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The dream of many gamblers is to quit their boring regular job and gamble in a casino for a living. They know there are people doing it, so why can’t they do it too?
The truth is that many people try to make a living by gambling full-time, but only a small percentage of gamblers make it. You will face many challenges, but the dream can come true if you can take the pressure and learn how to make the right bets.
I came up with a step by step plan to make $50,000 a year gambling. It includes everything you need to know, including the good and the bad.
$50,000 is not a random number. I chose it because it’s $1,000 a week if you take two weeks vacation during the year. Some people would be happy Gambling for a living and making $1,000 a week. Others may want or need to do more.
The main thing to understand is that if you build your skills to the point where you can make $50,000 a year, you can keep working and increasing your bankroll to 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’s not one of their most popular books but it shows a market for people who want to know more.
The good news for you Xtiger Casino is that you can learn everything you need to know on this page for free, so you don’t need to buy the book.
Bankroll
To make a living gambling, you need to have a bankroll. All forms of Gambling have ups and downs, and there is nothing you can do that will make you win all the time.
Your bankroll is the lifeblood of your gambling career. If you don’t have any money to risk, you can’t make any money.
You should have enough money to overcome the wins and losses and let the long-term advantage work in your favor. The first mistake most would-be professional gamblers make is needing a bigger bankroll.
You need to have enough money in reserve to survive while you build your bankroll enough to ride the ups and downs and eventually start making money from it.
In the case of making $50,000 a year, you need to take $1,000 out of your bankroll every week. This means your bankroll needs to be big enough to make big bets to make this much money with the edge you create.
The required bankroll is somewhat dependent on the variety in the gambling activity you choose. The three realistic gambling activities for professional gamblers, each have their section below, including blackjack, poker, and sports betting.
The required bankroll for everyone 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.
Edge Search
To make $50,000 a year gambling, you need to find situations where you can gain a long-term advantage. Casino games and gambling are designed to give the house an edge. So your options are limited when it comes to finding an edge.
Blackjack is designed in such a way that the house rules change the edge. It is also played with a certain set of cards. This allows you to track the ratio between high and low cards and vary your bet size to give you a long-term edge. This is called card counting, and you can learn more about it in the blackjack section.
Poker is a unique gambling game because instead of playing against the house, you play against other players, and the house takes a small cut from each pot. This creates an opportunity where you can gain a long-term advantage if you can play better than most of your opponents.
Sports betting is another area where some people make long-term gains. Bookmakers set betting lines and sometimes change based on the amount of money bet on the game. This can create opportunities for savvy sports bettors to find games that offer value to one side or the other. If you identify enough games that matter and bet enough on each match, you can make a long-term profit.
Other possibilities to find an edge include some video poker games and other advantage playing opportunities such as arbitrage, hole carding, shuffle tracking, and ace tracking. These are more difficult in many cases than the three gambling opportunities listed above.
Some gamblers may combine two or more opportunities to gain an advantage, but you should focus on mastering one area before adding a second and third option.
The Numbers
The numbers behind making $50,000 a year gambling are pretty simple, but they also show why most players fail to make a living.
If you learn how to count cards when playing blackjack, you can achieve a long-term edge of between half and one percent. Knowing this, we can determine how much you need to bet 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 half a percentage, you need to make $200,000 worth of weekly bets. If your average chance is $100, you need to play 2,000 hands. At an average of 50 hands per hour, you need to play 40 hours per week. It seems like a realistic number at first, but card counters need help playing the same game and in the same casino for too long. When the casino finds out that you are counting cards, they will stop you from playing.
Also, blackjack players who average $100 per bet are watched more closely than those who make lower bets. But let’s look at some different situations.
If you get a 1% edge, you can play 20 hours a week with an average bet of $100 and get the same result as playing 40 hours at half a percent. Or you can play for 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 allows you to play as many hours per week as you want, because the casino or poker room doesn’t care if you win or lose. Good poker players can win a large bet per hour in limited games, so if you play 10 / 20 and play 50 hours per week, you can grind out a $1,000 profit.
Good no-limit players can win more per hour in some situations, so you can make a $1,000 profit playing a $500 no-limit Texas hold’em buy-in playing less time. It’s easier for a good player to make $1,000 a week in $1,000 buy-in games.
Poker is the best option for many players who want to make money 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 bets are usually thin, and large sums of money must be wagered to show enough profit to make a profit. As a sports bettor, winning more than 55% of the games you bet on in the long run is almost impossible, and the vig takes a portion of your income.
To earn $50,000 a year, you need to earn $4,167 a month. If you find 100 games a month that offer value and win 55 of them, here’s how the numbers work:
If you bet $1,100 on each of the 100 games for a chance to win $1,000, your total investment is $110,000. Of the 55 bets you win, you get back your $1,100 and the $1,000 winnings. This means your gross income is $115,500.
This creates a profit of $5,500 for the month. It seems like a workable situation, but there are some challenges. The first challenge is finding 100 games a month that offer value.
The second challenge is the short-term difference and how it can affect your bankroll and income. You will lose money for the month if you only win 50 to 52 out of 100 games. And if you only win 53 or 54 out of 100 games, you’ll make little money.
- 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’ll only earn $1,300 for the month.
- If you win 54 games, you will earn $3,400.
And when you have a month where you lose money or don’t make enough to pay your bills, you still have to pay the bills. This money has to come out of your bankroll unless you have money back for expenses.
Of course, if you’re a good sports bettor, you’ll have months to win more than 55 games, but don’t expect that to happen often.
If you can’t find enough games to bet on every month, you have 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 have to search for so many of them. But it also means you need a bigger bankroll to make bigger bets safely.
Blackjack
If you want to make money as a blackjack player, you need to learn how to count cards. It’s not as hard as many people think, but you also need to do it in a way that prevents the casinos from knowing what you’re doing and have a big enough bankroll to survive the downswings.
Even the best card counters lose days and weeks. The edge is so small that the short term difference can and often does go against you. This means you have to keep playing in a way that gives you a long-term advantage no matter what.
The amount of money you need in your bankroll to make $1,000 a week in income involves many variables. It’s not an exact estimate, but I wouldn’t take it below $20,000 if the average bet is $100. $50,000 is even better.
The mechanics and how-to of card counting is a deep topic. 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 KO or Red 7.
The basics behind every card counting system is keeping track of the ratio of high and low cards remaining in the shoe or deck. You raise your bets when the balance is rich in high cards and lower your bets when there are more low cards left than high cards.
This is done by adding and subtracting a small number, usually one, from a running number. Anyone can learn to be a card counter with little effort, so don’t be afraid to check it out.
You also need to learn about camouflage, which helps you learn how to count without getting caught.
Sports Betting
You’ve learned why sports betting can lose, the challenges sports bettors face in finding enough games that deliver value, and why you need a big bankroll. In this section, I will go 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 on small bets, even if you can check the games and find value.
I don’t recommend making a living as a sports bettor until you can make a $500 or $1,000 bet 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 lifeblood of your career as a professional gambler.
This means you need a $50,000 bankroll to make a $500 bet and $100,000 to make a $1,000 bet. Some online casino bettors are good enough to stretch their bets to 2% of their bankroll, but I recommend trying this when you have a long track record of successful results.
Conclusion
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