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RollaJ
10-13-2003, 12:35 PM
Its often stated that 10-15% of players are long time winners, now I dont know if these figures are correct but I have a related question.....

At middle limits 10/20--20/40, what percentage of people in the casino poker room are winning players? Obviously winning players return much more often than losing players in general, so I was wondering if anyone else had a guess. Mine is that about 60% of the players at those limits are winners

chaos
10-13-2003, 12:43 PM
I think your general estimate of long term winners is a bit high. I've heard 5-10%.

As for the mid-limit game, how are you counting players. Are you counting the players seated in a game? Do you really think that 6 of the 10 players at a mid-limit table are long term winners. My estimate would be 1 player at a table, maybe.

RollaJ
10-13-2003, 12:58 PM
At playstation maybe 1 player is right, but I see the same players week in week out at the Taj. Most are fair-good players, and it doesnt seem they could be down there every weekend if they werent winning, although I know it is possible for some

Nottom
10-13-2003, 01:43 PM
You see a lot of the same people playing craps or the slots as well.

Jeff V
10-13-2003, 11:34 PM

squiffy
10-14-2003, 04:29 PM
I would love to know the answer to that question. Of course, online, I guess you could order hand histories and somehow crunch numbers with some kind of tracking program.
It would be great if you had the time and money to secretly videotape players at live games over a 5 year period and really see how they were doing. Obviously if you had access to security videos in theory you could determine how much money people are walking away with.

At live tables, if you had the discipline you could see how much money people buy in for and see how much they leave with. But you could not be there often enough to collect enough data.

I would think asking an experienced dealer or floorman would give you a more accurate statistic. They would probably be in a better position to observe long term wins or losses.

Though, in theory, when you observe the play of your opponents over a long period of time, you should be able to tell whether they have the talent and preflop starting requirements to make them profitable, no??

daryn
10-19-2003, 11:55 PM
what a good post. the misconception is that long term losing players won't want to return... this may be true, i mean, i don't think it is.. but the more pertinent issue is that most long term losers don't know they are losers... that's important. as long as they win a couple hundred every now and then, they "feel" like they are winning. this concept is very important to the survival of poker in my opinion.

people are not completely stupid. if they knew that they were destined to lose in the long run, they probably wouldn't play.. (they still might though, for their own reasons, or because they are stupid) i mean.. seriously, there are plenty of people who don't know that you can't beat craps.

mosch
10-20-2003, 12:54 AM
I used to be one of those losers.

I played poker for a long time socially, without ever actually investing any mental energy into the game, at all. I did so because it was a fun social thing to do, and playing poker badly really wasn't that expensive for me. I took the money out of the entertainment budget, the same as I would with money to spend on hockey tickets, dinner or an evening at the craps table.

It turns out that learning the game is actually a heck of a lot of fun, and has had interesting side benefits in how I analyze and execute other activities. I can safely say that poker taken strokes off my golf game.

Poker has never been about profit for me, though I can't deny that I enjoy the profit...

SlipFits
10-20-2003, 01:44 AM
To add to that, how many people out there believe that slots are a viable way to make money? yet evertime you go to play poker, you pass the people who have their loyalty cards stuck in the machine. You know they are long term players and you hope they realize they can't win long term.

I think another group of people we are forgetting about is those who don't play for long term money, they play for fun and enjoyment. I believe many elderly folk would fall into this category.