Not many people make money in poker and if they do it is not as much as you think. Doug works you through the math, most lose, some break even and good players earn a reasonable amount if they don’t have leaks.
Doug estimates that only 15-20 people have netted over $10M from poker and managed to hold on to it. If you check out Erik Lindgren’s strory you can see that one can have $10,302,598 of cashes in tournaments and still end up bankrupt.
Mid-Stakes pro playing 2$-$5 Zoom who is a solid regular will win say 3BB per 100. This is a good win-rate and equals $150,000 if you play a million hands a year with rake back perhaps as much as $175-$200K. This equates to 3,000 hands a day which may be a little too high and Doug estimates that $130K as a more reasonable figure.
At high stakes $25-$50 can’t play a million hands as can’t get in enough games to enable him to hit those numbers.
The current best player is otB_RedBaron who Doug estimates is making maybe $1.5 – $2M a year.
To enter a $100,000 dollar tournament and have 100% of your action you would need at least a $5M-$6M bank roll. However a $10M or more bank roll would be more appropriate.
To have 40% of yourself in say the One Drop you would need $20M-$25M to be properly bank rolled.
Circuit players – A good one could expect to take home approx $300K-$400K a year.
Players on a winning roll who end up bank rolling themselves to a higher percentage of their action are the one’s that make the real money. Players such as Fedor Holz or Dan Coleman are the outliers who’s streaks led to riches. Other’s go broke trying to replicate their success by taking “shots” at tournaments their rolls can’t afford.