Well I'll certainly be interested to see how you get on. I feel your **** side if controlling your play could stand you in good stead Just checking but sure I already know but you don't pay tax on your winnings now do you so any cash won is yours to keep?

 

Best of luck SB
Silly question, but do you have to pay tax on gambling winnings?

 

Good Luck SB just wish I had the ***** to do that sort of thing, hope it all works out and you do become that millionaire!!!!!!
Cheers
Colin

 

hope this works out for you and best of luck

how do you intened to cope with the thousands of "playes" who cheat (using software) to give them the edge? how do you "read" peoples plays effectively through a computer when their body language is completely hidden from you? would you not be better off in a casino? what percentage of a poker game is pure luck?

 

a mates aucle plays it for a living hes sponsered by ladbrookes, roy brindley aka roy the boy pmsl, from all accounts hes raking it in drives a new porsche, gets free cruises and holidays etc, had a couple **** stars in his arms on holls too lol, i spose go for it why not, your accepting the life gamble and have considered the bad bits so fair play to you its a big step

 

Saxo bagsy 2's on the **** stars!

 

Did you tell friends and collegues why your leaving? What did they say? Do they think your mad?

 

I hope you've sorted your new work attire

 

Good Luck

 

There is no tax to be paid on poker winnings which is a real bonus. This is because poker play does not constitute a trade or business even if you are applying a strategic and methodical approach that should result in long-term gain. This is the same of sports betting (such as betting on horses, dogs, spread betting, etc). It’s the lack of taxation that really helps the figures. At the moment I earn £28k and pocket around £1825 a month or £21,900 a year. In other words around £6k is spunked off in tax/NI. In poker, win rate is usually expressed as big-blinds per 100 hands played (bb/100) and it takes many, many, many hands to accurate establish your actual win rate. However, marginal winning players will usually make around 3-4bb/100, solid winning players 4-8bb/100 and excellent players 8+bb/100 (all at No-limit poker).

Let’s take an example of a British player playing the NL$1/2 level for a living. This is a small stakes level with the forced big blind being $2 and the small blind $1. A round of the table costs you $3 if you fold every hand so many recreational players will happily play this level. I personally can play 4 tables effectively, have played up to 8 at once and will probably find equilibrium between 4-6 when I play for a living.

Let’s assume our man can manage 4bb/100 at NL$1/2 playing 5 tables at a time on average. He’d expect to average around 400 hands an hour thus has 4 blocks of 100 hands. We know his average win rate is 4x$2 per 100 hands and he’s played 400 hands. Thus his average hourly rate $32 and 5 tabling he’d expect to make an additional $7.50-8.50 in ‘bonus whoring’ or ‘rake-back’ at this level. Therefore he’d make around $40 per hour.

If we now assume he plays 6h a day, 5 days a week for 45 weeks of the year – that’s 1350 hours a year or $ 54,000. With $2 in ever £1 that is a tax free £27,000 a year or £2250 per month. If our man achieves the same win rate at the level above (NL$2/4) or double that win rate at NL$1/2 then he’ll average £4500 a month…..and so on. I’m not saying whether or not these figures are possible for/relate to me - just giving a theoretical example of how you can make a living at poker.

When I told my friends, work colleagues and parents everyone has been surprisingly supportive. A lot of people (as you can see in this thread) take the view that I’m young enough to take a shot at something and if I fail then I can learn from the experience and move on with life.

As for software cheats I’m not sure what software you refer to but it’s highly unlikely there is software that tampers with the sites RNG (random number generator) and also unlikely that any software can allow you to see opponents cards. There is plenty of passive scan software that will scan the information available to the player and display statistics on the other players. This is called Poker Ace Hud and is not banned by card rooms because it doesn’t actually tell you anything you couldn’t see for yourself if you took a note of everything your opponents did. A lot of players use this software to give them a ‘feel’ for their opponents. Others use software that will calculate their percentage chance of winning and indicate the correct move. That’s also fine, because I can make the same calculations almost instantly looking at a board and can easily ‘out-play’ the basic suggestions of ‘what to do next’ software.

Big thanks again for all the support and good will. I’ll keep you up to date with how I’m doing and if you drop in and out of my blog you can read it all there as well.

 

Good luck SB.

I seem to remember telling you the trick to avoid fuel surge a long time ago!

Les

 

yes it was the passive cheats i was referring to, the ones that calculate odds on the fly.

 

ok, so if it's tax free, how do you go about paying NI etc? are you declaring yourself as self employed for instance?
If gambling isn't taxed as income, does that mean in the eyes of the Inland Revenue you don't have any income? So could you claim benefits as well?

 

I wouldn't worry about them - any halfway decent player can estimate his odds to within 1-2% within seconds anyway. Also, lets say I have a hand that isn't particularly strong on a flop and I bet it full pot. Someone relying on these stats will see that he is getting an unfavourable price to call and hit a flush draw and may fold. However, the optimal play might be to raise on the semi-bluff expecting me to fold to his raise a reasonable proportion of the time. Therefore, by blindly following software he/she would be playing sub-optimally.

 

This is the 64 million dollar question. I'm not sure if I'm self-employed and thus make a Class 2 contribution or just make a voluntary Class 3 contribution. I supect the latter. I'm going to phone HMRC when I get back from my hols for clarification as I'd like to keep my NI going. Not sure if I could claim beneifts - I probably could to be honest but I won't, that would be taking the gish!

 

Excellent SB, personally I don't see it as much of a risk if you believe in your potential. You have your buffer in place. Give it a serious whirl and all being well it'll pay off.

Failing that, there are mundane jobs always up for grabs to allow you to merely exist, rather than excel.

Stay focused and you'll do it.

All the very best.

 

I know someone who quit his job and earns more from Poker than he did employed.
I think the main thing is to keep your head, dont go for the big wins and just take the regular money of the internet mugs

 

All the best with this Kenny - I wish i had your ***** (well, not literally !).

What does Missus SaxoBoy make of it all - did you need to serenade her to convince her it was a good idea ?

Andy

 

She agrees with the decision. She saw first hand how miserable I was as a 9-5 drone in a job that I didn't enjoy. She is very risk-averse so is understandably even more fearful of the future than I am but, at the very least, seems to share my view that the decision is correct irrespective of the outcome. Simply put I would have been mad to continue on being miserable year after year.

You can actually track that by reading my old posts on Scoobynet. There is years worth of moaning and depression over my working life documented on SN

 

Not mentioning the PM's

 

Its not as mad as it sounds, 28 grand a year is not that hard to come by.

Good Luck

 

Kenny,

How could you be miserable working in a place beside me

Didnt get a chance to speak to you before I left the Office on Friday night (on hols this week) but wish you all the best with your "venture" certainly woke up the sleeping ones in the office when you said what you were leaving to do.

Anyhoo, I know where to find you for a catch up

Cheers

Gus

 

Good luck

 

Risk averse - that's me (but then I do work in insurance ! ).

The idea of being an IFA appeals to me, but it seems like I'd be throwing away what I've done before and starting again, so I haven't done anything about it.

Anyway, glad the missus is so supportive. Tell her she's commendably cool.

Andy

 

I wish you all the best SB and most certainly your professional approach to this is the only approach.

I actually have walked this path while in NZ for 3 months but found grinding away and the lack of social interaction you would normally recieve leads to boredom. That along with days of bad beats from the fishs &drunks who did not have scooby doo would make it difficult to sleep at night especially when you have bills to pay and kids to feed. As long as you can ride out the envitable swings(no matterhow good you are) in the game I am sure you will make a living

All the best
Evil

 

Good luck Kenny


PS have you got any tips my bank roll is up and down more than her in door's knickers

 

Best of luck SB

 

I doubt very much you'd be able to claim benefits as you won't be able to demonstrate that you're actively seeking employment.

They won't pay you benefits to sit and play poker (or at least I hope they won't)

Good luck though, I'll look out for you on the EPT

 

Nah, working with you lot has been fine Gus. I was severely unhappy in my Development Control job before hand and it did a lot of the 'damage'. The last year was good because it allowed me to get out of that previous environment and look at planning objectively. I concluded it's not that interesting to me really - I'm just not passionate about it like some others in the office. However, if you get me started on poker theory, maths, practice, etc I'll not shut up for hours. Poker isn't the most interesting thing in the world but I do enjoy it in a challenging way.

Thanks for your support Gus and sorry I didn't get a chance to catch you before I go. I'll send an email from time to time to keep everyone in the office up to date

 

Good luck mate

One question is though, are you gonna be classed as unemployed?

i.e. when you come to get mortgage/loan/any type of credit will you struggle as you will not have any type of job if poker isnt recognised as a job?