lower it, but what can ya do.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone care to try to put a number on this? For every $1.00 deposited on Party, $.x goes to winning players and $.y goes to the rake. No one can be sure, of course, but what are x and y?

[/ QUOTE ]

On a site that is not Party, y = 50 cents is what I heard, and believe the source reliable.

[Moonsugar]

Rakes are going to come down, I bet.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone care to try to put a number on this? For every $1.00 deposited on Party, $.x goes to winning players and $.y goes to the rake. No one can be sure, of course, but what are x and y?

[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't mean anything without further parameters, like what time frame are you talking about, how many more hands the winnning players play, etc.

For example, say a group of $1 slot machines pays back an average of 90% of the money put into them. If 100 people each put $1 into the machines, on average, $90 will be paid out to some of those people. If everyone who won immediately plays that money again, the machines will pay back $81. Repeat, and the machines now have about $27 and the people have $73. Some people win nothing and a rare few hit a big jackpot in the short run, but in the long run, this is what happens. It's like negative compound interest.

At a poker website, you are talking about a lot more people and a lot smaller percentage house rake, but without a constant infusion of new money, the house soon has it all.

[TimM]

Well, I took it to mean that over a long period of time, 50% of the money deposited winds up as rake. If this is a stable average, you don't need to say much more.

[JacksonTens]

Do you think it would be a similar number with live poker? What with the rake being up to 10% in some cases. I play $4-8 which is raked 10% up to a max of $8 and $10-20 which is raked %5 up to a max of $10. Is this too much. (There is no tipping where I play.)

JT /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[brettbrettr]

[ QUOTE ]
Rakes are going to come down, I bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have the rakes gone up recently? Why all of the sudden do people complain? Its still less than live, right?

[mosch]

I heard a similar number (50 or 60 cents, forget exactly) from a reliable source who had access to the numbers.

[Uppercut]

Keep in mind that these online stats must include a whole bunch of people who register, deposit $50 or $100, play like complete tools, lose their buy-in, and never come back. I doubt that only 8% of people who have been steadily playing for the past two or so years are winning players.

[sthief09]

then how do I have databases of 700k hands and 1.1 million hands that both say 40% win? where does the difference come from

[Nigel]

[ QUOTE ]
then how do I have databases of 700k hands and 1.1 million hands that both say 40% win? where does the difference come from

[/ QUOTE ]

I've always wondered the same thing. There must be something I'm not getting.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
then how do I have databases of 700k hands and 1.1 million hands that both say 40% win? where does the difference come from

[/ QUOTE ]

Everyone seems to have this 40% magic number. Except for maybe a few players, your sample size on each individual opponent is too small. It's pretty much telling you the average player wins only 40% of his sessions.

[bicyclekick]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
then how do I have databases of 700k hands and 1.1 million hands that both say 40% win? where does the difference come from

[/ QUOTE ]

Everyone seems to have this 40% magic number. Except for maybe a few players, your sample size on each individual opponent is too small. It's pretty much telling you the average player wins only 40% of his sessions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nono. 40% are up money, not 40% win sessions.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
Nono. 40% are up money, not 40% win sessions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know, but the vast majority of the players you only have either one session on, or multiple sessions but only enough hands to add up to what we would consider one session for ourselves.

I'm saying the data we have is more comparable to session level data than a player's lifetime stats.

[ThaHero]

I'm assuming those numbers include people who deposit $100, lose it, and never come back.

I think those numbers are accurate. Now if you just look at players who have played regularly over a number of years, 8% would be very low IMO.

7-8% of 10 million people is 700,000-800,000 people a year who make at least a small profit. The "vast majority" that wouldn't quit their day job could mean anything, but let's say it's about 70% as well, so that's maybe 210,000 to 300,000 people that make a substantial profit. These numbers don't seem to far off to me. Of course vast majority could mean 90%, which drops that number to 70 or 80,000.