[LearnedfromTV]

warrant's analogy is flawed.

It may be true that poker players reach a ceiling above which they can't effectively use their bankroll (rolled for one level, have excess cash that they can't use to play the next level responsibly, because their edge there is too small is doesn't exist). But those players should simply find their level, play for income, and invest the excess in a market where they don't have that problem. After all, the poker "ceiling" is much lower than the stock market "ceiling." Or, stop playing for income at all, if the money you make elsewhere makes your max poker hourly seem a waste of time. Furthermore, even if an investor cannot find a way around the big-capital problem, at minimum he can earn the risk-free rate, which hardly equals going broke.

Poker players go bust for all the reasons others listed: they play too high due to ego, overestimating their edge, having too much gamble; and/or they have poor money management outside of their bankroll, including bad investments, too much spending, too much pit gambling. But it isn't because their bankroll gets so large that are forced to play with too thin of an edge - believing this is the case assumes that the goal is to perpetually move up; in finance this can be a real problem, because your available investment capital is by definition your entire net worth, and if that amount is too large you run into problems maintaining your roi; in poker you just divert the excess.