Why I Quit Poker
The first time I played poker was when I was 13; my friends and I had $5 poker nights every other weekend during the summer. I loved it. The game was simple and I knew it was for me. Cards, money, strategy — everything about it, I liked. I played in a real poker room for the first time when I was 17. I bought in for $40. All one can hear in those rooms are hundreds of people shuffling their chips at once. I was in a gambler’s paradise. I was playing for a lot more money by 19. I made the final table for a tournament called the College Poker Tour (one that no longer exists) and was invited to play at a live event at 20.
I was good; I understood poker. I knew when to make the right calls. I knew when to bluff. And I knew how to use the perception of being the young kid at the table against others. I was really good at winning a lot of money. But, despite how good I got, despite how big my chips stacks were or how large the buy-ins to the next game was, there was one thing I was always better at — losing a lot of money, even faster than how I won it.
Now, at 21, I quit. Here’s why.
1) Poker is not profitable
This reason itself is enough to make one re-think poker. Making money playing is hard. Apart from the fact that the game, in and of itself, is pretty difficult. The strategy of the game is complex — not easy nor simple. But there’s a bigger reason why making money is extremely tough.
Rakes. Because you’re not playing against the house in poker, the casino needs to make their money by taking a small amount out of each pot played. Every casino is different and rakes range in amounts. But generally, the rake is a small percentage of the pot, with a limit. Some of those limit amounts go up to $5. Poker rooms also take a small amount from each pot for their jackpot prize pools and the winner of each hand should also tip the dealer.
Making sense? It’s not supposed to. But let’s assume the rake for a table is 10% of the pot with a limit of $5, the table takes $1 each hand for the jackpot, and the winner tips the dealer $1. That’s $7 out of each pot (assuming the pot is larger than $50).
Some math — 9 players. Each buy in for $200. Total cash on the table = $1,800. 30 hands played on average, per hour. With the rake, it would only take 4 hours for half of the money on the table to disappear. Think about that — if nobody buys in again, half of the money is gone just to the casino after 4 hours. Per player that’s costing about ~$24 per hour. So for you to even think about making money you have to beat the 24.
Like I said, you are not playing against a casino when you play poker, unlike blackjack or craps, you’re playing against other players. The casino only provides a dealer, the table, the cards, and chips to give you the chance to gamble against each other. Think about that 24 as a broker fee. A very expensive one if you’re playing for anything less than $1,000.
Now to the actual money making. Would you play a tennis match against Maria Sharapova for $500? Or how about a $1,000 shoot-out against Stephen Curry? How about any professional, in any sport? Probably not. The main reason is (or should be) because they are probably better than you. The reason is simple. Professionals practice their craft for hours a day, every day. When you sit down at a 2–5 no-limit game on a Tuesday morning, chances are the people around you are that — professionals. These are the few select individuals who can make a life out of poker and they eat, sleep, and breath the game. And guess what — when you sit down at a poker table you are playing against them.
Their job is to take your money and you’re paying a casino $24 per hour to let them.
2) Losing sucks
Poker was fun. I loved it. Having chips in front of me and shuffling them. Betting. The feeling of my heart beating all the way up to my chest. Winnings hands. I loved being the kid who could compete against people who were decades older. I even loved the rush of the stress.
But I hated losing more than I loved winning.
The feeling is hard to describe. When you lose hundreds of dollars your morale takes a hit in ways other professions don’t. You want to feel and see a depressing scene? Go to a casino, and ride up the elevator late at night. The elevator might be full but it’ll be completely silent. Silent because people are thinking about what they lost. Silent because people are thinking about all they could’ve done with that money they lost. Some have lost enough to take their family on vacation but now won’t be able to. The elevators are also silent as some are promising God they’ll never gamble again if they could somehow have their money back.
Losing hundreds or thousands of dollars makes one feel like an idiot. And despite how great the nights of winning were, the losses were always more memorable. Every movie you’ve seen starts and ends with a gambler winning a ton of money. But the reality is losing, and driving home in silence is what happens most often. The car rides home are what separates poker with other professions or games and those car rides were more than often too quiet.
3) Gambling is like other addictions
I’ve seen and met hundreds of people at casinos and underground games. The young ones who think they have an edge. The ones who wear hoodies and sunglasses. I also met the analytical and quantitative ones. But the ones I hated seeing the most — the old people I’d see every single time, at a smaller table playing for $20. I hated seeing these people because I wondered if that would be me in some years.
What people don’t seem to realize is gambling is as real as other addictions. There is extreme denial, compulsive behavior, and the inability to rationally deal with stress in casinos.
I don’t care to try to estimate the amount of hours I spent in poker rooms, underground games, casinos, or house games. But over the course of five years, I’m sure it’s more than 1,000 hours. If I had spent half of that time studying piano or the financial derivatives market I’d be an expert by now with a real, tangible talent I could use in life.
And here’s the thing — I never became an expert in poker because I was always trapped. I was playing a game that was designed for me not to win in the long run. It was also always changing. I’m not saying tech or finance doesn’t change (it’s changing incredibly fast today) but the fundamentals don’t. Compared to poker where I was a playing a game that didn’t allow me to directly progress proportionally to the time I, or most, put in.
Like most of the points made here — I’m not referring to the actual game of poker or cards in general. I’m not talking about having a poker night on Fridays with my circle of friends. I’m talking about gambling multiple times a week. I’m talking about the times where half of my net worth was on the table.
There are some skills that can be developed from poker. Statistics and probability, money management, deep strategy, game theory development, etc. But the truth is, poker rooms aren’t what you see on TV and the majority of people there aren’t studying or developing these skills. They’re — gamblers. Gamblers that are suffering just like other addicts are.
4) You are who you surround yourself with
We’ve all heard it. “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” In poker, you sit around 8 other people and a dealer, not 5. I’ve had the blessing of meeting some of the coolest, smartest, funniest, most generous people in my life through poker and formed lifelong friendships. And I even had that one night after a poker game that I will never forget. But, those were anomalies.
Unlike the movies, casinos are extremely boring, mundane, and repetitive. People aren’t smiling. Nobody is really happy.
In games against the casino, you will lose. Maybe not in the first spin or the first hundred spins, but eventually you lose. Casinos make a profit by offering you games where the rules are made so the odds of you winning are at least less than 45%. Like my Intro to Statistics professor used to say, “It’s not whether you will win or lose. It’s about when will you lose.” Very simple. Casinos make the majority of their revenue from you losing money. In fact, less than 25% of their revenue comes from food and drinks. (1)
And in poker rooms, there’s a similar phenomenon. As described above, winning in the long run is extremely difficult. Though, unlike other casino games, in poker you’re playing against other players, not the casino. So, for one person to win, another has to lose. Your winnings are coming directly from someone else’s stack. Literally.
But, because the casino is taking such a big rake, for one to realistically make good money, 2–3 people need to lose that money. And few are making good money. What does this mean? The majority of people playing poker are losing money.
Yes. Statistically, significantly more people are walking away with less money in their pockets than those who are walking away with winnings. Again, what does mean? Why would people go to poker rooms/casinos if they know the odds are so badly stacked against them?
Well, because we’re losers.
Is it smart, or even rational, to go to a place where you’ve lost money before and know you’ll lose again? The point is if you look around those rooms, the majority of people are losers. Losers because they’re losing money and losers because they’re lying to themselves. Sounds harsh but it’s the truth. Odds are, you’re not discussing a business plan at a casino or meeting the next Jeff Bezos. The people in poker rooms are busy doing something else — they’re actively losing money, at the least.
5) Morality
Finally, poker had one other fatal flaw.
I played other casino games sometimes. I played blackjack and roulette. They were fun and quicker and had a better atmosphere during the weekends. Winning money at the blackjack table was awesome. And when my friends and I all won money at the blackjack table it was even better. It felt like we outsmarted the casino and we could all get a nice dinner afterwards. For an entity that makes money taking advantage of human nature, beating the casino felt good.
But poker is different. And you already know why. In poker, you play against other people. Winning was still great, fun, and gave me that same good feeling. But, the good feeling was from outsmarting other people, not from outsmarting the casino. This made me like the feeling even more. I am better, I am smarter than others, I thought.
Although making money playing blackjack was even harder, what made it more fun was the fact that the table gets to win together. Everyone is rooting against the dealer so all the players can win. And finally one day, I thought about it. It took me a bit to consciously be aware of it, but for me to live the high in poker, somebody else had to live the low.
Playing poker isn’t necessarily immoral and taking other people’s chips at the table isn’t either. But the fact that there were 9 of us at the table and we were all inherently cheering for each other to lose is what I didn’t like. I have already described how bad losing was and I realized I would actively participate in others living that feeling I hated so much by being in those rooms.
Poker was a zero-sum game and I wanted out.
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