What percent of onliner poker players are profitable?

[Stas]

Does anyone know if there exists any reputable statistics on what percent of online poker players are profitable? I guess it would have to be a specific statement such as ... What percent of people who deposit money into online poker (sum of all sites they may deposit into) return a profit within n number of months?
Any statistics related to this would be great.

[wdcbooks]

I know this is a seriously faulty method, but my Poker Tracker database tells me that at the limits I play 57% of the players lose money and 43% have won.

Of course this is a small sample at one specific limit. I don't think it is possible to single out a specific player with a couple of thousand hands and identify them as a long term winner or loser, but it does give you an idea of the distribution.

[Roy Munson]

An writer on ESPN.com wrote a few months back that two of the major pokersites track player profitability. Both sites report that approximately 7% of their players are profitable.

This number includes those that are profitable even by the slimmest of margins. The total number of players who are significantly profitable would even be less.

wdc, i appreciate the information... but i don't think that can be correct. the rake would make it so that less than 25% (and i'd say much less) are winners long-term. short-term it will be closer to 50/50.

and i realize you said it was the short-term.

that ESPN 7% sounds about right to me. i would have guessed between 4%-8%

[Stas]

Thank you very much. Any chance you have a link to the article?

[Roy Munson]

There are a couple of things you must consider when looking at your cumulative PokerTracker statistics.

No matter how large your database becomes the 42-43% winner and 57-58% loser rate is just a reflection of the dynamics of a 1 table session. During any session, on average, a little less than half the players will have winning sessions while a little more than half the players will have losing sessions. The rake makes this inevitable regardless of skill levels of the players.

Now, look at the individual players in your PokerTracker database. You will see countless players who have been profitable during your sessions but can no way be profitable long term. The main reasons they can't win long term is that they play too many hands, they are too aggressive or too passive.

The players that you see that are profitable, but play too many hands will ultimately find themselves in situations where they are dominated and will not be able to get away from their hands. Luckily they will hit longshot draws enough to keep them from going broke too fast and in the games longer.

[ QUOTE ]
I know this is a seriously faulty method, but my Poker Tracker database tells me that at the limits I play 57% of the players lose money and 43% have won.

Of course this is a small sample at one specific limit. I don't think it is possible to single out a specific player with a couple of thousand hands and identify them as a long term winner or loser, but it does give you an idea of the distribution.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's roughly what my Poker Tracker database shows too, but like you said, that's a very flawed way to estimate the number of profitable players for a few reasons.

The vast majority of players in anyone's database probably have fewer than 500 hands recorded. With that kind of sample size, even the best players in the world could show up as losers and the worst players could show up as winners. What you'll see with sample sizes that small is basically a random distribution with approximately 50% winners and 50% losers (actually slightly more losers due to the rake). With such a small sample, the winners and losers are determined almost entirely by luck.

For those players that you do have a statistically significant sample for, you're going to see an inflated percentage of winners simply because the winning players are the ones that stick around long enough for you to accumulate that sample size. The losers generally either move down or bust out entirely before you can get a significant sample.

Overall, I don't see any reason to disagree with the 7-8% numbers that were reported by a couple of online sites.

[Roy Munson]

I don't have a link to the article. I believe it was written by Jay Lovinger back in the summer. This topic wasn't the focus of the article it was just mentioned in a short passage.

He was writing about his WSOP experiences and came upon some representatives from poker sites that were exhibitors at the tournament. He did not disclose the sites but did say that they were two of the larger rooms.

The 7% figure is slightly higher than what Mason Malmuth has written previously as to the percentage of profitable players. I would assume that the lower rake and lack of tipping on line would make up some of this difference.

[excession]

What would be interesting would be to know if this 7% includes or excludes income from bonuses/rakeback.

I wouldn't find it surprising for example if up to 14% of players were increasing their bankrolls by playing but of these only half were winners without the 'assistance' of bonuses/rb..

[Sniper]

Link to last months discussion on this topic