Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

I'll let a little secret out of the bag and just say that I am a Certified Financial Planner with a wirehouse in Arizona.

One of the newer trends in my business is building up your clientele by concentrating on a niche market like lawyers, doctors, etc.

I was wondering what the players on this site thought of having professional poker players as clients?

I have seen some threads that talk about how some of the big stars have little or no money and usually enter the big tournaments due to financial backing for investors. Obviously I want clients that have money of their own and are able to keep their gambling stake and their investment portfolio separate.

Is the nature of poker and gambling so much a polar opposite of conservative investing that I would be wasting my time?

Do any of the top poker players talk about their investments instead of poker?

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

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I'll let a little secret out of the bag and just say that I am a Certified Financial Planner with a wirehouse in Arizona.

One of the newer trends in my business is building up your clientele by concentrating on a niche market like lawyers, doctors, etc.

I was wondering what the players on this site thought of having professional poker players as clients?

I have seen some threads that talk about how some of the big stars have little or no money and usually enter the big tournaments due to financial backing for investors. Obviously I want clients that have money of their own and are able to keep their gambling stake and their investment portfolio separate.

Is the nature of poker and gambling so much a polar opposite of conservative investing that I would be wasting my time?

Do any of the top poker players talk about their investments instead of poker?

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I'd guess they'd be lousy clients. Mostly because it would be really hard to get them to stock with any kind of long-term plan. I think you'd just be spinning your wheels and get frustrated. They'd never make contributions to the plans when they were supposed to, and be forever taking out money they weren't supposed to. Now if you were working at some kind of churn-and-burn chop shop they might be good clients for you. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

On the other hand, you could look at it as giving something back to the poker community.

If you're good at convincing players to go along with it, you'll be doing them a service.

I actually suspect that they are, as a group, less bad than perhaps they would have been 20 years ago.

Poker is not just for gambling degenerates anymore and the percentage of poker players who take bankroll management seriously has got to be higher now.

And what's the downside of giving it a shot? It's not like you're going to refuse non poker playing clients, just that you're trying to build yourself a niche clientele.

Go to some of the better, more responsible younger players and pitch it as a retirement rake. Put them on a plan of putting a certain percentage of their payoffs into a retirement fund just like those with real jobs do with their 401k.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

I think this would be something interesting. I am playing pretty seriously now while I am still in college and although I am still building up my roll for higher limits I definantly see investing as something I plan to do down the line. I would be interested in something like this.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

A different view, I think that since there are so few successful poker pros, the market is probably quite small. Even if they were good clients, I am not sure if you could make a living serving them unless you hooked a huge fish, no pun intended.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

But there are a lot of people who think they're successful poker pros.

I still wouldn't think there would be enough of them to shut out all other clients but still if you get one guy and help him out and he talks about you to his friends...and so forth

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

i am currently playing poker for a living while building a bankroll at a solid pace (call me an aspiring professional if you will). while im only 19, i take poker and bankroll management very seriously and have some longterm plans that i may or may not adhere to in the future. when my bankroll hits 200k i plan to invest in real estate buying several units of apartments. it is important to me to be able to retire successfully at a young age, and therefore i could certainly use a financial advisor later on in my career. i am going to need a really talented accountant for next years tax returns as i certainly want to pay as little as possible of my earnings. however, i dont think that many professionals take their finances as seriously as they should, so you may not do so well specializing in this field. aside from that, what would you be able to offer a professional poker player that another financial advisor wouldnt be able to offer? i feel that i have good control over my finances. when i am able to begin investing i likely wont need a financial advisor until i reached a point in which my prosperity has grown in real estate, at which point i would need a financial advisor who specializes in real estate and not someone who specializes in maintaining bankroll management for a poker player.

so again my question arises, what can you offer to me that a cheaper, more experienced, less specialized advisor couldnt? or is it that you are simply interested in target marketing the poker player community?

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

The difference between using someone like me or someone at a discount firm is that I make a special effort to know everything about your financial life. We have products that address your assets and your liabilities. We don't just do stocks and bonds like the brokers of 20 years ago. I have clients where I have built portfolios for them and also handled their mortgage and then secured a line a credit for their business.

The main advantage would be if I established a few clients in the field of professional poker I could be known as the "financial advisor of poker players". Since I play a lot of poker I am very familiar with the ups and downs of the game and the intensely emotional swings that can come with it. This would give me the ability to empathize with other poker players much better than the average financial advisor that has only seen the game on tv.

Since my minimum account size is $100,000 I am interested in finding out if there are enough players out there that have set aside that much money that is separate from their poker playing bankroll. My gut instinct says no, but I put the question out there because I am interested in the opinions of others on this discussion board.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

I'm guessing most top poker players don't like paying rake. They'd be wary of financial advisors who take a yearly percentage based fee since it will kill their chances of beating the market. They'd also be wary of the FA's who make their living getting kickbacks for putting clients into load funds, as even more rake to overcome. A smart poker pro should be able to find the vanguard website and decide a relative allocation between a stock index fund and select bond funds on their own while they pay virtually no rake.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

Financial advisors lol.....
whatta joke, basically they kiss rich people ass all the time begging for some pennies its actually pretty sad... FORTUNE has also predicted this line of work will be absolutely extinct by 2015 so yu might wanna go back to school.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

DesertCat,

A smart investor putting everything into Vanguard is like a great poker player playing the penny tables because there's so little risk. Yes, Vanguard is nice if you want to be safe with your money. People who invest usually want to maximize their returns. I'd rather be a winning 15/30 player and pay a rake than play the penny tables and not be worried about paying a rake because the pots usually don't get big enough.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

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People who invest usually want to maximize their returns.

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Exactly why I recommend Vanguard. Studies have repeatedly shown that when you pay advisors or managers fees, you are more likely to trail the market than beat it. That's why I recommend index funds. An index fund with a .25% expense ratio is already 1-2% ahead of an active manager on Jan. 1 of each year. Some studies say it's enough edge to beat 95% of active money managers.

Now if you are a skilled investor and can make your own investment decisions, by all means go ahead. But just like poker, track your results so you don't fool yourself. I do my own investing and have a very satisfactory record for the last 5 years, but I also spend at least 4 hours a day on research. And if you must have active management there are a few active mutual funds with long term records of beating the indexes (I would demand at least 10 years and preferably 15-20 with the same manager). And I'm sure there are one or two financial advisors out there who won't rip you off with excessive or hidden fees. But I don't know how to find or vet one.

That's why my recommendation is if you are unsure about doing your own investing, go to vanguard (or some similar vendor of no-load index funds or ETFs). You won't beat the market, but you won't trail it either, and you can sleep safe knowing you're not getting ripped off. BTW, this is exactly what Warren Buffett recommends to investors as well.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

I think if you are just going to invest in stocks/bonds, Vanguard might be the way to go for the passive investor. There's also much more lucrative investments. Doing 4 hours of research a day is also a huge opportunity cost. Not arguing, just wanted to point out that a financial planner who knows about more than just the stock market could have you making much more than Vanguard.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

IF THEY WERE A SPECTACULAR ANALYST THEY WOULDNT BE "FINANACIAL PLANNERS" WHICH IS BASICALLY THE BOTTOM RUNG IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY THEY WOULD BE FUND MANAGERS WHO DONT HAVE TIME TO TALK 2 YU....HONESTLY AS SOMEONE WHO HAS 30K PLUS IN THE MARKET AS A 23 YR OLD I WISH TOO PUT IT INTO REAL ESTATE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE EVEN WITH THE FORTHCOMING BUBBLE...STOCKS ARENT THAT GREAT.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

Vee- you are a client of mine. Not personally, but I call on Financial Planners in NY and PA. A couple of thoughts for this post.

Zaxx- I like your comments in most threads, and respect them even more given that you are 22. Your age and lack of perspective handicaps you in this particular topic. Interest rates are effectively at a 50 year low, making it incredibly easy to purchase real estate. At the same time real estate is at an all time high - most professional real estate analysts would call it a bubble. Yet now is when you are eager to buy real estate and avoid stocks. This is the exact same thing as every conservative investor finally jumping into stocks (particularly growth/tech stocks) in 1999-2000. The worst feature we have as investors is that we can extrapolate what has happened over the last 3-5 years and convince ourselves that it will continue for the next 5-10 years. It won't. I can't tell what will be working, neither can any credible Financial Advisor. Thier role is not to max out how much you can make in any one mutual fund, rather it's ideally to prevent you from making mistakes that cripple your bankroll (principle).

Beyond that, poker pros in general will not make for great clients. You would have to be THE financial planner to the pros. Poker as a profession drives an income that is directly related to the time you spend playing. (a select few can make an exponential return because of tournaments - but it is not common)Few pros make beyond some factor 2-4x their big blind rate.

It just doesn't relate to a large number or prospective clients with account minimums of $100k.

There is nothing better than working in an industry or with a clientele that you have a true passion for. I would think that executives from Publicly held casinos would be a better niche.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

I read an article once about some of Dewey Tomko's ridiculous investment choices--raising the Titanic? (gulp) Anyway, as a result of that I think that they might need the help, but then I might just be generalizing.

I'm really surprised that none of the douches have gotten on Vee for "posting in the wrong forum"

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

Or just Steve Wynn...lol lol (id like to make a buy for 13k shares of berkshire hathaway plz...thank you)


I fully understand that real estate is on a bubble and dont really care. I would be buying real estate solely in areas I knew not to be overvalued and for the long term(I would buy real estate before 4 yrs ago with my money as it is historically, when bought in areas with oustanding public school systems and low vulnerability too white flight or population flow, the best investment in the U.S . Id also be renting the properties and wouldnt be looking for any equity pull out within 5 yrs so....bAasically you are correct now is not the optimal time to buy real estate bbut my point is much broader...due to market sluggishness which will extend for the better part of the decade and bc of tax incentives, I still will be putting money into real-estate after I get a real job and paycheck...

REMEMBER 1) GOOD SCHOOLS 2) POPULATION PRESSURE(THINK MIDDLING SUBURBS STUCK BETWEEN SATURATED URBAN AREAS AND EXPANIDING LESS DESIRABLE X-BURBS)3) No white flight Im not a rascist but I think you can figure this one out for yourself...

There will be substantial costs to buying in such areas but there is VERY little vulnerability to actually loosing money and while the prices WILL not grow at the rate thats has been seen since the tech burst...It will be in excess of 4-5% a yr, this when coupled with tax breaks and any potential positive cashflow from renting(If the ratres grow more people will be forced to rent correct?? this is the classic real estate hedge for the long term investor.) and real estate is amazing.

Re: Do Pro Poker Players Make Good Clients For A Financial Advisor?
 

They have been predicting the demise of full service brokerage firms since Charles Schwab opened their doors. What was that like 25 years ago (or before you were born)?

I guess another measurement of success would be to compare the full service brokerage firms stock performance to that of Schwab or any of the internet trading firms.

I get paid to help my clients reach their financial goals. My clients' goals are never to beat the market. It's a secure retirement, putting their kids through college, or leaving a legacy for their kids or a charity. I then show them the most conservative way to reach their goals.

My real question is when you are out of school and have accumulated $200,000 of investments are you still going to feel absolutely sure of yourself on making 100% of your own investment decisions? Investing $2000 in a stock versus $30,000 can be a totally different decision, emotionally for a lot of people. The vast majority of investors with real wealth often feel more comfortable having an expert help them with these decisions are usually willing to pay something for the service. Plus a lot of the service I provide for my clients is not which investment I recommend, but stopping them from making a portfolio wrecking mistake by buying into the latest fad or headline from Fortune magazine.