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Making Money Online with Gambling

astr0

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My friend made some good money playing poker. He was probably in top50 in the world 2 years ago when he quit before fulfilling his dream of making it to the WSOP final table (got close though on 2nd attempt). He thinks that poker is dying now because of competition, especially with software and bots (which are not all machine-learning AI based). His wife started to play professionally around 2 years ago and had $100k+ best month since then. He says that she has more potential than him because somehow she's more cold-blooded and her brain works faster.

He invested a lot of money in different businesses, some profitable some don't, some failed.
Most notable is top2 massage company in Ukraine offering services for IT companies.
Most notable failure - he tried to open his poker room with Chinese poker, burned a lot of money for development and marketing, had a lot of bugs in his software and Chinese poker fad faded away while he was fixing them with a different company. Max online was around 40 people playing the lowest stakes.

Another friend still plays but is not that successful. He spent over 7 years studying to become a surgeon and worked for 3 years, playing poker in spare time. Had an opportunity to emigrate and get a nice medical salary (in Ukraine surgeons get around $200/month..., a bit more in private hospitals but still nothing compared to 1st countries), but refused it, quit his job and now playing poker full time. He also was a coach on PokerStrategy for quite a while. I don't know his average earnings, but he recently had first profitable week after full 3 months of losses day to day.

They play on some illegal Chinese online rooms now with richer fish and less competition. Some fish is regular there, constantly losing huge sums of money for fun. But it's still one fishy player and a lot of regulars at the table at a time.

The first friend and his wife play few high stake tables, second is grinding 18-20+ tables mid stakes.

The casino and betting booker earn more than players and although there are some millionaires from poker, there are a lot more business millionaires.
 
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Ing

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Its not poker. But a customer of a friend makes millions with gambling.
I think its called „world of tanks“ or so.
And his way is the only way to make real money over decades with gambling ;)
 

LordGanon

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Make money with gambling. That's an oxymoron.

Wanna make peanuts with surefire bets? In amateur boxing, always bet on the boxer with the more flat chest muscles.

Works for me 98% of the time. Great rule of thumb.
 
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3feetfromgold

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I make $(-600.00) to +$5,400 a month playing poker with an average around $2,500. Why the range? I'll explain below.

Poker as a consistent income source is about psychology and risk management. Without these two skills, you are merely gambling.

In poker, and business in general, you are looking for an edge. Even a slight edge (51% win to 49% loss) is enough in the long run.

This edge could be playing live and knowing that you are playing against tourists in Las Vegas. In this case, your win percent goes up from let's say 51% to 60%.

Win % is never 100%. Nothing is ever guaranteed.

Like someone else mentioned earlier, online poker is very competitive these days. I would only recommend you play at the smaller micro tables to learn the basic rules and strategy. Players today use a variety of tools to create an edge. New online players only help increase that edge for pros because they don't have those tools. New players are the fish.

My edge is playing live. At least it was until Covid happened. I live close to Las Vegas so once a month I would book a room and drive down to Vegas. Either on a Friday or Saturday night. I look for drunk tourists, rich men looking to impress their wife/girlfriend/mistress, and gamblers. I stay away from the regulars, high rollers, and locals.

Risk Management

Now back to my $(-600.00) to $3,000 range. This all has to do with my risk management. I only allow myself to stay one night max. I can't stand being in Vegas for more than one night. I don't party or drink. I'm there to make money and leave.

I only allow myself to buy in twice, hence the maximum loss of $(-600.00). I play $1/3 so 1 buy in is $300. If I lose twice, I take the rest of the trip to grab food, chill, do some reading. I never play any other games. Poker is the only skill game in Las Vegas. Everything else is gambling because the odds are against you. This is why casino's make millions.

I also limit myself to one buy in per session. I play two sessions. I play once the night I arrive and once the next day during the afternoon before I head home. Sometimes I'll skip the next day session depending on what I have planned. Sometimes I'll even skip the evening session (more on that below).

Evening Session

After arriving and checking into my hotel room, I'll grab something to eat and then head back up to my room. I'll meditate and then warm up with some online poker. Yes, meditating is important. It is practically essential to block out internal noise when at the table. I have a set routine I follow before every session. You must treat this like a sport. Look up how athletes prepare before a big game and model your routine after them. Works for business and morning routines as well.

Unlike professional sports athletes, I have the choice of when to play and when not to play. If I am NOT FEELING 100% psychologically. I skip my evening session. I track every session in an excel document, have all my win/loss/notes on how I'm feeling etc. and I know if I'm not feeling 100%, my win percent goes down. It is very important to journal if you are going to take this seriously.

After I make the decision on whether to play or not, I head down to play, aka "work". Usually for about 2-3 hours unless I bust. If I bust, I do not rebuy. I save that rebuy for the next day.

Next Day Morning Session

My edge is higher in the evening session because there are more drunks etc. I avoid playing the morning after because that's when there are more professionals playing. In the afternoon, after people wake up hungover from partying, sometimes they'll sit for a few hours to play some poker.

Again, I don't have to play. I skip this session about 50% of the time. I skip if I've already met my win condition of $3,000 or if I just don't feel like playing. As a poker player, you are trading time for money, just like any job. This job just happens to be at a casino.

Math

What?! Only $3,000? I thought you said $5,400. Yes, I didn't mistype that. This is another aspect of risk management. If I'm ever up 10x my buy in, I leave the table ($300 x 10). I don't like to play deep stacked. E.g. If I have $3,000 at the table and another player also has $3,000 at the table, I lose some edge. That one player could wipe me out. I only play when I have a significant edge.

So here are my scenarios:
  1. I lose both sessions: $-600 loss
  2. I lose one session and only play one session: $-300 loss
  3. I lose one session and win second session: $-300 + $X to $3,000 (-$300 buy in) = $2,400 max profit
  4. I win one session and decide to only play one session: $X to $3,000 (-$300 buy in) = $2,700 max profit
  5. I win both sessions: $X to $3,000 (-$300 buy in) x 2 = $5,400 max profit
Now, you can go back to these scenarios with your trusty excel sheet and attach win percentages and probabilities. Notice how my maximum loss is only $-600 but my maximum win is $5,400? It's just math at the end of the day.

$X above represents if I choose to leave the table before I reach my 10x big blind. This happens if I lose my edge. E.g. if a pro sits at my table, if fish leave the table, if other players suddenly start being deep stacked against me. In poker and life you are constantly scanning the environment and looking for opportunities. Don't take chances and gamble. Take advantage when you have an edge. I am never obligated to stay until I meet my win condition and I am never obligated to stay until I lose my buy-in. I leave when I lose my edge. This could be if I start feeling tired or hungry. Tired or hungry = losing edge.

I have data on all of these scenarios above. I know how often scenario 1 happens and how often scenario 5 happens. Scenario 1 happens about once a year. Over the years, I've shifted more towards taking the second session off If I lose the first one.

Why stop at $5,400? Because that's my sweet spot. That's where I have the highest win %. Higher stakes don't work for me and playing more than two sessions is draining. The lifestyle works for me because I only have to dedicate 1.5 days per month and can work on my business the rest of the month.

I also use poker as a way to take a break from my business. Best case I pay for my bills for the month. Worst case, I lose $1,000 (after hotel, food, gas) and treat it like a mini vacation.

Summary

This was a lot longer than I thought it would be. But since this is an area that I'm pretty familiar with, I thought I'd share.

Playing poker has taught me a lot about making decisions. There are a lot of takeaways for business. Learning how to control emotions, looking for and taking advantage of opportunities, psychology, money management, math, etc.

Anyways, this was just meant to be a quick summary. The world of poker is a strange one but you get what you put into it. There are tons of resources online to learn which you can find by googling. This is by no means a get rich quick. It takes YEARS to get good at playing poker and YEARS to become consistently profitable.

Even then, you have chances of bad streaks. You must be fully bank rolled and must only play with expendable income. Fully bank rolled means 100x minimum buy in at whatever stake you decide to play. You can use probability to calculate what the odds are of losing 100 times in a row. If you can't afford 100 buy ins at $1/$3 stakes, then find lower stake games.

Hope this helps, good luck
 
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G

Guest-5ty5s4

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How about building the online platform that others use to gamble?

Overcoming the legal challenges would be the most confusing part, I think.
 

Kevin88660

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I would consider what I am doing as a hobby now as related to “gambling” as well. I stake cryptocurrencies in new yield farming projects, and there is no way if I know for sure if it is a scam or not.

All in the search for +ev.
 
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WJK

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I've never met anyone who has consistently made money gambling. I have met people who have lost everything they had on a bet. And I've met people who can't stop once they start down that road. How do you control your risk when you know that the odds are in the house's favor? I take risks all the time in real estate, but I never get involved with deals where the odds are against me. As the guy said, I play monopoly with real money. But, really -- institutionalized gambling to make a living? That's way outside of my comfort zone.
 

freshyda

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Do you really think that it's possible to earn money online with gambling? I think that it's almost impossible. Yes, there are some guys that are making money on different card games like poker, but they are always calculating the possible results, and that's why they are able to earn money. It's not random, they know their job. Same with Bitcoin sports betting, these guys are analysing everything before the match, and that's not only about luck. But if we talk about gambling, full random things like roullette - it's impossible to earn money on it
 
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BooBoosHelix

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I played online 6max nl sh up to nl1k (1000$ buy in) and considering all the times I tilted away 70 stacks after 6 months of hard grinding probably would have been better off taking a low pay job while I studied software engineering. If I could relieve my 20s again I’d never even start poker. Final straw for me was when my roommate spend 20 hours writing a kindle book on how to get a six pack and never moved a finger on this project again and made more than me and i probably spent thousands of hours on poker.
Tought me a lot about avoiding high paying jobs and generating passive income. You don’t always have to work hard to make it. Working smart often also will suffice.
 
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newzzy2

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I think it's pretty important to give players fair chances to win, so that - they will return to your gambling platform, over and over again. It also depends on the games, that you're going to use at your gaming platform. Some websites share their reviews about each game like this joka room casino review, where they can explain everything about specific and what exact stuff do you need for your potential players.
 
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WJK

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I played online 6max nl sh up to nl1k (1000$ buy in) and considering all the times I tilted away 70 stacks after 6 months of hard grinding probably would have been better off taking a low pay job while I studied software engineering. If I could relieve my 20s again I’d never even start poker. Final straw for me was when my roommate spend 20 hours writing a kindle book on how to get a six pack and never moved a finger on this project again and made more than me and i probably spent thousands of hours on poker.
Tought me a lot about avoiding high paying jobs and generating passive income. You don’t always have to work hard to make it. Working smart often also will suffice.
I've been in real estate for 45 years. I play the odds all the time with real money. Yes, sometimes I lose. But, I never play the game when the odds are against me. And spend a lot of my time upping my odds so the chances of me winning are a lot more favorable. That's one way that I decide where to put my time and money. I usually will make the deal with a reasonable profit margin and less risk.

I only make high-risk deals when my losses are totally limited to the money that I can afford to lose -- and the upside is huge -- making it worth the risk. I call those my pie-in-sky investments. And I usually lose my whole nut on them. But, when I win, I win big. But again, even those must have the odds in my favor.

For a starting off point in your thinking -- I read a study on cab drivers a long time ago -- before Uber and such. There were two basic camps of thinking. There were the guys who line up at the airport to get the big fares from the businessmen who were in hurry to get to their destinations. Those cabbies would wait in line for hours for that big fare. Then there were the other guys who did a bunch of short hauls. They were busy all day, running their meters while picking people up and dropping them off. The study concluded that the guys sitting at the airport took home less money at the end of the day.

Now, if you take that truism from the cabbies, and you take it a step further, maybe there's a way to turn the odds more in your favor? The cabbies doing the short hauls could find a way to keep busy all day by developing their own groups of riders who would make appointments to be picked up and dropped off. And that cabbie could offer premium services -- like having their favorite cup of coffee waiting for the customer in the cab.

There are a hundred ways to skin this cat. You need to use your experience to figure out another way to make your living.
 

Filinoff

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I think it's pretty important to give players fair chances to win, so that - they will return to your gambling platform, over and over again. It also depends on the games, that you're going to use at your gaming platform. Some websites share their reviews about each game like this joka room casino review, where they can explain everything about specific and what exact stuff do you need for your potential players.
As far as I know, a lot of people are involved in gambling and some of them even make money from it on a stable basis. I think it is not so simple, buy if you will gain necessary skills and experience, all is real. I also read about cryptocurrency casinos and found BTC Bonuses from Tower.bet and I want to try. Did you have some experience?
 
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