Have you ever dreamed about getting rich gambling? Some gamblers are able to do it, so why not you? What could be better than taking a risk and having it pay off in a big way?
- How To Make Money Gambling On Horses
- How To Become Professional Gambler
- How To Make Money Gambling On Sports
Gamblers have been trying to get rich for years. Some of them have been able to do it by getting lucky and hitting a big progressive jackpot or a big lottery. But others have been able to amass riches by a more practical and straightforward method.
I've put together seven ways you can get rich gambling with real money below. Some of them are easy, just requiring a small bet and a great deal of luck. But some of them are within your reach, if you're willing to do the work and put in the time.
1 – Win a Big Poker Tournament
Bet on the Super Bowl 55 Game Total. Another extremely popular way to make money betting on Super Bowl 2021 is to bet how many points will be scored in the game. You have two options; bet on the. In order for you to make money, someone has to lose. It's a zero-sum game, where gambling operators also get their cut. Thus, we need to exploit the market, looking for leaks and biases, like the favorite. Most likely, you won't be able to make a living doing it, but here are some tips to help fatten your wallet. If you intend to come out ahead gambling online, make sure you choose the right games. How to make money casinoYou will be greeted with this screen and we how to make money casino will only be focusing on the single events section Additional Guides: 7 Tremendous ways to make money with Podcasting #4 Research and only Research is the key medicine to make money online casinos.
Just about every poker player knows the winner of the WSOP main event takes home millions every year. But did you know there are hundreds of poker tournaments that pay out over $100,000 played every year?
You don't have to win the WSOP main event to win a big score. But even if you only look at the biggest poker tournament in the world, your odds of winning are still much better than you get with things like one of the big lottery drawings.
2 – Grind It out as a Blackjack Card Counter
This one isn't glamorous like some of the other ways to get rich gambling on this list, but it's one of the things that offers a realistic opportunity for anyone with the skill and desire to make some serious money.
When you buy a lottery ticket, you have the chance to win a huge prize, but the odds are strongly stacked against you. If you learn how to count cards, you can methodically make money.
But there's one thing you need to understand, and it's in the title of this section. Getting rich by blackjack card counting is a grind. You have to play as much as you can, you have to keep your mind in top shape, and you're always doing your best not to get caught.
Even if the money is good, the grind can wear you down. On the plus side, you don't have to be a genius to learn how to count cards, and like I mentioned above, it gives you a realistic opportunity to make money gambling. Anyone with average intelligence and the desire to master it can become a winning card counter.
3 – Hit a Progressive Jackpot
Most large progressive jackpots are available on slot machines, but some other games have them also. The problem with slot machines is they have a high house edge. The odds of hitting a progressive jackpot are also highly against you, but they're not worse than hitting the lottery.
One thing you need to watch for is many of the slot machines with big progressives require a large bet per spin to be eligible for the top prize. If you're betting $2 or $2.50 per spin, it doesn't take long to burn through your bankroll.
4 – Win a Big Lottery
If you're like me and most other people, you've probably spent some time thinking about what you'd do if you hit a big lottery prize. After all, most of us have never had a million to spend, much less 10 or 100 million. And the cost of a ticket is only $2 or $3.
I don't know of any other bet you can make that offers the chance at such a high return for a small investment. This is one of the reasons why the lottery is so popular, and I'm all for taking a small risk for a big reward.
The odds of you hitting a big lottery, even if you play every day your entire life, are very small. It's not really a realistic chance, but someone is going to win, so I don't blame you for buying a ticket. If you want a better chance at riches, read one of the two sections on this page about grinding out your fortune.
5 – Poker Grinding
It's not as flashy as it looks on television, but many poker players are able to grind out a good living at the tables. They play hour after hour, making $20 to $30 or even $50 an hour.
The first thing you need to do is learn how to win on a consistent basis. This isn't easy, but it's possible with enough study and practice. Once you learn how to win, the next key is to find the most profitable games and play in them as much as possible.
It might become less profitable because the players change or because you start getting tired and start making mistakes. But if you're killing the game, you need to ride it until you can't do it anymore.
Just like grinding out a living as a card counter, making good money as a poker player is a grind. It quickly changes from a fun game to something much like a job. This is acceptable to some players, but it makes many players quit playing. Only you can decide if this is a good option for you, but be aware that it can turn a game you love into one you dread.
6 – Sports Gambling
Sports gambling is a tough business to get rich in, but a few players are able to do it. I cover it more in the next section, but one way to use sports betting to take a shot at fast riches is by trying to win multiple bets in a row while rolling your profits into the next bet. Another way to try for quick money is by betting a multi-team parlay ticket.
Most sports bettors who try to roll their profits, or win a big parlay, usually fail. The sports bettors who make money are the ones that grind out wins over time, like some poker players and blackjack card counters.
Most successful sports bettors develop their own systems or models and use them to find games and lines that might be profitable. Then, they combine their models and systems with study of the players and teams involved, and find profitable betting situations.
The biggest problem sports bettors run into while trying to get rich, even when they figure out how to win more than they lose, is getting a large enough amount of money in action to win big. It's easy to get large bets down on big games like the Super Bowl, but how do you get $50,000 or $100,000 down on a small conference game in the middle of the season?
If you want to try for fast riches sports betting, pick a multi-team parlay and take your chances. The odds are better than the lottery, but the rewards are smaller, too.
7 – Let It Ride
I'm not talking about the popular table game Let It Ride here. Instead, I'm talking about making a bet and betting the total amount again when you win. When you win a bet and place the original wager, then win back into action, it's often called 'let it ride.'
Many times, these types of bets are made on even money wagers, like red or odd at the roulette wheel. But this requires a long series of wins to add up to a large amount. The same concept is in use in sports betting using multiple game parlay bets.
But let's look at the numbers using an example with a much higher pay out than even money.
If you place a $100 wager on a single number on roulette, you get your original wager back and a win of $3,500 when you win. If you let the $3,600 ride and hit a single number again, you suddenly have $126,000 plus your bet of $3,600.
The odds are heavily stacked against you, but not as much as they're stacked against you in the lottery. If you're playing on a single zero wheel, you have a 1 in 37 chance of hitting any single number. The odds of hitting a single number two times in a row are 1 in 1,369. This translates to .0007304602, or if you convert it to a percentage, it's .073%.
You can use the 'let it ride' strategy in many different situations. At the dog or horse track, you can bet on a long shot, then let your win ride on another long shot to try for a big win.
How To Make Money Gambling On Horses
Conclusion
If you want to get rich gambling, you can either try to develop the skills you need then grind out profits over time, or you can rely on luck of the draw and try for a huge win on very long odds. The grinding method offers a more realistic path, but it takes a great deal of work.
Even if you aren't willing to be a grinder, you can still take a shot from time to time at a big poker tournament, the lottery, or by letting your profits ride.
Home > Online Casinos > Casino Articles > Make $50,000 a Year Gambling
The dream of many gamblers is to be able to quit their boring regular job and gamble for a living. They know that some people do it, so why can't they do it to?
The truth is that many people try to make a living by gambling full-time, but only a small percentage of gamblers are able to do it. You'll face many challenges, but if you can take the pressure and learn how to make the correct wagers, the dream can be real.
I've put together a step-by-step plan of how to make $50,000 a year gambling. It includes everything you need know, including the good and the bad.
$50,000 isn't a random number. I chose it because it's $1,000 a week if you take two weeks off during the year. Some people would be happy gambling for a living and making $1,000 a week. Others might want or need to make more.
The key thing to understand is if you can build your skills to the point where you can make $50,000 a year you can probably keep working and increasing your bankroll so you can make more.
In 1997, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth of Two Plus Two Publishing, released a book titled How to Make $100,000 a Year Gambling for a Living. It isn't one of their most popular books, but it shows that there's a market of people who want to know more.
Overview of Casino Game Types. Slots – This includes all variations, like 3D or progressives. Table Games – This includes all card games, like blackjack, baccarat, and pai gow poker. It also sometimes includes dice games like craps, as well as. Video Poker – This includes all poker games played.
The good news for you is you can find out everything you need to know on this page for free, so you don't need to buy the book.
Bankroll
If you want to make a living gambling you have to have a bankroll. All forms of gambling have ups and downs, and nothing you do is going to cause you to win all of the time.
Your bankroll is the life blood of your gambling career. If you don't have any money to risk, you can't make any money.
It's important that you have enough money so you can ride out the winning and losing streaks and let the long-term edge work in your favor. The first mistake most would-be professional gamblers make is not having a large enough bankroll.
You need to have enough money in reserve to live on while you build your bankroll enough to ride the ups and downs, and eventually start taking profit from it.
In the case of making $50,000 a year, you need to be able to take $1,000 out of your bankroll every week. This means that your bankroll needs to be big enough to make bets large enough to make this much money with the edge you create.
The required bankroll depends somewhat on the variance in the gambling activity you choose. The three realistic gambling activities for professional gamblers, each with their own section below, include blackjack, poker, and sports betting.
The required bankroll for each varies, but you can follow some guidelines to help you get a good idea of how much you need. I cover these guidelines in each of the game sections below.
Finding an Edge
In order to make $50,000 a year gambling, you have to find situations where you can get a long-term edge. Casino and gambling games are designed to give the house an edge. So your choices are limited when it comes to finding an edge.
Blackjack is designed in a way where the house rules change the edge. It also is played with a specific set of cards. This gives you an opportunity to keep track of the ratio between high and low cards and vary your bet sizes so you can get a long-term edge. This is called card counting, and you're going to learn more about it in the blackjack section.
Poker is a unique game in gambling, because instead of playing against the house, you play against the other players and the house takes a small cut from each pot. This creates an opportunity where you can get a long-term edge if you can play better than most of your opponents.
Sports betting is the other area where a few people are able to create a long-term edge. The betting lines are set by the bookmakers and sometimes change based on the amount of money bet on the game.
This can create opportunities for smart sports bettors to find games that offer value on one side or the other. If you can identify enough games with value and can bet enough on each game you can turn a long-term profit.
Other possibilities to find an edge include a few video poker games and other advantage play opportunities like arbitrage, hole carding, shuffle tracking, and ace tracking. These are more difficult in many cases than the three gambling opportunities listed above.
Some gamblers are able to combine two or more opportunities to get an edge, but you should focus on mastering one area before looking to add a second and third option.
The Numbers
The numbers behind making $50,000 a year gambling are fairly simple, but they also show why most players fail to make a living.
If you learn how to count cards playing blackjack, you can usually achieve a long-term edge of between a half percent and one percent. Knowing this, we can determine how much you need to wager each week to reach your goal of $1,000 in profit.
If you want to make $1,000 a week in profit playing blackjack with a half percent edge, you have to make $200,000 worth of bets per week. This means that if your average bet is $100, you have to play 2,000 hands. At an average of 50 hands per hour, you need to play 40 hours per week.
This seems like a realistic number at first, but card counters have a hard time playing in the same game and at the same casino for too long. When the casino figures out that you're counting cards, they stop you from playing.
Also, blackjack players that average $100 per bet are watched closer than ones that make lower bets. But let's look at a few different situations.
If you can get a 1% edge, you can play 20 hours a week with an average bet of $100 and get the same outcome as playing 40 hours at a half percent. Or you can play 40 hours with an average bet of $50 with a 1% edge.
It's not easy, but with the proper bankroll and card counting skills, blackjack is a real possibility.
Poker gives you the opportunity to play as many hours per week as you want to, because the casino or poker room doesn't care if you win or lose. Good poker players can win one big bet per hour in limit games, so if you play 10 / 20 and play 50 hours per week you can grind out $1,000 in profit.
Good no-limit players can win more per hour in some situations, so you might be able to turn a $1,000 profit playing $500 buy-in no-limit Texas hold'em playing fewer hours. It's even easier for a good player to make $1,000 a week in $1,000 buy-in games.
For these reasons, poker is the best option for many players who want to make a living gambling.
In many ways, sports betting is the most challenging of the three possibilities for gambling for a living.
The profit margins for winning sports bettors are usually thin, and large amounts of money must be bet in order to show enough profit to make a living. As a sports bettor, it's almost impossible to win over 55% of the games you bet on in the long-run, and the vig takes a chunk of your profit.
In order to make $50,000 a year, you need to win $4,167 a month. If you can find 100 games a month that offer value and win 55 of them, here's how the numbers work out:
If you bet $1,100 on each of the 100 games for the opportunity to win $1,000, your total investment is $110,000. On the 55 bets you win, you get back your $1,100 and the $1,000 win. This means your total return is $115,500.
This creates a profit of $5,500 for the month. It sounds like a workable situation, but there are a few challenges. The first challenge is finding 100 games a month that offer value.
The second challenge is the short-term variance and how it can hurt your bankroll and profit. If you only win 50 to 52 out of 100 games, you lose money for the month. And if you only win 53 or 54 of the 100 games, you don't make much.
- If you win 50 games you lose $5,000.
- If you win 51 games you lose $2,900.
- If you win 52 games you lose $800.
- If you win 53 games you only make $1,300 for the month.
- If you win 54 games you make $3,400.
And when you have a month where you lose money or don't make enough to cover your bills, you still need to pay the bills. This money has to come out of your bankroll unless you have money put back for expenses.
Of course, if you're a good sports bettor, you're going to have months where you win more than 55 games, but don't count on this happening often.
If you can't find enough games to bet on each month, you need to bet more per game. This is usually a better strategy because it's easier to find games that offer value if you don't need to find so many of them. But it also means you need a bigger bankroll to safely make larger bets.
Playing Full Time and the Grind
It's fun to play blackjack or poker or bet on sports in your spare time. But it can quickly become a grind if you have to do it to pay the bills. Many players find that it's as bad as a job when they're forced to pay hour after hour to grind out a living.
Let's say you learn how to be a decent poker player but can only make $10 an hour. If you want to make $1,000 a week, you have to play 100 hours. It's possible to play 100 hours a week but it's hard on you mentally and physically and you're probably going to burn out quickly if you try to do it.
Card counters often need to spend as much time looking for games and moving from game to game as they do playing. So if you need to play 40 hours a week to make $50,000 you might spend another 40 hours finding games and keeping from being thrown out.
In the last section, you learned how many games you need to bet on each month as a sports bettor, so it can be a full-time job evaluating and betting on games.
I'm not telling you to forget your dream of gambling for a living, but you need to be aware of what you're getting into. If you don't have a large bankroll that lets you make larger bets, you're forced to spend more time gambling.
A good poker player playing $1,000 or higher buy-in no-limit games will be able to make $1,000 a week faster than one playing $200 or $500 buy-in games. And a sports bettor who can bet $5,000 a game or more doesn't need to find as many games offering value as one betting $500 a game.
The constant stress of playing with an edge and needing to make a certain amount of money each week can take a toll on you. Make sure you're mentally and physically prepared for the grind before you start. Gambling for a living isn't for everyone, even if you have the skills to do it.
Blackjack
If you want to make a living as a blackjack player, you need to learn how to count cards. It's not as difficult as many people think, but you also need to be able to do it in a way that keeps the casinos from figuring out what you're doing and have a large enough bankroll to survive the downswings.
Even the best card counters have losing days and weeks. The edge is so small that short-term variance can and will go against you often. This means that you need to be able to keep playing the way that gives you a long-term edge no matter what happens.
The amount of money you need in your bankroll to make $1,000 a week in profit involves many variables. This isn't an exact estimate, but I wouldn't try to do it with less than $20,000 if the average bet is $100. $50,000 is even better.
The mechanics and how-to of card counting are deep subjects. Dozens of books have been written covering the subject, and thousands of pages of information are available. I suggest learning about the Hi Lo counting system or one of the unbalanced systems like the K O or Red 7.
The basics behind every card counting system are tracking the ratio of high and low cards remaining in the shoe or deck. You raise your bets when the ratio is rich in high cards and lower your bet when more low cards remain than high cards.
This is done by adding and subtracting a small number, usually one, from a running count. Just about anyone can learn to be a card counter with a little effort, so don't be afraid to look into it.
You also need to learn about camouflage, which helps you learn how to count without getting caught.
But there's one thing you need to understand, and it's in the title of this section. Getting rich by blackjack card counting is a grind. You have to play as much as you can, you have to keep your mind in top shape, and you're always doing your best not to get caught.
Even if the money is good, the grind can wear you down. On the plus side, you don't have to be a genius to learn how to count cards, and like I mentioned above, it gives you a realistic opportunity to make money gambling. Anyone with average intelligence and the desire to master it can become a winning card counter.
3 – Hit a Progressive Jackpot
Most large progressive jackpots are available on slot machines, but some other games have them also. The problem with slot machines is they have a high house edge. The odds of hitting a progressive jackpot are also highly against you, but they're not worse than hitting the lottery.
One thing you need to watch for is many of the slot machines with big progressives require a large bet per spin to be eligible for the top prize. If you're betting $2 or $2.50 per spin, it doesn't take long to burn through your bankroll.
4 – Win a Big Lottery
If you're like me and most other people, you've probably spent some time thinking about what you'd do if you hit a big lottery prize. After all, most of us have never had a million to spend, much less 10 or 100 million. And the cost of a ticket is only $2 or $3.
I don't know of any other bet you can make that offers the chance at such a high return for a small investment. This is one of the reasons why the lottery is so popular, and I'm all for taking a small risk for a big reward.
The odds of you hitting a big lottery, even if you play every day your entire life, are very small. It's not really a realistic chance, but someone is going to win, so I don't blame you for buying a ticket. If you want a better chance at riches, read one of the two sections on this page about grinding out your fortune.
5 – Poker Grinding
It's not as flashy as it looks on television, but many poker players are able to grind out a good living at the tables. They play hour after hour, making $20 to $30 or even $50 an hour.
The first thing you need to do is learn how to win on a consistent basis. This isn't easy, but it's possible with enough study and practice. Once you learn how to win, the next key is to find the most profitable games and play in them as much as possible.
It might become less profitable because the players change or because you start getting tired and start making mistakes. But if you're killing the game, you need to ride it until you can't do it anymore.
Just like grinding out a living as a card counter, making good money as a poker player is a grind. It quickly changes from a fun game to something much like a job. This is acceptable to some players, but it makes many players quit playing. Only you can decide if this is a good option for you, but be aware that it can turn a game you love into one you dread.
6 – Sports Gambling
Sports gambling is a tough business to get rich in, but a few players are able to do it. I cover it more in the next section, but one way to use sports betting to take a shot at fast riches is by trying to win multiple bets in a row while rolling your profits into the next bet. Another way to try for quick money is by betting a multi-team parlay ticket.
Most sports bettors who try to roll their profits, or win a big parlay, usually fail. The sports bettors who make money are the ones that grind out wins over time, like some poker players and blackjack card counters.
Most successful sports bettors develop their own systems or models and use them to find games and lines that might be profitable. Then, they combine their models and systems with study of the players and teams involved, and find profitable betting situations.
The biggest problem sports bettors run into while trying to get rich, even when they figure out how to win more than they lose, is getting a large enough amount of money in action to win big. It's easy to get large bets down on big games like the Super Bowl, but how do you get $50,000 or $100,000 down on a small conference game in the middle of the season?
If you want to try for fast riches sports betting, pick a multi-team parlay and take your chances. The odds are better than the lottery, but the rewards are smaller, too.
7 – Let It Ride
I'm not talking about the popular table game Let It Ride here. Instead, I'm talking about making a bet and betting the total amount again when you win. When you win a bet and place the original wager, then win back into action, it's often called 'let it ride.'
Many times, these types of bets are made on even money wagers, like red or odd at the roulette wheel. But this requires a long series of wins to add up to a large amount. The same concept is in use in sports betting using multiple game parlay bets.
But let's look at the numbers using an example with a much higher pay out than even money.
If you place a $100 wager on a single number on roulette, you get your original wager back and a win of $3,500 when you win. If you let the $3,600 ride and hit a single number again, you suddenly have $126,000 plus your bet of $3,600.
The odds are heavily stacked against you, but not as much as they're stacked against you in the lottery. If you're playing on a single zero wheel, you have a 1 in 37 chance of hitting any single number. The odds of hitting a single number two times in a row are 1 in 1,369. This translates to .0007304602, or if you convert it to a percentage, it's .073%.
You can use the 'let it ride' strategy in many different situations. At the dog or horse track, you can bet on a long shot, then let your win ride on another long shot to try for a big win.
How To Make Money Gambling On Horses
Conclusion
If you want to get rich gambling, you can either try to develop the skills you need then grind out profits over time, or you can rely on luck of the draw and try for a huge win on very long odds. The grinding method offers a more realistic path, but it takes a great deal of work.
Even if you aren't willing to be a grinder, you can still take a shot from time to time at a big poker tournament, the lottery, or by letting your profits ride.
Home > Online Casinos > Casino Articles > Make $50,000 a Year Gambling
The dream of many gamblers is to be able to quit their boring regular job and gamble for a living. They know that some people do it, so why can't they do it to?
The truth is that many people try to make a living by gambling full-time, but only a small percentage of gamblers are able to do it. You'll face many challenges, but if you can take the pressure and learn how to make the correct wagers, the dream can be real.
I've put together a step-by-step plan of how to make $50,000 a year gambling. It includes everything you need know, including the good and the bad.
$50,000 isn't a random number. I chose it because it's $1,000 a week if you take two weeks off during the year. Some people would be happy gambling for a living and making $1,000 a week. Others might want or need to make more.
The key thing to understand is if you can build your skills to the point where you can make $50,000 a year you can probably keep working and increasing your bankroll so you can make more.
In 1997, David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth of Two Plus Two Publishing, released a book titled How to Make $100,000 a Year Gambling for a Living. It isn't one of their most popular books, but it shows that there's a market of people who want to know more.
Overview of Casino Game Types. Slots – This includes all variations, like 3D or progressives. Table Games – This includes all card games, like blackjack, baccarat, and pai gow poker. It also sometimes includes dice games like craps, as well as. Video Poker – This includes all poker games played.
The good news for you is you can find out everything you need to know on this page for free, so you don't need to buy the book.
Bankroll
If you want to make a living gambling you have to have a bankroll. All forms of gambling have ups and downs, and nothing you do is going to cause you to win all of the time.
Your bankroll is the life blood of your gambling career. If you don't have any money to risk, you can't make any money.
It's important that you have enough money so you can ride out the winning and losing streaks and let the long-term edge work in your favor. The first mistake most would-be professional gamblers make is not having a large enough bankroll.
You need to have enough money in reserve to live on while you build your bankroll enough to ride the ups and downs, and eventually start taking profit from it.
In the case of making $50,000 a year, you need to be able to take $1,000 out of your bankroll every week. This means that your bankroll needs to be big enough to make bets large enough to make this much money with the edge you create.
The required bankroll depends somewhat on the variance in the gambling activity you choose. The three realistic gambling activities for professional gamblers, each with their own section below, include blackjack, poker, and sports betting.
The required bankroll for each varies, but you can follow some guidelines to help you get a good idea of how much you need. I cover these guidelines in each of the game sections below.
Finding an Edge
In order to make $50,000 a year gambling, you have to find situations where you can get a long-term edge. Casino and gambling games are designed to give the house an edge. So your choices are limited when it comes to finding an edge.
Blackjack is designed in a way where the house rules change the edge. It also is played with a specific set of cards. This gives you an opportunity to keep track of the ratio between high and low cards and vary your bet sizes so you can get a long-term edge. This is called card counting, and you're going to learn more about it in the blackjack section.
Poker is a unique game in gambling, because instead of playing against the house, you play against the other players and the house takes a small cut from each pot. This creates an opportunity where you can get a long-term edge if you can play better than most of your opponents.
Sports betting is the other area where a few people are able to create a long-term edge. The betting lines are set by the bookmakers and sometimes change based on the amount of money bet on the game.
This can create opportunities for smart sports bettors to find games that offer value on one side or the other. If you can identify enough games with value and can bet enough on each game you can turn a long-term profit.
Other possibilities to find an edge include a few video poker games and other advantage play opportunities like arbitrage, hole carding, shuffle tracking, and ace tracking. These are more difficult in many cases than the three gambling opportunities listed above.
Some gamblers are able to combine two or more opportunities to get an edge, but you should focus on mastering one area before looking to add a second and third option.
The Numbers
The numbers behind making $50,000 a year gambling are fairly simple, but they also show why most players fail to make a living.
If you learn how to count cards playing blackjack, you can usually achieve a long-term edge of between a half percent and one percent. Knowing this, we can determine how much you need to wager each week to reach your goal of $1,000 in profit.
If you want to make $1,000 a week in profit playing blackjack with a half percent edge, you have to make $200,000 worth of bets per week. This means that if your average bet is $100, you have to play 2,000 hands. At an average of 50 hands per hour, you need to play 40 hours per week.
This seems like a realistic number at first, but card counters have a hard time playing in the same game and at the same casino for too long. When the casino figures out that you're counting cards, they stop you from playing.
Also, blackjack players that average $100 per bet are watched closer than ones that make lower bets. But let's look at a few different situations.
If you can get a 1% edge, you can play 20 hours a week with an average bet of $100 and get the same outcome as playing 40 hours at a half percent. Or you can play 40 hours with an average bet of $50 with a 1% edge.
It's not easy, but with the proper bankroll and card counting skills, blackjack is a real possibility.
Poker gives you the opportunity to play as many hours per week as you want to, because the casino or poker room doesn't care if you win or lose. Good poker players can win one big bet per hour in limit games, so if you play 10 / 20 and play 50 hours per week you can grind out $1,000 in profit.
Good no-limit players can win more per hour in some situations, so you might be able to turn a $1,000 profit playing $500 buy-in no-limit Texas hold'em playing fewer hours. It's even easier for a good player to make $1,000 a week in $1,000 buy-in games.
For these reasons, poker is the best option for many players who want to make a living gambling.
In many ways, sports betting is the most challenging of the three possibilities for gambling for a living.
The profit margins for winning sports bettors are usually thin, and large amounts of money must be bet in order to show enough profit to make a living. As a sports bettor, it's almost impossible to win over 55% of the games you bet on in the long-run, and the vig takes a chunk of your profit.
In order to make $50,000 a year, you need to win $4,167 a month. If you can find 100 games a month that offer value and win 55 of them, here's how the numbers work out:
If you bet $1,100 on each of the 100 games for the opportunity to win $1,000, your total investment is $110,000. On the 55 bets you win, you get back your $1,100 and the $1,000 win. This means your total return is $115,500.
This creates a profit of $5,500 for the month. It sounds like a workable situation, but there are a few challenges. The first challenge is finding 100 games a month that offer value.
The second challenge is the short-term variance and how it can hurt your bankroll and profit. If you only win 50 to 52 out of 100 games, you lose money for the month. And if you only win 53 or 54 of the 100 games, you don't make much.
- If you win 50 games you lose $5,000.
- If you win 51 games you lose $2,900.
- If you win 52 games you lose $800.
- If you win 53 games you only make $1,300 for the month.
- If you win 54 games you make $3,400.
And when you have a month where you lose money or don't make enough to cover your bills, you still need to pay the bills. This money has to come out of your bankroll unless you have money put back for expenses.
Of course, if you're a good sports bettor, you're going to have months where you win more than 55 games, but don't count on this happening often.
If you can't find enough games to bet on each month, you need to bet more per game. This is usually a better strategy because it's easier to find games that offer value if you don't need to find so many of them. But it also means you need a bigger bankroll to safely make larger bets.
Playing Full Time and the Grind
It's fun to play blackjack or poker or bet on sports in your spare time. But it can quickly become a grind if you have to do it to pay the bills. Many players find that it's as bad as a job when they're forced to pay hour after hour to grind out a living.
Let's say you learn how to be a decent poker player but can only make $10 an hour. If you want to make $1,000 a week, you have to play 100 hours. It's possible to play 100 hours a week but it's hard on you mentally and physically and you're probably going to burn out quickly if you try to do it.
Card counters often need to spend as much time looking for games and moving from game to game as they do playing. So if you need to play 40 hours a week to make $50,000 you might spend another 40 hours finding games and keeping from being thrown out.
In the last section, you learned how many games you need to bet on each month as a sports bettor, so it can be a full-time job evaluating and betting on games.
I'm not telling you to forget your dream of gambling for a living, but you need to be aware of what you're getting into. If you don't have a large bankroll that lets you make larger bets, you're forced to spend more time gambling.
A good poker player playing $1,000 or higher buy-in no-limit games will be able to make $1,000 a week faster than one playing $200 or $500 buy-in games. And a sports bettor who can bet $5,000 a game or more doesn't need to find as many games offering value as one betting $500 a game.
The constant stress of playing with an edge and needing to make a certain amount of money each week can take a toll on you. Make sure you're mentally and physically prepared for the grind before you start. Gambling for a living isn't for everyone, even if you have the skills to do it.
Blackjack
If you want to make a living as a blackjack player, you need to learn how to count cards. It's not as difficult as many people think, but you also need to be able to do it in a way that keeps the casinos from figuring out what you're doing and have a large enough bankroll to survive the downswings.
Even the best card counters have losing days and weeks. The edge is so small that short-term variance can and will go against you often. This means that you need to be able to keep playing the way that gives you a long-term edge no matter what happens.
The amount of money you need in your bankroll to make $1,000 a week in profit involves many variables. This isn't an exact estimate, but I wouldn't try to do it with less than $20,000 if the average bet is $100. $50,000 is even better.
The mechanics and how-to of card counting are deep subjects. Dozens of books have been written covering the subject, and thousands of pages of information are available. I suggest learning about the Hi Lo counting system or one of the unbalanced systems like the K O or Red 7.
The basics behind every card counting system are tracking the ratio of high and low cards remaining in the shoe or deck. You raise your bets when the ratio is rich in high cards and lower your bet when more low cards remain than high cards.
This is done by adding and subtracting a small number, usually one, from a running count. Just about anyone can learn to be a card counter with a little effort, so don't be afraid to look into it.
You also need to learn about camouflage, which helps you learn how to count without getting caught.
Poker
Just like blackjack, you can find a wide range of books that can help you play winning poker. It also is a game that lets you get started with a smaller bankroll than blackjack or sports betting. For these reasons I always suggest poker to anyone who thinks they want to try making a living gambling.
To be a winning poker player you simply need to learn how to play better than most of your opponents. Realize that this means that you can try to find worse players while improving your game at the same time.
Here are some rough bankroll guidelines for poker players. You need to understand that until you learn how to be a winning player, no bankroll is large enough.
For limit poker you should have 200 to 300 times the big bet. For no-limit ring games you need 20 to 30 times the buy in amount for the normal game you play.
This means that if you play 10 / 20 limit Texas hold'em or Omaha you should have between $4,000 and $6,000. $10,000 is even better.
If you play $500 buy-in no-limit games you should have between $10,000 and $15,000. Once again, more is better, so $20,000 is even safer.
You can also specialize in tournament poker, but the ups and downs tend to be bigger in tournaments. I suggest having a big enough bankroll to buy into at least 20 tournaments at the average buy-in you play.
I suggest learning how to play winning limit Texas hold'em or Omaha first. Mistakes cost less in limit play, and as your skills progress, you can start consistently winning a percentage or multiple of the big bet every hour on average.
Once you master limit play you can consider playing no-limit or pot-limit, but you might find it more profitable to play higher limits and stick with limit play.
Sports Betting
You've already learned why sports betting can be beat, and the challenges that sports bettors face in finding enough games that offer value, as well as why you need a big bankroll. In this section, I'm going to get into more details about the size of your bankroll.
Most recreational sports bettors place bets of $100 or less per game. But it's almost impossible to make a living with small bets, even if you can evaluate games and find value.
I don't recommend trying to make a living as a sports bettor until you can afford to make $500 or $1,000 bets per game. I also recommend betting a maximum of 1% of your total bankroll per game. This is a conservative suggestion. But remember that your bankroll is the life of your career as a professional gambler.
This means that you need a $50,000 bankroll to make $500 bets and $100,000 to make $1,000 bets. Some bettors are good enough to stretch their bets to 2% of their bankroll, but I don't recommend trying it until you have a long track record of successful results.
Health Care and Benefits
When you gamble for a living, it's just like when you own your own business. You don't have health care and other benefits that some jobs offer.
This means that you're either going to need to have health care provided by your spouse or purchase it. This can be a large expense, and if you need to buy health care, you might need to be able to win more than your original goal.
Before you start your professional gambling career, consider your options and find out how much things are going to cost. If you're young, you might be tempted to go without health insurance, but this can be a costly gamble.
The other thing you need to think about is that if you don't play, you don't get paid. You can take time off whenever you want, but the bills don't go away and you don't have any income when you take a break.
You also don't have retirement benefits that many jobs offer. You need to put some money away for your retirement as you earn.
How To Become Professional Gambler
Can you make a living as a full-time professional gambler? Many players can. But the real question is should you try to do it? Only you can answer this question, and it's not simple.
How To Make Money Gambling On Sports
After reading this page about how to make $50,000 a year gambling, you know how to get started and the many challenges you face. You can use what you just learned to decide if you have what it takes to be a professional gambler.
