10 Ways to Become a Successful Professional Gambler

Professional gambling probably has at least as much to do with your habits as it does with your actions. The fundamental rule is to stay away from games where you don't have an advantage.

Professional gamblers may participate in games where they have no advantage over the house, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Even in those cases, they continue to use funds that are NOT a part of their professional gaming bankroll.

In other words, a professional gambler who plays roulette only does so for fun.

I attempt to compose blog posts with the assumption that the reader has little to no prior knowledge of the topic. Therefore, my first assumption is that the reader doesn't understand what a mathematical edge is when I write a post on how expert gamblers only bet with an edge.

The first item on this list therefore discusses the math involved in gambling.

The psychology of gambling professionally is also very important. You might only be earning an income that is consistent with the middle class, depending on the nature of your gaming activities. Professional gamblers frequently experience dry spells and/or losing streaks. In certain situations, they require financial support to survive.

Math prowess and self-discipline are just the beginning. Once you've mastered those two talents, you still need to become proficient in your chosen activity, whatever it may be, to a certain extent. Professional blackjack or poker players need to have certain talents. Those skills require a lot of work to develop.

The majority of people aren't suited to a career as a professional gambler. Most people don't think the work is worthwhile compared to the benefits. Additionally, most people find it challenging to successfully separate themselves from their emotions in order to take consistent, logical actions that lead to success.

This post is the best introduction you'll find to the idea of gambling professionally if you think you might have what it takes.

Check out the book How to Make $100,000 a Year Gambling if you want to learn more about how to support yourself as a gambler.

1. Understand the Math

You need to know enough arithmetic to grasp some of the nuances of probability if you want to bet professionally. I can give you a brief overview of the topic right now, but you might want to buy a book or take a class instead.

The area of mathematics that deals with future prediction are called probability. It analyzes the probability that specific events will happen in a black-and-white manner. In actuality, the term "probability" refers to more than just this form of algebra. Additionally, it describes the possibility of an event.

A number between 0 and 1 can always be used to describe the likelihood of an event. Something has a chance of 0 if it will NEVER occur. Something has a chance of 1 if it will always happen.

A probability can be expressed in the following ways:

• As a fraction

• As a decimal

• As a percentage

• As odds

Here is an illustration of a probability that has been stated as a fraction:

You're about to flip a coin and want to quantify the likelihood that it will land on heads. There are two possible outcomes, and each is equally likely to occur. Put the result you're interested in on top of the fraction to represent that as a fraction (the numerator). You list all potential outcomes at the bottom of the fraction (the denominator).

The likelihood in this situation is 12.

Although there are two possible results, only one of them is heads.

Here is an illustration of that same probability in decimal form:

This isn't even a probability issue, by the way. It's just a practice exercise in fraction to decimal conversion. Simply divide the fraction by the denominator to convert it to a decimal. Two times one equals 0.5.

Additionally, you may change that into a %, which is simpler for most people to comprehend:

A decimal is multiplied by 100 and the percent symbol is added to create a percentage. 0.5 times 100 equals 50%.

One of the most common and clear ways to state a probability is as follows. You probably have a good understanding of this already if you regularly watch the weather report on the news. You understand what the meteorologist means when she says there's a 50% probability of rain.

You can always think of a percentage as the number of times out of 100 that something will happen because the term "percent" means "per 100."

The least apparent method to express a probability is as odds, however, gamblers often find this to be very helpful. When discussing odds, one compares the number of outcomes with the number of possible outcomes rather than the total number of outcomes with the number of possible outcomes.

The probability of landing on heads in the coin flip example I've been using is one to one. There is only one way to get a heads result and only one way to get a NOT heads result. We refer to this as even odds.

You take a financial risk by gambling on potential outcomes. You are in a profitable scenario if the payment odds of a bet outweigh the winning odds. (Experts referred to that as +EV, short for "positive expected value"). You are in a losing scenario if the payoff odds for a bet are lower than the winning odds. (This is known as "negative expected value," or -EV.)

You may expect to win at gambling if you continually place yourself in +EV scenarios. In actuality, casinos frequently act in this manner. It is how they continue to operate.

Examples of +EV scenarios can be found throughout the rest of this post, but here's one that follows on from our discussions on coin tosses and is simple to understand:

Imagine that you have a strong belief in your psychic abilities and that you can reasonably predict which way the coin will land. In fact, you're so certain of your position that you'd wager $2 to win $1.

Ignoring any doubts about your claimed psychic abilities, I'll merely pose the following query to you:

Who in this case has the mathematical advantage?

It's the other guy, of course. He has only a $1 loss and you have a $2 loss, so mathematically you both have a 50% chance of winning or losing each time.

You will have won $50 if you assume 100 coin tosses and win 50 of them. However, you'll also have dropped $50 in 50 losses. You made a net loss of $50.

You want to be the person on the other side of that wager if you want to be a professional gambler. Professionals don't rely on their ESP. They rely on calculations and the long term.

2. Establish Superhuman Self-Discipline

Gambling is a sentimental pastime. When you play a game of chance for money, your brain receives a flood of hormones and neurotransmitters. And once those begin, it's simple to begin making irrational choices.

Professional gamblers have no time for emotional instability. They lose money if and when they act irrationally. Additionally, losing money is never a good method to earn a living at anything.

Here's an illustration from the poker community:

You've spent hours practicing solid poker. When you have a strong hand, you wager; when you have weak cards, you fold. You take a position into consideration. You are aware of the tendencies of the other players.

You've only had six hands worth playing in the last six hours, and you entered each pot as the favorite to win.

And each time, you were swallowed dry by your adversary. He had a poorer hand to begin with, but then he struck it lucky.

Thus, you begin to play a little more passionately. When you don't have the cards to support it, you start placing large bets. When you believe your opponent has a stronger hand, you raise the stakes.

We refer to this as "tilt."

It's an excellent technique to make a poor poker scenario even worse.

Additionally, skilled poker players can detect your tilt. They will wait until they have strong cards before busting you.

Professional poker players don't get cocky. If and when this happens, they stop playing until their emotions are under control once more.

Any gambler playing any game is susceptible to tilt. To avoid tilt and/or to alter your behavior requires self-control.

Professional gamblers must also have the self-control to be very thrifty. Because of the nature of gambling, the outcomes you anticipate will eventually occur. Anything is frequently possible (and will occur) in the short term. In spite of the odds being against them, some slot machine gamers occasionally come out on top.

In other words, even if you are the best in your field of online gambling, you might still have a losing month. You need to be thrifty enough to be able to afford these downturns in order to be able to keep up with your payments.

Prior to Black Friday a few years back, I was close acquaintances with a professional online poker player. He and I talked about what it was like to play online poker for a living.

He revealed to me that he won five out of every six months playing poker. Additionally, he lost five figures in 1 of the 6 months. Over time, he was incredibly profitable, but he did experience 2 lost months each year.

Although I was unable to convince him to give me his exact figures, let's have a look at the minimum he is referring to. You're looking at a net profit of $80,000 if you make $10,000 in profit 10 months out of the year but lose $10,000 in 2 of those months.

But even in those months when you're losing money, you still need to buy food, make rent payments, and pay your bills. That requires discipline.

Professional gamblers also need self-control to keep their bankroll in check. Simply make sure you have enough cash on hand to play for as long as you like, if you bet recreationally. Their objective is to spend as little as possible on entertainment.

Professional gamblers need to make sure they keep a sufficient amount of funds on hand to allow them to continue playing until the long-term math takes over and they begin to show a profit. It can be challenging to resist spending money from your gambling account on things like a new television when your old one's pictures start to fade out, a date with a lovely lady, tickets to a boxing event you really want to see, or a date with a pretty girl.

But if you want to stay in business, it's essential.

A seasoned gambler is an entrepreneur. And entrepreneurs need to keep their capital levels high enough to keep running their businesses.

It probably also goes without saying that those with issues controlling their impulses—addicts to drink, drugs, sex, etc.—rarely make it big as professional gamblers.

Simple logic explains why:

You'll eventually start playing games where you don't have an advantage if you can't manage your actions. While you might experience a little streak of luck, ultimately you'll lose all of your money.

In the long run, professionals don't lose money.

3. Become a bookmaker

If you're unfamiliar, a bookmaker is a person who accepts wagers on sporting events. It's common to hear this guy referred to as "a bookie" at your neighborhood tavern. Being a bookmaker in the US is against the law unless you're in Nevada and have a license. By the way, that is a valid, if pricey, alternative.

Even if you don't reside in Nevada, you might think about becoming a bookmaker and earning a job through gaming.

Think about who is most likely to make money in a sports betting scenario. I know that's probably not what you had in mind when you considered betting on sports professionally.

First off, the bookmaker typically requires $110 of action from you in order to win $100. Additionally, he gets the lines drawn such that there is equal action on both sides of a game.

What all of it means, if you're a total newbie to sports betting, is as follows:

The amount you bet is considered your "action." Only if the other party has a 50% or better chance of winning the bet does it provide the other party an advantage if you have to wager $110 to win $100.

By the way, that extra $10 is known as "the vigorish" or "vig." This is a genuine business model for bookmakers.

The line is the margin of victory required for a team to be declared the winner in a wager. If the Cowboys are a 7-point favorite over the Redskins, for instance, that means the Cowboys must win by at least 8 points to cover your wager. A wager on the Redskins is deemed successful if the Cowboys defeat them by 7 points or less.

In order to give bettors the impression that they have a 50% probability of winning, bookmakers create these lines. If they are successful, they will receive equal action from both sides.

Here's an illustration:

There were 10 wagers on the Cowboys to cover the spread. There were 10 Redskins bets. That works up to $22,000 (20 x $1100) in action. Due to the fact that half of them chose one side and half the other, half of those bettors will win and half will lose. The bookmaker is obligated to pay out winnings of $10,000. However, the bookmaker receives $11,000 in wins from the other side and makes a profit of $1,000.

The losing party fully reimburses the victorious side. The vig operates in this manner, and the bookmaker makes money in this manner.

Small-time bookmakers could find it challenging to evenly distribute the bets on each side of a match unless they have an especially large clientele. To cover the action on the other side as well, many of them place wagers with additional bookmakers. It can assist them to pay for the other side of the action even though they still have to pay the other bookmakers' vig.

It takes more than simply a willingness to flout American law to become a bookmaker. Please do not interpret this message as legal advice or as a call to break the law.

Additionally, you need to build up your clientele.

Finding customers to wager on sports with them is typically not too difficult. Although you should have some level of charm, obtaining clients can be done by simply hanging out at a pub. However, the type of establishment where you troll for customers can make all the difference.

Small clubs where barflies drink heavily and watch sports are the best places to find sports bettors. Before happy hour, you'll do especially well with bars that have a steady clientele. Since there are regulars there, they will frequently recommend you to other clients if you pick up one.

A CPA is a buddy of mine. A bookie was one of his customers. He claimed that as long as his client was paying his taxes, there was no issue with the IRS turning him over to the FBI.

That's why it's crucial to note:

Consider including your income taxes in the budget.

Being opposed to the Internet Revenue Service is a serious error.

Keep a low profile if you're intending to operate an illegal bookmaking business, too. Don't create a website or accept any form of online wagers on sports. Although it doesn't happen often, bookmakers can be prosecuted. However, high-profile bookies with a strong online presence are more prone to experience it.

And once more, I'd like you to know that I'm not providing legal counsel. The entire goal of this post is for amusement. But I also believe that many of these specifics are instructive and useful.

In the end, it's far more advantageous to be the person accepting bets than it is to be the person placing them.

4. Operate a Casino

Owning a casino is another way to make money off of gambling. For many people, this could be difficult. There are licensing and financing concerns that are difficult for most people to understand, let alone deal with.

However, no one in the gaming industry is more successful than the casino's owner. You're still gambling, but every time you place a wager, the chances are in your favor.

The greatest approach to betting professionally is in that manner.

Although it's illegal to operate an illicit gambling enterprise in most states, underground casinos are still a possibility. You can receive serious probation or even jail time, depending on how strict the rules are in your region.

Having said that, I'm not sure how many Texas pubs, gas stations, or both I've been to had "8-liners" in them. Simply put, that is another word for a slot machine. These games are legitimate in theory as long as no one is cashing out.

But let's be honest, here.

Years ago, I frequented a Dallas pub on a regular basis. In the rear, close to the jukebox, they had a few 8-liners. The machine didn't pay you off in cash if you won a sizable sum of money. After telling the bartender, that you entered the establishment on Friday to pick up an envelope from the proprietor. You received your rewards in cash in the envelope.

One week, a friend of mine won a few hundred bucks. On Friday, he called the establishment to speak with the proprietor and inquire about when he could pick up his envelope. The owner responded, "I don't distribute envelopes to individuals I don't know," of course not knowing who my friend was.

I had to get in touch with the owner and introduce him to my friend. When he learned, everything was well.

I realize that's a small-time casino, but I can only speculate on how much money those two machines brought in. One elderly carpenter I know on Thursday night lost $300 on those machines. I gave him a $200 loan so he could try to catch up. He also dropped that.

To his credit, he honored his word and paid me back on the following Thursday. But how much did the other regulars spend there if he was spending that much cash on those machines on a Thursday night?

The bartender seemed to believe that each machine generated at least $1,000 per week on average when I asked him about it one evening. That's not bad for a bar with a maximum permitted occupancy of just 60 patrons.

On the other hand, it would have been unpleasant if they had ever been caught.

I also had a few acquaintances who ran clandestine poker dens. Even though the house isn't truly gambling in this scenario—they only take a percentage of each pot over a specific amount—I'm classifying this as professional gambling. The term "rake" refers to about 5% of the pot that they take out. It functions similarly to a casino's house advantage or a sports book's vig.

I previously conducted some calculations regarding the potential earnings from owning an underground cardroom. For $1500 a month, I believed you could rent a respectable apartment or office space. Your monthly electric payment would likely be $200, and you might set aside $300 for unexpected unforeseen costs. Though I'm not certain for sure, I believe the dealers solely worked for tips.

However, how much money did you expect to make?

There are 36 players if there are typically 4 full tables. That equals 200 raked hands every hour, assuming each table plays roughly 50 hands per hour. If the typical pot is $20, the cardroom would make $200 per hour in profit and $4000 per hour in play.

Assume for the moment that you are only open 4 nights per week for 8 hours each. That comes to $6400 every week or 32 x $200. Even if you multiply my optimistic estimates by 2, $3200 a week more than covers your costs and leaves you with a healthy profit.

Let's discuss the house edge, which is another issue associated with running your own casino. When we discuss a casino, we typically refer to a venue where casino games are played. These games all offer payouts that are lower than what they actually offer.

The house edge makes a difference. It is described in percentage form.

The long-term anticipation is the house edge. We are discussing almost an endless number of wagers. However, a casino with a respectable number of patrons gets closer to that long-term goal considerably more quickly than a single player of those casino games.

Because of this, casinos can keep drawing patrons. Players may succeed in the near term.

However, in the long term, casinos always prevail.

You wish to pursue a career in gambling.

possess a casino.

This is an illustration of the house edge:

The American roulette wheel has 38 numbers on it. 18 of them are red, and 18 are black. There are 2 green ones.

If you wager on black, you will receive an even-money payout. But your chances of winning are not even close to 50/50.

There are 20 potential losing scenarios and 18 possible victory scenarios. There are 38 different outcomes that could occur. Your chances of winning therefore are 18/38, or 9/19.

This indicates that there is a 47.37 percent possibility of winning that wager. The likelihood of failing is 52.63%.

Let's say you made 100 wagers and got mathematically accurate results. You would have won $47.37 and lost $52.63 if you had wagered $1 per wager. You would incur a net loss of $5.26.

And it represents the 5.26 percent house advantage in roulette.

Although the house edge changes from game to game at a casino, the house always holds the advantage. (There are few exceptions, which I discuss in more detail below.)

5. Learn How to Cheat

The riskiest professional gambling strategy on the list may be this one. Actually, I don't advise it, but it is a choice. Anything that alters the rules of the game to give you an unfair advantage is considered cheating.

Here's an illustration:

Your fingernails are long and pointed. You are engaged in poker. Some cards include backs that you can mark with your fingernails.

Now you are aware of the cards that your rivals may possess. Compared to the other players, you have an edge. Additionally, it is unfair because you altered the contest's terms without their knowledge or approval.

In some poker games, if you're caught doing this, you might get shot or at least severely beaten. Your money will also be taken by the shooter or the butt kicker, so there will be no gain overall.

There are additional ways to engage in gaming fraud. Past posting is one common method of cheating. That simply entails adding more money to your wager after you have already determined its outcome. It's quite impossible to get away with, and if you are, you risk being detained and charged with a crime.

If you're a card mechanic, you can do countless card tricks. Without the subjects' knowledge, you can deal with anybody you choose with the cards. This can undoubtedly give you a significant advantage.

You can use loaded dice when playing craps. Once more, this alters the circumstances so that the game of chance is no longer equitable.

A boxer may be bribed to jump rope. This is another approach to alter a bet's terms and give yourself an unfair edge. By the way, such technique is frequently used in movies, particularly in film noir.

The games of slot machines have also been rigged in favor of cheaters using a variety of techniques.

However, advantage gambling is NOT the same as cheating.

6. Card Counting

The most popular strategy for playing to your advantage is card counting in blackjack. Advantage gambling simply refers to the employment of legal strategies to skew the odds in your favor rather than the house. Even while the casino attempts to imply as much, counting cards generally merely entails thinking about the game while you're playing, so it's difficult to call it "cheating."

In the blackjack area of this website, there are lengthy articles discussing card counting, but I'll also explain it briefly here. I'll presume you have very little knowledge of the game.

In order to beat the dealer's tally when playing blackjack, you must get as near to 21 as you can without going over. You are first dealt two cards. Except for the ace and the face cards, each card is worth its face value. Depending on your preference, the ace is worth 1 or 11. The value of the face cards is 10.

A "natural" or "blackjack" is a hand in which you win a 3 to 2 payment on your wager. Therefore, if you wager $100 on a hand and are dealt a natural, you win $150 right away.

Where counting cards can provide you an advantage is in the bonus payout for that hand. Blackjack has a memory, unlike the majority of gambling games. What I mean is this:

The number of locations on the roulette wheel stays the same after a ball has landed on a specific spot during a spin. You had a 1/38 chance of selecting any certain number out of the 38 positions. The odds are the same—1/38—for the subsequent spin.

But in blackjack, the odds vary each time a card is dealt.

There is also a simple method to comprehend this.

To get a natural, you need to be dealt an ace. Once all the aces have been dealt and you're using a single deck, it's impossible to reach a two-card total of 21.

On the other hand, your chances of getting dealt a natural card improve if the deck has a relatively high proportion of 10s and aces to lower cards. You have a higher chance of receiving that 3 to 2 reward as a result.

And card counters actually carry out that action. They keep note of the proportion of high cards to low cards, and when there are many high cards in the deck, they increase their stakes to take advantage of the additional earnings.

Blackjack often has an edge of between 0.5 percent and 1 percent, so it doesn't take much luck with the odds to make the game more profitable for the player. You can increase your odds against the casino to the point where you have a 0.5 percent to 1 percent edge by betting the least when the deck is not in your favor and much more when it is.

In the short term, this has little significance. Even when the chances are in your favor, you can still easily lose a lot of money. However, if you play for a lifetime, you will ultimately make money.

Calculating the anticipated profit is also simple. You just increase the number of wagers you place each hour by your edge over the house. You increase that by the typical wager size.

Here's an illustration:

You are playing at a table where 50 hands are dealt to you each hour. You wager, on average, $100 on each hand, which amounts to $5000 each hour. If you have a 1% advantage over the casino, you can anticipate winning, on average, $50 per hour over the long run.

By the way, that's not a fantastic livelihood. If you play 40 hours each week, you'll make almost $100,000 a year. But I'm not aware of any blackjack players who play for that long a period of time. In reality, I don't know many people who would actually WANT to engage in any form of a card game for that long (except poker, maybe).

Avoiding the wrath of the casinos requires spending that much time at the blackjack table. The phrase "heat" simply refers to a casino's efforts to prevent card counters from working. They reserve the right to bar you from participating in blackjack. Sometimes they may completely exclude players from a casino.

Most card counters spend an hour or less at each table in order to prevent getting too hot. Additionally, they restrict their weekly casino gambling to one or two visits. Additionally, they steer clear of working the same shifts at the casino.

This makes working 40 hours each week more difficult.

Working in teams is one method card counters can increase their income. They employ a variety of strategies to stay out of the casino's crosshairs. The "big player" tactic is one illustration.

The majority of card counters adjust their bets in accordance with the count. That gives the casino a clear indication that you are an advantage player. However, there are occasionally blackjack teams with a player that makes flat bets the entire time he plays, regardless of the count.

But he alerts the "big player" when the count becomes significantly positive. This player is behaving inebriated as he wanders the casino floor (and rich). He approaches the table where the count is in his favor and places a sizable wager as soon as he notices this signal. The greater likelihood of a blackjack on this huge wager offers the entire team an advantage.

And it's just one sophisticated method that card counting teams employ to outsmart casinos. Professional blackjack players can utilize a variety of strategies, such as shuffle tracking and dealer tells, to gain an advantage over the house.

7. Be a Pro at Video Poker

One of my favorite casino games is video poker. Although it appears to be a slot machine, the games inside are very different. This is why:

Both games require you to arrange a line of randomly produced symbols on a computer screen. These symbols in slot machine games could be anything, although they are frequently fruit, bars, playing cards, or novelty symbols related to the game's theme. They are always playing cards in video poker.

The key distinction is that you cannot predict your chances of getting a specific symbol when playing a slot machine game. You are aware of the payouts for each combination, but you cannot assess the house's advantage over you without knowing the chances of acquiring those combinations.

However, the chances of receiving each symbol in a video poker game are the same as they would be if you were using a genuine 52-card deck of cards. (If you're participating in a game with a joker, the deck may have 53 cards.) This helps you out by allowing you to figure out the game's payback percentage.

Okay, I've taught you another new word today. The opposite of the house edge is the "payback percentage," which is used to characterize gaming machines. The amount a game is anticipated to pay back over time can be calculated by deducting the house edge from 100%.

The payback percentage, for instance, is 96 percent if you're playing a slot machine game with a 4 percent house edge. Of course, the ONLY game in the casino where you are unsure of the house edge is the slot machines.

But that's the primary distinction between video poker and slots. By comparing the payouts for each combination (or, in poker words, each "hand") to the chances of getting each hand, you may determine the payback percentage and house advantage of a video poker game.

Here is the other significant distinction:

You don't actually make any important judgments when playing a slot machine game. You stake your money, let the reels spin, and cross your fingers. However, after receiving your five cards in a video poker game, you must choose which cards to "keep." Your new cards are then dealt with by the computer.

This implies that any hand can be played in a fashion that is correct mathematically. Your objective is to increase your anticipated return on each hand.

An illustration of how you might have to compare alternatives in a video poker game is as follows:

Imagine that you are handed a hand with the ace, king, queen, and jack, all of which are in the suit of hearts. The jack of spades is the fifth card you hold in your hand.

There are so two significant possibilities available to you. One of them is in charge of holding the two jacks. That is a guaranteed win after all, but it only offers even odds. You essentially have a 100% chance of receiving a payout of 1 coin. (In this example, I'm using a typical Jacks or Better pay table.)

You might alternatively toss the jack of spades and attempt to get a 10 of hearts. The highest paying hand in the game is a royal flush, which you obtain if you get the ten of hearts. Actually, the odds are 800 to 1. However, there is only one card in the deck that can help you create that hand.

Which option is wiser?

The payment is multiplied by the chance of winning the wager to determine the expected value of a decision.

We already talked about how there is a 1 coin anticipated value and a 100% chance of winning 1 coin.

But first, we need to consider the likelihood of getting a royal flush. The chances are not good. However, we can calculate it precisely.

There is only one possible result for you. But the total number of outcomes is 47. Therefore, your chances of acquiring the card you want are 1 in 477, or roughly 2 percent. The estimated value of 16 coins is equal to a 2% chance of earning an 800 coin reward.

Even though you will miss your hand 98% of the time, you would want to draw for the royal flush because 16 coins are preferable to 1.

This method of determining which choice is superior is incredibly simplistic, as astute readers may observe. Depending on the decision you made, you might also hit a straight, a flush, a full house, three of a kind, four of a kind, or a full house.

However, you get the gist.

You can treat video poker very similarly to blackjack because you can figure out the payback percentage and the right move. There are strategies for beating the house even though the game has a low house edge.

One strategy is to simply stay with very strong pay tables. You can obtain a payback percentage of 100.76 percent if you can discover a "full pay" Deuces Wild video poker game and play it perfectly. That is a 0.76 percent advantage over the house. That is similar to what blackjack players manage to do.

The greatest conceivable variation of video poker, or the one with the highest payback percentage, is called a "full pay" pay table. Less ideal pay tables can be found at different casinos and on different machines within the same casino. They actually frequently do.)

The issue with concentrating on full pay Deuces Wild is as follows:

This game is only offered in a very small number of casinos around the nation. The majority of them are located on Las Vegas' Boulder Strip. Additionally, only low limits are offered for the games.

How much money could you earn professionally playing Deuces Wild at full pay?

In video poker, you always bet 5 coins per hand, therefore you're looking at a $1.25 wager per hand. If you play fairly quickly, you can play 600 hands in an hour. That amounts to $750 per hour of work.

If you win 0.76 percent of that over a long period of time, your profits would amount to an average of $5.70 every hour. Not even minimum pay, that.

However, the majority of video poker players combine games with a little expectation of loss with other elements to raise their overall payback percentage to above 100%.

Here is an illustration of that:

A 99.54 percent payback percentage Jacks or Better game can be played by one participant. But because he also belongs to the casino's rewards program, he receives 0.2% back.

That, though, still does not inspire hope. He is nonetheless engaging in a casino game with a house edge, albeit a negligible 0.26 percent one.

However, this player makes the decision to limit her play to the triple point promotions. She is now receiving 0.6 percent. She has a slight advantage over the house as a result, but since she is retired, she views this as a chance to gamble for free and win nice prizes while on vacation.

She can also wager more money when playing. Both dollar and $5 machines are available in this casino. She is able to wager $25 per hand. Action costing $15,000 per hour. She has a very little advantage over the casino—less than 0.1 percent—but she still earns more every hour—$15 instead of $5.70.

The true masters of video poker wait until the progressive jackpot reaches a size where the player has a very high edge. The house edge decreases as the progressive jackpot increases. There comes a point where the odds are so low that they actually work in the players' favor.

When this occurs, clubs that have an advantage in gambling hold out every seat for certain games. Someone else on the squad will fill in for them when they need a break. The team divides the winnings after the jackpot is ultimately hit.

8. Improve Professional Poker Skills

Short of having your own casino, betting on sports and playing poker are probably the best ways to make a living off of gambling. That's because, at least in comparison to the other possibilities on this list, these 2 methods are both lucrative and comparatively simple to get started in.

However, winning at poker over the long term is more difficult than you may imagine. And if you're playing Texas hold'em, which you probably will because it's the most played poker variation right now, you're up against a significant amount of luck. In reality, many hold'em players have winning streaks despite their poor performance. They experience severe disappointment once their long-term expectations take hold.

Poker is challenging to win since, in the majority of cases, you have to outperform your opponents not just directly but also by a specific margin. The majority of cardrooms take 5% of each pot. Therefore, in addition to being better than the other players, you must also be far enough ahead of them to more than make up for the 5 percent.

The majority of the professional poker literature I've read advises that you gauge your hourly rate in poker in terms of large bets won. When discussing the game's limits, the huge bet is the number that comes after the /. For instance, if you play in a $5/$10 limit game, your profits are expressed as $10 per hour.

One or two large bets every hour can be expected to win over the long term for a poker professional. However, if you only play online, you can boost that multiplier by playing more hands every hour and by simultaneously playing at more than one table.

You can win four big bets each hour if you're skilled enough to win one big bet per hour and manage to play four tables simultaneously.

Let's say you need to make at least $10,000 each month in order to live comfortably. If $5/$10 hold'em is your specialty, you must be able to win 1000 huge bets per month. 250 hours of gaming every month at 4 large bets per hour. That's a little more than 60 hours of play per week.

The majority of poker players cannot sustain any form of quality of life when playing for 60 hours each week. You must therefore consider strategies to raise your hourly wage.

To achieve this, play many tables simultaneously.

You can achieve this by boosting your hourly win rate.

Playing for larger stakes is one way to do this.

Let's imagine you can make each of these things 50 percent more important. You are now managing six tables at once. You can play for $7.50 or $15. And each hour, you're winning 1.5 large bets.

Right now, you're making about $135 per hour. You must play for 74 hours each month in order to earn $10,000 per month. That's a little more reasonable because it's less than 20 hours per week.

All of these figures are also not exact. Over time, your hourly wage will increase and decrease. Both better and poorer competitors will be present. You might play more or fewer hours every month depending on how much energy you have that month.

Based on changes in your bankroll, you might adjust your stakes. It may be necessary for you to remain at a particular level before going ahead because the competition may get significantly tougher at one level compared to another. It's possible that you'll never improve enough to advance to the following level.

By the way, no limit players use ROI to gauge their progress (return on investment). They consider the amount of money they are investing each hour and the proportion of it they anticipate winning. Furthermore, their financial volatility is greater. However, their prospective earnings are greater.

Return on investment is another important metric for tournament competitors. Even if you only win 20% of the events you enter, you will still earn enough money from those to cover your losses and more.

You might be able to take home the World Series of Poker Main Event if you're exceptionally talented and really fortunate. If you succeed, you'll be able to support yourself for the rest of your life. But even the best players are aware that winning that competition is comparable to winning the lottery.

This is why:

Consider a scenario in which you are three times as skilled as the typical World Series of Poker participant. The entrance cost for this competition is $10,000. Anyone who made it to the final 9 got at least $1 million, with the highest prize in 2015 being $7.7 million.

If you were playing against opponents who are all equally skilled at poker and no better, your chances of winning first place are 1 in 6420. Your chances of taking first place, however, are 1 in 2140 because you are three times as good as any of them.

Although it's still unlikely, that's not quite as unlikely as winning the lottery.

Additionally, you still stand a strong chance of making it to the last 9. Given that you are three times as good as the typical player, the odds of it happening are 9 in 6420, or 27 in 6420. On your $10,000 entry fee, you have a 1 in 238 chance of winning a million dollars.

In this case, your chances of winning anything at all or at the very least receiving your registration fee refunded are actually quite good. The top 1000 positions, or 1000 out of 6420, or nearly 1 in 6.4, received payouts. You have a nearly 50% probability of placing in the money and making at least a little profit if you are three times better than your competitors.

But here's the catch:

It takes a lot of time, work, talent, and intelligence to get to the point where you're that much better than the typical player at those stakes.

Despite not being a physical activity, poker can be seen as a sport. While some people are naturally gifted athletes, others lack the necessary skills to succeed.

Consider it like this:

You probably won't ever be as excellent a quarterback as Peyton Manning, no matter how hard you practice. He simply has more talent at birth than you do. (And I'm sorry to anyone who is the exception to the rule reading this, but what are the chances of that?)

For poker, the same might be true. No matter how hard they prepare, many players will never be talented enough to contend with players like Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, or Daniel Negreanu.

This does not imply that you should forego competing in the World Series of Poker Main Event. Still, it's a game of luck. You still have a chance to win even if you're just half as good as the other players. Simply said, your odds are 1 in 12,000 as opposed to 1 in 6000.

How can one become skilled at poker?

Practice, practice, practice is how you get to Carnegie Hall.

I advise starting out by playing some of the free games available online. Read an introductory book on the game you are most interested in, which is probably Texas hold'em since that is where the action is.

Start playing games with real money as soon as you can. Even when only a small amount of money is at stake, how people play varies greatly. Better hands are winning the pots in even $0.01/$0.02 games, and more players are folding.

You can raise the stakes when you begin to routinely win. As soon as you have enough money in your account to play at the next level without running out of money, you should raise the stakes.

Also, read several pieces of literature about the game. Some of the better ones are The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky, Small Stakes Holdem by Ed Miller, and Super/System, which was edited (and partially written) by Doyle Brunson. The Theory of Poker is actually required reading for anyone who is serious about learning how to consistently win at the game.

9. Take Part in Daily Fantasy Sports

Many of the individuals involved in the online poker sector were responsible for the creation of daily fantasy sports. The passage of the UIGEA directly contributed to the release of these games (The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act). There was a particular exemption for fantasy sports in the law. In order to abbreviate the duration of the fantasy sports competitions and treat them similarly to poker tournaments in terms of buy-ins and payment structures, the poker industry titans put their heads together.

Sports-savvy athletes are able to assemble teams that have a higher chance of success. You can turn a profit playing daily fantasy sports if you can consistently outperform the other players and cover the vig or rake.

Naturally, I should describe how the vig in fantasy sports operates. If you've played poker online before, you're probably already accustomed to the format.

You must pay an entrance fee into a daily fantasy sports league of around $10 + $1 or $20 + $2. Your contribution to the prize fund is shown by the first number. You pay a charge to the house represented by the second number. If there are 10 participants in a $10 + $1 event, the total prize money is $100. The home receives the remaining $10 in admission costs.

You need to be able to win frequently enough to offset the extra emotions in order to generate a profit from daily fantasy sports. The justifications ought to be clear.

Let's say you perform equally well in a daily fantasy game as everyone else. If there were ten competitors, you would be predicted to win once in every ten games. As a result, you would win $100 over 10 contests, or $10 each. However, you would still have lost $10 in entry fees.

However, even though you would have earned $200 if you had won twice, you would still have had to pay the $10 registration fee.

Therefore, you are more likely to be able to beat the vig the better your chances of winning are relative to those of the other players.

Winning these daily fantasy sports tournaments involves several complicated steps. You must choose between the 50/50 tournaments and the ones with large prize pools as your preferred tournament type. Each type of competition rewards a different strategy.

When participating in 50/50 tournaments, often known as "cash games," your goal is to reduce volatility. You want trustworthy players. A balanced team that you're confident will outperform the typical team is what you're after, but they don't have to outperform the team significantly.

In this kind of competition, the top half of the field is compensated. Therefore, earning the most points won't get you any more money than finishing 49th or 50th in a tournament with 100 participants. So instead of building a fantasy squad with a 35% chance of earning 180 points, you want one with an 80% chance of getting 120 points.

A tournament is the other kind of daily fantasy sports competition in which you can take part. The top competitors in this kind of content are compensated extra according to their finishes. For instance, the prize pool could include 30% of the money awarded to the event winner. Second place could receive 20%. The remaining top 18 players out of 100 may receive them.

Go big or go home in this situation. You must accept volatility. Additionally, you must a squad that has the ability to score more points than any other team. You would much rather have the side that has a 30% chance of scoring 180 points in this situation.

On this page of the website, you can get additional information about how to succeed in fantasy sports.

10. Place Sports Bets

A skilled sports bettor has the potential to earn more money than any other type of gambler, according to the authors of the book How to Make $100,000 a Year Gambling. Of course, you have to be able to win frequently enough to outpace the vig if you wish to succeed on this side of the equation. In order to break even, you must win at least 52% of your bets. Your ROI rises by every percentage point that you can make your winning percentage.

Let's take a moment to examine the arithmetic underlying that:

You bet $110 on each game in a string of 100 consecutive sports wagers, winning 55% of them. You win $5500, or 55 times $100. You lose $4950, or 45 times $110. $5500 minus $4950 is your profit, or $550.

The majority of sports bettors use ROI to gauge their success (return on investment). You figure that out by dividing your winnings (or loses; a negative ROI is possible) by the sum of the bets you made.

With a winning rate of 55% in this instance, you made $550 off of an investment of $11,000. That is a 5.5 percent ROI, which although it may seem low, is actually rather good. A lot of folks are content to see that kind of return each year. In fact, it's rare these days to locate a savings account that pays 1% annually.

This ROI might be compared to interest in your investment. Compound interest, which means that you are earning money depending on the new sum, comes to mind while discussing interest.

This is how it functions:

Over the course of a month, you wager $11,000. You can wager $11,550 next month, thus you are doing so at a rate of $115.50 each game. Your odds of winning have increased a little bit lately. (Even though that's how the ratio of your winnings is calculated, you don't have to wager in multiples of $110 to participate.) Your loss for this month is $5197.50. winning $5,775. This month, you made $577.50 in profit.

According to the rule of 72, you may calculate how long it will take you to double your money by dividing the interest rate you are currently getting by 72. Every 13.1 periods, your money will double if you are earning 5.5 percent on it. So your bankroll will rise to $22,000 in just over a year.

Your earnings will increase by a factor of two now that you have a bankroll that is two times larger than it was the year before. Your monthly profit has increased from $550 to $1100.

Additionally, you might earn more money each month if you start with a bigger bankroll. Let's imagine you can work with $110,000 each month as opposed to $11,000. You make $5,000 every month, which is enough to support yourself. And you can increase it to $10,000 per month in a year, which is a respectable living by most standards.

But how do you get competent enough to win with a 55 percent success rate? After all, the sports books' in-house handicappers are professionals. Their lines will be as exact as you can possibly conceive.

You can search for trends to take advantage of, but these patterns are transient. Think of sports betting as a marketplace. The market becomes more effective as it ages. As a result, betting strategies from yesterday won't be effective today.

Betting against the public, sometimes known as "fading the public," is a strategy that has shown to be effective over time.

How does that function?

You keep an eye out for line adjustments. When the line shifts, it shows that most people are placing big bets in one direction. To encourage action on the opposing side of the event, the sports books adjust the lines. Betting against the crowd is a positive EV move if the original line was accurate, which it generally is.

Because the general public doesn't actually know what it's doing, it's always a good idea to wager against it. Therefore, place your bet on the side where the line is improving if it is improving on one side.

Here's an illustration:

The Cowboys are a 7-point favorite over the Redskins in this NFL game. The Cowboys receive 70% of the wagers placed by bookies, while the Redskins receive 30% of the wagers. They want to increase their Redskins wagering revenue.

The Cowboys are now a 7.5 point favorite according to the oddsmakers. You should bet on the Redskins based on the movement of the line. To get the money even on both sides, the line frequently needs to move numerous times. Every time the line moves, the sharps I know place a larger wager. (A sports bettor who is "sharp" wins more often than he loses because they are knowledgeable.)

One strategy for gaining a competitive edge in sports betting is to deceive the audience. Another strategy to gain an advantage is to keep up with the news more closely than your rivals. You can also gain an advantage by learning information that could impact a game's outcome earlier than the broader public. The point spreads will change as a result of the new knowledge, but since you placed your wager beforehand, you'll have an advantage.

Conclusion

Being a professional gambler is not the easiest job in the world. Neither is it nearly as glamorous or thrilling as you might imagine. But you can do it, especially if you're ready to put in a lot of effort.

You should start by being familiar with the mathematics of gambling and probability. Create the discipline necessary to define and attain your financial goals after that. You cannot be a successful professional gambler if those 2 conditions are not met.

The next step is to choose the strategy you wish to use while gambling for a living. The ten ideas on this page are not your only options. There may be other strategies you might devise to gain an advantage. In actuality, discovering a reliable mathematical advantage is the only way to consistently turn a profit. Once you've done that, all that's left to do is be methodical in your approach.