An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

So I was thinking about this on a long drive the other day. When, if ever, has their ever been an outlet even remotely as lucrative for 18+ year old kids (and sometimes younger) as online poker is right now? What effects do we think that the opportunity for a fairly large group of youngsters to win/lose fairly large sums of money in a short amount of time will have on this generation short term/long term if any? How many of said prodigies can we suppose will make the most of their winnings? Squander them? I think it will be a VERY interesting dynamic going forward for the next 10-15 years+

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

I think another questions that can be asked is if the success is sustainable.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

You missed the dot com boom.

Edit: The thing I've learned about money is that if it's easy come, then it's easy go. It might be different with other young adults but I doubt it. It is also hard for them to use that money to create opportunities for more moneys. The reason is simple. Most of them want baller status by shopping for expensive items. Now, there's nothing wrong w/ spending lavishly. It's your money; you can do whatever you want with them. You can even light your cigars with them and post in BBV. More props to you.

Obviously there are those out there that will take their poker winnings and rape the world but this group is small. Again, the reason is simple. Most do not recognize that to create wealth, one must use other means beside self as a vehicle to accumulate income. As a poker player, you can only do so much.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
You missed the dot com boom.

[/ QUOTE ]
The difference is that the ability to be able to grind up $20-$50 into hundreds of thousands was much more of a struggle when investing in dot coms then it is in the online poker boom.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You missed the dot com boom.

[/ QUOTE ]
The difference there is that to be able to grind up $20-$50 into hundreds of thousands was much more of a struggle, inability in that then it has been in the online poker boom.

[/ QUOTE ]
Can you rephrase the sentence?

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You missed the dot com boom.

[/ QUOTE ]
The difference is that the ability to be able to grind up $20-$50 into hundreds of thousands was much more of a struggle when investing in dot coms then it is in the online poker boom.

[/ QUOTE ]
Can you rephrase the sentence?

[/ QUOTE ]
Haha wow. I am super tired sorry for that.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

My uncle made it rich trading commodities back in the momentum days, he was 19 when he made his first $100 000.

Athletes in sport also do pretty well.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

Prostitution?

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
My uncle made it rich trading commodities back in the momentum days, he was 19 when he made his first $100 000.

Athletes in sport also do pretty well.

[/ QUOTE ]Do you know how much money he had to start with?

OP,
If you were wondering how this will impact "the generation," I believe the answer is almost not at all. How many people will end up with lasting and deep impacting implications from poker? Well, very few play at any kind of volume or seriousness. It will impact fewer still as only a percentage of the above group will A)continue, or leverage their new money so that they don't rely on a traditional path or B)learn and apply lessons learned from a poker past significantly.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
My uncle made it rich trading commodities back in the momentum days, he was 19 when he made his first $100 000.

Athletes in sport also do pretty well.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

In my opinion, trading is almost exactly like poker, whereas the others suggested (athletes, dotcom) have some major differences. I can see how at first glance trading might not seem like it's the same thing as online poker, but as someone in the industry, trust me, it is:

1. Requires no degrees or any formal education - just your own smarts and figuring stuff out.

2. Very, very much a "start with $50, and if you're good/lucky enough, you can be worth 5m+ in 3 years"

3. Just as accessible as online poker, if not more so. If anything, you could say it is more accessible, b/c there is (like a million times) more money flowing around in the trading world.

4. You can go to work on any given day and lose a bunch of money (unlike pro athletes); also, the market/game could change at any given time such that what you're doing now is no longer profitable (but if you're a good trader/poker player, you'll be able to adapt)


That's all I can think of offhand. Oh and just to attach an amusing example to these points: one of the most successful traders at my firm was a high school dropout who started trading when he was like 18, made a boatload of money (well into 8 figures) in a couple years, and then quit. I have no idea what he's up to now. Talk about teenagers and money!

-bigbootch

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

Bah, there have always been "get rich quick schemes". Some of them work for a short time, some of them work only for a few people. The same "dangers" of youth have always existed. Some people make easy money and don't learn soon enough it's not really that easy. There are a lot of rich and not-so-talented "dot commers" out there, for example.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
You missed the dot com boom.


[/ QUOTE ]

And the housing boom. A huge number of 18-25 year olds became mortgage brokers / real estate agents and just raked in cash during the good times. An aggressive broker with no morals could kill in a hot market.

J

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

Isn't the really easy answer to this question "2 years ago?"

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

Poker is / was a unprecedented opportunity for 18-22 year olds to a)make lots of money AND b)accumulate an amount of wisdom within a few years it takes most people decades to reach. Future financial success will depend on one's focus on B rather than A, because a focus on B is simply a longer path to A, while a focus on A while disregarding B is a path to financially spoiled ruin, regardless to how much money was made.

In other words, its all about what you learned, partially because the people who are in the top echelon of "accumulated wisdom" are by defualt successful enough financially where the difference between their networth and that of the top top "financial" echelon is not going to be important in the long-term.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

Jurollo,

online poker can be (not IS) a very lucrative outlet for young teenagers, but this phenomenon does not apply to the masses...the number of online teenagers devoting hours to multi-tabling online can't be higher than the number of teenagers participating in other extraciricular activities


you ask,[ QUOTE ]
How many of said prodigies can we suppose will make the most of their winnings?

[/ QUOTE ]

when I think we should be asking, "how many prodigies will actually win with some sort of consistency?"


you're only young once, you never get those precious years back...that enjoyment that comes with being a teenager does not include sitting behind 2 flat screen monitors grinding while the years you'll miss the most pass you by...

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]

you're only young once, you never get those precious years back...that enjoyment that comes with being a teenager does not include sitting behind 2 flat screen monitors grinding

[/ QUOTE ]

speak for yourself sir!

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
So I was thinking about this on a long drive the other day. When, if ever, has their ever been an outlet even remotely as lucrative for 18+ year old kids (and sometimes younger) as online poker is right now? What effects do we think that the opportunity for a fairly large group of youngsters to win/lose fairly large sums of money in a short amount of time will have on this generation short term/long term if any? How many of said prodigies can we suppose will make the most of their winnings? Squander them? I think it will be a VERY interesting dynamic going forward for the next 10-15 years+

[/ QUOTE ]

Curious - anyone have any numbers on this?

Also, I think it would be interesting to read some kind of research on this specific group of people. The online poker opportunity is markedly different from securities trading, dot-com, and real estate, imo.

-Al

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

you're only young once, you never get those precious years back...that enjoyment that comes with being a teenager does not include sitting behind 2 flat screen monitors grinding

[/ QUOTE ]



[/ QUOTE ]

do you think people like grimmstarr et. al would be out tree-climbing and living life to its fullest if they didn't play poker? The people who gravitate towards poker in the first place are the ones who would be playing (more) videogames instead.

I know when I was in highschool in suburbia all we basically did was watch movies, play video games, smoke up, drink a bit, etc.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

I would think selling drugs would be the only fair comparison. It seems so much more common for a teenager to become a self-made millionaire through poker than anything other than drug dealing, or baseball, basketball and soccer. The athletes should be a fair comparison as well, since only the top .0001% of them make millions, which is probably pretty close to the amount of millionaire teenage poker players.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

There's probably more rich teenagers from Premier League alone than from poker. OTOH, there's a lot of young kids swinging significant money up/down even if they're break-even or losing players.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

I think a lot of people will have amazing stories to tell ten years from now, and not much else - many professional poker players included.

A lot of players will have debts and drug addictions that will take years to recover from.

Very few will be able to sustain the comfortable living that they are enjoying now.

It is possible that the success will be prolonged with legislation, or legalization in Asian countries, but even then, the games will dry up again.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
My uncle made it rich trading commodities back in the momentum days, he was 19 when he made his first $100 000.

Athletes in sport also do pretty well.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah but those are the guys at the top of the heap. some guy who is on a competitive c grade basketball team doesn't make [censored], whereas 15 year old 200NLers can pull in 15-20K a month without even really being that good at all.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
yeah but those are the guys at the top of the heap. some guy who is on a competitive c grade basketball team doesn't make [censored], whereas 15 year old 200NLers can pull in 15-20K a month without even really being that good at all.

[/ QUOTE ]
lol no. "Not very good" = losing player, guaranteed.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think a lot of people will have amazing stories to tell ten years from now, and not much else - many professional poker players included.

A lot of players will have debts and drug addictions that will take years to recover from.

Very few will be able to sustain the comfortable living that they are enjoying now.

It is possible that the success will be prolonged with legislation, or legalization in Asian countries, but even then, the games will dry up again.

[/ QUOTE ]


I think this is exactly right, and it makes me sad. I also have concerns about the psychological impact of the lifestyles and habits that are being formulated during these young adult years.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]

lol no. "Not very good" = losing player, guaranteed.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok, by not very good i meant in comparison to a truly great player, like how i made the sports analogy. some guy who is a solid c grade athlete doesn't make anything, whereas a solid c grade poker player easily makes 6 figures/yr. of course he still has to be better than the other c grade players but he gets to that level by just caring about the game more than the other c grade players, he doesn't need any god given talent.

and my overall point was that you can't really compare athletes/stockbrokers making a lot of money at a relatively young age to the poker phenomenon, because poker is a lot less exclusive. the potential societal effect isn't really cos of the couple of hundred guys at the top making millions. it's more to do with the 50,000 guys noone has ever heard of winning and then donating back considerable 5 figure sums often before they have ever had a fulltime job (or had sex!), and what a bizarre situation that really is.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

seabeast,
poker actually isn't a lot less exclusive than becoming a stockbroker/hotshot young lawyer/etc. Sure, the path to the top is less "traditional" in the sense of going to good name-brand schools, etc. But it's really relatively few folks. There are probably far fewer than 50,000 young folks making 6 figures playing poker. Even if you grant that there are, 50,000 people worldwide is way less than the number of people who make $150k+ before the age of 25. My sister for example just graduated law school, did well but not spectacular, and will be making $200k next year at the age of 24. She is not all that uncommon -- certainly there are far far more than 50,000 folks in the world who achieve this sort of success. Poker is just a drop in the bucket.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

i can see your point for sure, but 24 after graduation and initiation to the real world is different to 15-18 and not being able to wait to be legal in vegas so you can go and dump money being a balla with all the other cool kids.

i don't even mean that "omg people are making so much money and going to be so rich". i mean that they have access to so much and are taking it for granted and throwing it away, and it won't last forever and is really a bizarre situation.

like with the 200NL thing, i didnt mean half decent 200NL grinders actually ARE sitting there making 6 figures a year. just that they easily COULD be, without even needing any sort of intellectual brilliance, just the discipline to not piss it away... and that collectively the majority of us will look back on the situation and think w t f

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

"My sister for example just graduated law school, did well but not spectacular, and will be making $200k next year at the age of 24."

how do you graduate law school at 24? thats kool though, everyone talks about lawyers being unemployed.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
I would think selling drugs would be the only fair comparison. It seems so much more common for a teenager to become a self-made millionaire through poker than anything other than drug dealing, or baseball, basketball and soccer. The athletes should be a fair comparison as well, since only the top .0001% of them make millions, which is probably pretty close to the amount of millionaire teenage poker players.

[/ QUOTE ]
a serious difference here is that just about anyone who aced their math SATS could make a lot of money playing poker. most people never pick it up because they are scared of risk or never fully understand it, but i'm guessing anyone who graduates with a degree in electrical engineering could be a winning player. its much harder to make it in pro sports than it is in pro poker.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

As someone who knows some of the teenage young poker players personally and others by word of mouth from the ones I do know I will say the following. A lot of the "balla" stuff has really calmed down in the last 6 months or year. People spent wildly when they made the first 100 k or whatever it was but once the reality of decreased earning potential (relative to the party days, etc) and taxes and all that stuff took hold, a lot of us have started to think long term. I'm not sure how many of us really are investing well - but most if not all of the players I know who have been around for 2-3 years are semi-intelligent with their money and are thinking about the future. In a sense, natural selection has already rid the poker world of a lot of the real degens who ran up big bankrolls and the rest of us are learning slowly but surely about the opportunity we had.

I remember I was in Paris for the WPT in summer 2006 and an old, friendly live poker pro who I think has been around for awhile told me something along the lines of "kid, you have the whole world in your hand. don't [censored] it up." It's stuck with me for a long time.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would think selling drugs would be the only fair comparison. It seems so much more common for a teenager to become a self-made millionaire through poker than anything other than drug dealing, or baseball, basketball and soccer. The athletes should be a fair comparison as well, since only the top .0001% of them make millions, which is probably pretty close to the amount of millionaire teenage poker players.

[/ QUOTE ]
a serious difference here is that just about anyone who aced their math SATS could make a lot of money playing poker. most people never pick it up because they are scared of risk or never fully understand it, but i'm guessing anyone who graduates with a degree in electrical engineering could be a winning player. its much harder to make it in pro sports than it is in pro poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think being real good at math is a big advantage for nl compared to people who are decent at math.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

How many online poker pros do you think make >100k/yr? I would wager less than 2k.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
How many online poker pros do you think make >100k/yr? I would wager less than 2k.

[/ QUOTE ]

Currently or have in the past?

The timeframe is sooo crucial, obviously the number is way higher if you go back to PP days.

Right now I think the number is a few hundred, maybe 1k.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
How many online poker pros do you think make >100k/yr? I would wager less than 2k.

[/ QUOTE ]Almost anybody could make >100k/yr if they really wanted to. Someone who could only beat $25NL for a modest winrate could make this much if they had no social life and were willing to grind 14 hrs/day. Most people here would call that stupid, but there are plenty of Americans working that many hours and not taking home anything close to what this grinder would make.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How many online poker pros do you think make >100k/yr? I would wager less than 2k.

[/ QUOTE ]
Almost anybody could make >100k/yr if they really wanted to. Someone who could only beat $25NL for a modest winrate could make this much if they had no social life and were willing to grind 14 hrs/day. Most people here would call that stupid, but there are plenty of Americans working that many hours and not taking home anything close to what this grinder would make.

[/ QUOTE ]
I have a lot of friends that want to make over 100k/year and would be willing to grind 14hrs/day. Can you show them how?

FWIW, I'm so sick of the line "I can do it if I wanted to." People who say this kind of lines NEVER want to do anything that requires effort and use that excuse for not accomplishing shiet. Here's the thing, effort and drive don't equate success; they improve your chances but they don't make guarantees. So unless you have showed long-term wise you can do something, please don't tilt me by saying "I could've done this, done that if I wanted to and really put my mind to it." I'll be the first to bust your bubble. No you f'ing can't until you show you can do it.

Ok,

/tilt.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

6ptbb/100 at 6-max $25NL = $3 * ~75hands/hr =$2.25/hr/table *8 tables = $18/hr. $18 * 14=$252/day * 360 days = ~$91k. I assume rakeback would put them over 100k but I don't feel like calculating that right now. If they can play 10 tables, get more hands per hour, or beat $50NL for anything more than 3bb/100, they can make over $100k from play alone. Obviously this would be insane and very difficult for anyone without a gun to their head to accomplish, but it is possible.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously this would be insane and very difficult for anyone without a gun to their head

[/ QUOTE ]

8 tabling 14 hours a day, I think after a few days I'd be begging the guy to pull the trigger.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

OP,

No, We are a group of lucky m*therf*ckers who happened to stumble on the 2p2 square during when it was raining donks.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
6ptbb/100 at 6-max $25NL = $3 * ~75hands/hr =$2.25/hr/table *8 tables = $18/hr. $18 * 14=$252/day * 360 days = ~$91k. I assume rakeback would put them over 100k but I don't feel like calculating that right now. If they can play 10 tables, get more hands per hour, or beat $50NL for anything more than 3bb/100, they can make over $100k from play alone. Obviously this would be insane and very difficult for anyone without a gun to their head to accomplish, but it is possible.

[/ QUOTE ]
If I spend less than what I make, I wouldn't have debt and my life wouldn't be miserable. What a concept! But living life that way isn't my cup of tea. I know I can do it though, if I put my mind to it. After all, anything is possible.

Re: An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker
 

I'm one of the 18 year old 200NL semi-pros who play to pay for college etc. I really wish I was a few years older and had access to the PartyPoker goldmine, but I was too young and probably wouldn't have handled myself well.

I certainly want to build as fast as I can while the games are still decent.