Percentage of online players who are profitable

[arkwon]

What percentage of online players do you believe or know to be profitable?
By profitable, I mean at least overcoming the rake.
Any opinion, secondary or primary information would be greatly appreciated.
thanks all

[South Pole]

My guess, and that's all it is, is less than 50% and maybe as low as 25%.
New players often get bonuses to overcome their lack of experience and mistakes. If you ignore this then I think 80% or more of new players will lose money in the first 3-6 months.

[Big_Ham]

I know in my local group of about 50, there are 5 maximum who keep their heads above water online. Our group is better than average, as most who enter our group for the first time havea VERY hard time adjusting. So I say our group as a whole is 3x better than average, so by that logic ... say, 3%?

Does that sound insanely low? The more I think about it, the more true it may be.

[runout_mick]

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Does that sound insanely low? The more I think about it, the more true it may be.

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The popular educated consensus is that only ~10% of all players are profitable in the long run. Of this 10%, many will be close to breakeven. Your 3% guess may be low, but not by too much.

[PJo336]

I remember reading somewhere before that it was around 5%

[jgca]

You need to define the terms of the ratio. Clearly you don't mean anyone who has been an overall winner, since many people come through these sites briefly and quit winners in the very short term. So let's say you mean theoretically winning poker.

Now, are you asking what percentage of all the people who have played even one hour have played theoretically winning poker in their games? Very, very, very low.

Of those who have played at least 10K hands? Well...

Winning players obviously get many more hands in per capita, from multitabling, playing many (job) hours rather than few (recreation) hours, and not going through bust cycles like big losers. Every hand has to have an average loss, so the number of winning players simply has to be extremely low. I guess it's theoretically possible that there are a minority of players who lose money at such a gigantic rate per hand that it balances many more hands played winningly, and who keep coming back for more. But for practical purposes this is completely unreasonable. And, of course, PokerTracker will back this up.

A much higher percentage of players could conceivably be profitable at live small stakes, even with the rakes, because many bad players end up playing as many hands as a typical winning player. That's the key factor.

[Gigglegirl]

According to my poker tracker stats which has 537,643 hands for 12,576 different players, 38.82% are winners and 61.18% are losers. This doesn't seem right to me but stats can lie.

I saw an executive for a poker site on TV saying that 80% lose, 20% win. Sounds more realistic to me.

[SweetPea]

You have to better define the term "winner".

If a guy plays 500k hands of $1/$2 in his life for profit, but has lost all that profit in 5k hands of $100/$200, is he a winner?

[Gigglegirl]

[ QUOTE ]
You have to better define the term "winner".

If a guy plays 500k hands of $1/$2 in his life for profit, but has lost all that profit in 5k hands of $100/$200, is he a winner?

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No. He's an idiot?

[PJo336]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have to better define the term "winner".

If a guy plays 500k hands of $1/$2 in his life for profit, but has lost all that profit in 5k hands of $100/$200, is he a winner?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. He's an idiot?

[/ QUOTE ]

haha