Online Poker : 75% of loosers

I read on a financial review that 75% of all online poker players were loosing money over time. Any comments ?

[speirs]

I thought it was more. Something like 90%

[BluffTHIS!]

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I thought it was more. Something like 90%

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A couple years or so ago Sklansky posted here that it was 90% for live games and that the reason for this was the amount in rake that the losers had to lose in order for a winning player to make 1BB/hr. Although the total dollar amount of rake is much larger online because of the number of hands played, the rake is usually proportionally less per hand so that might indeed lower the 90% figure to 75%. If the losers multitable though, even the effect of lower rake will accelerate in time, and so the 90% figure might be applicable after all.

[Rotterdaum]

I don't know if this is statistically correct, but isn't it common for break even and losing players to have many winning sessions before a very large losing one? So pokertracker people are recording a lot of people having a lot of winning sessions thus recvording them as winners. And the losing sessions happen much more rarely so you are more likely to observe a break-evenish or a marginal losing player win than lose.

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I thought it was more. Something like 90%

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A couple years or so ago Sklansky posted here that it was 90% for live games and that the reason for this was the amount in rake that the losers had to lose in order for a winning player to make 1BB/hr. Although the total dollar amount of rake is much larger online because of the number of hands played, the rake is usually proportionally less per hand so that might indeed lower the 90% figure to 75%. If the losers multitable though, even the effect of lower rake will accelerate in time, and so the 90% figure might be applicable after all.

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I gotta think it's close to 90% also. It would certainly explain why Party/Empire can afford to give away free money to play on their site.

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It would certainly explain why Party/Empire can afford to give away free money to play on their site.

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Party would actually love 50% winners and 50% losers, because that means fewer people would stop playing and Party would get more rake.

[speirs]

On a side note, you can now officially add me to that 90% I mentioned earlier.

Assuming a 5% rake online (??) That means that every dollar wagered pays out .95. So, to beat this, one must be 1.05263 times better than "average".

Where "average" is 1.0, "winner" is (> or =) 1.053.

Let's consider a "crushing" full-ring limit player is a +3BB/100 player. After 100 hands, a break even (or 1.05) player would have to win 7.5BB just to be at even (you pay 7.5BB every 100 hands). A "crusher" would have to earn 10.5BB over this period.

3/7.5 = .4, which means a crusher is 40% better than a break even player.

So, where "X" is average skill (slight loser), and equals 1X. Break-even is 1.05X, crusher is 1.47X

Among 1000 players, if the 1000th player was a 1.47 player and 500th was a 1.0 player, then about 565 would be a 1.05 player, (if it's a direct relationship ??), which means about 435/1000 players are showing a profit*, or 43.5%, while 56.5% are losing.

*This assumes nobody plays more than 1 table at a time. Since we know that the more likely you are to win, the more likely you are to multi-table, we can easily assume that the winners are much more rare than this. Guessing that the "average winner" plays 3 tables at once, I imagine this makes the winners 3 times as rare, which would bring the number down to 14.5%, which would render 85.5% of online players losers.

This is all quite fuzzy math of course, but hey...whatever. I think the number is probably around 90% in all honesty. No way it's lower than 85%.

[meow_meow]

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Assuming a 5% rake online (??) That means that every dollar wagered pays out .95. So, to beat this, one must be 1.05263 times better than "average".

Where "average" is 1.0, "winner" is (> or =) 1.053.

Let's consider a "crushing" full-ring limit player is a +3BB/100 player. After 100 hands, a break even (or 1.05) player would have to win 7.5BB just to be at even (you pay 7.5BB every 100 hands). A "crusher" would have to earn 10.5BB over this period.

3/7.5 = .4, which means a crusher is 40% better than a break even player.

So, where "X" is average skill (slight loser), and equals 1X. Break-even is 1.05X, crusher is 1.47X

Among 1000 players, if the 1000th player was a 1.47 player and 500th was a 1.0 player, then about 565 would be a 1.05 player, (if it's a direct relationship ??), which means about 435/1000 players are showing a profit*, or 43.5%, while 56.5% are losing.

*This assumes nobody plays more than 1 table at a time. Since we know that the more likely you are to win, the more likely you are to multi-table, we can easily assume that the winners are much more rare than this. Guessing that the "average winner" plays 3 tables at once, I imagine this makes the winners 3 times as rare, which would bring the number down to 14.5%, which would render 85.5% of online players losers.

This is all quite fuzzy math of course, but hey...whatever. I think the number is probably around 90% in all honesty. No way it's lower than 85%.

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Your math is all wrong. I don't know where the "paying 7.5BB/100 hands" number is coming from, but this number is highly limit dependant. For example, at 5/10 6max, the average player pays a little over 2BB/100 (tight players pay less because they win less pots).

[D.H.]

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Online Poker : 75% of loosers

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So, 25% are 'tighters'... or is there a group in between?