What makes poker interesting relative to other wagering opportunities is that players are pitted against each other. Skillful poker players can generate positive earning expectancies over time, and there are many individuals in the United States and around the world who are professional poker players. These individuals yield incomes (sometimes large incomes) based on strategic and tactical decision-making, an understanding of statistics, interpersonal acumen, and other skills related to various business activities and human relations in general. Rather than solely depending on the turn of a card (although some degree of chance, as in many endeavors, is a factor in poker), winning poker players must employ their analytic and social skills in order to anticipate events, “read” the competition, make sound investments in the short and the longer terms, and respond to changing table (i.e. marketplace) conditions.
Using a survey of online poker players, we examined factors associated with earning money from playing online poker. We find several factors influenced how much money a poker player gained, including hours played per week, hours spent studying, education, and age. Discussions of how these findings relate to fields such as entrepreneurship and options (and other types of) trading are included. Our results also provide additional evidence that poker is predominantly based on skill rather than chance and our research design may provide a model for studying similar skills in a more controlled setting.