Number of Winners in Online Poker?

duffjr · #1 03-02-2007, 09:32 AM

Every time I play poker, I often think how many other players I'm playing against are consistent winners playing online. My first guess was about 50%, but then I realized it has to be much lower because I see new names more often than I see old names of which don't play as often or have lost their rolls. So can you help me out with the numbers or estimates? I'm guessing around 10% of online players can make a career out of it, but there are many who win a few hundred dollars every now and then and quit, those who play an occasional tournament and get lucky, etc.

Harv72b · #2 03-02-2007, 09:46 AM

The guess that's often thrown around is that about 10% are consistent (long term) winners. You have to realize that the majority of the consistent (long term) losers aren't regular players--they deposit $20 or $50 or whatever, lose it, maybe repeat a few (dozen) times, decide that online poker/that particular site is rigged, try another site, repeat the cycle, hit up players at high stakes tables/tournament tables for $5, make a few desperate last gasp attempts in donkaments, and eventually go back to scratch off tickets.

Turning Stone Pro · #3 03-02-2007, 10:10 AM

Back in the best days of online poker and 2+2 (yes, sadly those days have come and gone . . days long before Frist and Brandi), I believe there was a significant group of successful online limit players. A nice percentage of them were participants of 2+2, IMO.

With all of the blockades that have been put up in the face of US players, making it difficult to get a decent bankroll for LHE onto a site, and the resulting decrease in the # of weak players, I would fathom a guess that the % of winning players (when I say winning, I guess I am referring to an hourly rate higher than you could make at the local fast food joint) has gone way down.

TSP

MR_WOLFF · #4 03-02-2007, 10:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Back in the best days of online poker and 2+2 (yes, sadly those days have come and gone . . days long before Frist and Brandi), I believe there was a significant group of successful online limit players. A nice percentage of them were participants of 2+2, IMO.

With all of the blockades that have been put up in the face of US players, making it difficult to get a decent bankroll for LHE onto a site, and the resulting decrease in the # of weak players, I would fathom a guess that the % of winning players (when I say winning, I guess I am referring to an hourly rate higher than you could make at the local fast food joint) has gone way down.

TSP

[/ QUOTE ]Well written, unfortunately your post is the most ambiguous post of the day. In summary pointless in terms of OP

1MoreFish4U · #5 03-02-2007, 10:46 AM

[ QUOTE ]
hit up players at high stakes tables/tournament tables for $5, make a few desperate last gasp attempts in donkaments, and eventually go back to scratch off tickets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well said - and too true.

Dazarath · #6 03-02-2007, 11:23 AM

I have heard estimates between 5-10%. Honestly, I think it's a difficult question to answer, which is why we all just settle with those agreed upon numbers without too much questioning.

First, because we can even attempt to answer the question, someone has mentioned in a different thread a long time ago, that we'd need a definition for a winning player. Imagine a player who buys in for $50, wins $100, and cashes out to never play again. Would you consider him a winning player? I would not. So we could make some definition, like "long term" winning players, who have a positive winrate over 100k hands and have a positive expectation for the future.

1BDWOLF, you managed to write a poorly written post, while being a douche to a well-respected poster, as well as hypocritically contributing absolutely nothing to this thread as well. Good job.

I believe what TSP is trying to say, is that the current percentage of winning players is much lower than it was once before. This is very feasible, and I would agree. In a game with plenty of fish, more players can be long-term winning players. If that's hard to see, look at it from the other direction. As the games get tougher, the players with awesome winrates now have good winrates, the decent players are now marginal winners, and the marginal players are now losing. Of course, most of the fish are still fish, they just lose at a slower rate as they get less "fishy".

The other thing you could grab from this, is that because the games are constantly changing. If you define a winning player to be one who has positive expectation in the games he plays, it's difficult to prove that one is "winning" without empirical evidence. But it's very possible that a given player could currently be a marginal winner, but by the time he's played enough hands to draw any conclusions from it, the landscape has changed enough to turn him into a losing player.

shamus · #7 03-02-2007, 12:31 PM

Do recall a CardPlayer article from around 1-2 yrs. ago about online poker in which the proprietors of two of the most popular sites (not named in the article) were asked what percentage of their players were winning players. The answer from both was 7 or 8%, if I remember correctly.

I took that percentage to reflect an estimate of those who had seen any profit whatsoever (e.g., $0.01 & up), and not a reference to other definitions of “winning” players.

Bigflopdaddy · #8 03-02-2007, 12:59 PM

10% is a good estimate I have seen estimates in that area before. There is also a subset of players that are break even or very slight losers that profit because they do nothing but hunt bonuses. That would make the total number of players that show a profit from poker maybe 15 or 20%?

what23 · #9 03-02-2007, 01:19 PM

[ QUOTE ]

is that the current percentage of winning players is much lower than it was once before. This is very feasible, and I would agree.

[/ QUOTE ]

not exactly true, b/c percentage is a ratio, and since the number of online players has gone down (mostly bad ones) the number of winners is going to decrease, but not necessarily the percentage, b/c some winning players back in the day r now the fish for the top players.

MR_WOLFF · #10 03-02-2007, 01:40 PM

Dazarat--------> Look in the mirror.......dont let it bother you tho......we cant all be handsome. This has been posted soooooooo many time i feel sick

""I made the comment it was well written, but had to point out that it didn't answer the OP's question. I was not ripping on the other guy THAT badly""