It's interesting how hard it is for people from boomer generation to see poker as a genuine way of living instead of simply degenerate gambling.
It doesn't matter how much you explain how it works, looks like most of them just don't get it (my parents included).

Just out of curiosity, how your family sees your poker hobby/profession?

pretty sure they think pretty poorly of me except maybe direct family. **** em. Ya ive never really tried with the boomer generation sometimes I lie. I think you have to really just not care about it. my parents didnt really get it either untill I had heaps of liquidity cash whenever they needed it because they are horrible at budgeting. When they see the results thats probably the only way. Alot of my family has real degenerate tendencies that seemed to have skipped me so they probably just think im one of them.

I am very lucky in the fact my my father was a for profit player for a large part of his life. He was never a professional but he played for spending money when he was young, and for a very short time played to support my family during 2008. Thankfully my immediate family is supportive as a hobby, but that might be because only my father knows that I play for an actual profit and see it as a way to make money, not as a career but as a side hustle. But honestly I am almost 100% sure my Father would berate me if I told him I wanted to play poker full time.

I think they pretty much view poker as an ignoble hustle.

This right here, and granted most of the time it's like small talk at a family function with an uncle or cousin.

Just all the cliche stuff
"So can you can't cards"
"Do you ever try to play on these TV tournaments"

Well I only play cash... "I see them on TV, you know who Phil Helmuth is"
Yes. But I play only cash, it's different tha ---- "Have you ever seen Molly's Game"

Great seeing you Uncle Scott

at first my father feared I would become a degenerate gambler, 2 yrs later I had reached 7 figures profit, they started respecting it when they saw I made real money essentially

My dad works at the same trading firm as Bill Chen (author of Mathematics of Poker), and they even have an annual company poker tournament there. So he was the one who actually introduced me to poker when I was just a kid lol.

Even though I never played/thought about it until I was already in college, I probably would never picked it up in the first place if not for him.

I have a theory, the richer your country are the longer it will take for them to accept poker as a job.
For example, in my country you just need to beat NL25 by 4bb/100 to make more money than most of the ppl that have a bachelors degree, in Us/Europe you might need to be beating NL200+ probably.

bigger then nl200. have you seen inflation

It all comes back to being able to show receipts of your success/ability to function as an adult as a result of playing poker. They will never really support it if you're always struggling/broke/scrapping by, but when you're clearly able to live and afford the expenses day to day life demands then its hard for them to dislike it too much. Unless it fully consumes you, then I could see them still not supporting your job choice.

This. Like anything, if you can sustain an income for your family then it shows what you are doing has longevity. If you can’t take your woman to a nice dinner coz you ran bad on a Sunday then it’s not going to look good.

Unlike other 2p2 posters, I don't recall asking my family, friends or significant other for money that would be used in a casino/cardroom/etc.

Sure, this has limited me on the larger buy-in games, but after seeing a good friend of mine win a life changing sum of money around 15+ years ago, then 10 months later, ask me for $200. I'm at peace with my decision to not get into staking deals, or to use money that I didn't earn to play this game, even though I did explore that several years ago.

I came to the conclusion that gambling/poker/games of skill that involve money will always be a hobby, not a profession for me.

So to answer the OPs question. Why should anyone care about what you do with your hard earned money?

If they are stressed about what I am doing with my time, money, effort and energy, they should look inwards at themselves.

The only reason your friends, family or loved ones should be concerned is if they are fueling an addiction.

In which case, you need to be self aware enough to know that you have a problem, and you need to get help.

There is nothing wrong with admitting that you have a problem, and that you need help. I wish more people would understand this.

Don't make a living but am and have been a long time micro/low stakes winner. At first my parents were concerned for the obvious reasons. Once I showed them I wasn't some degenerate that was gonna gamble every penny away and have nothing in live they started to come around. We had some battles early. Took 2-3 years of showing them receipts/profits, playing all while paying normal bills and working 5 days a week 8 hours a day. Now they've completely accepted and we talk and discuss it now and again.

Most my friends are accepting and play weekly at a home game together. Ex wasn't so accepting even though she knew it provided $$$ and helped with the income. Hence a part of the reason why she's now the ex. lol. New wife is very support and yes I was pretty nervous about telling her back when we first meant. But I didn't wait long to sit her down(2rd date I believe) login into PS show her the balance, fired up PT4 and showed her a number of years worth of receipts. Been together 9 years now in Nov. Couldn't ask for a better and more support wife/person.

I've also had friends and indirect family not get it and accept it even too this day. we don't talk or see other much meh *shrugs*

But then I've always also kept a good poker, family and real life balance. This is also key I believe even if you play for a living.


Cheers!!!

I think you nailed it here. This is a discussion about balance and boundaries.

If you live a well balanced life, and you've setup appropriate boundaries, you're doing this the right way. If you're not, you need to be self aware enough to know when your friends and family are raising legitimate red flags about your poker playing lifestyle.

I would recommend books by Gabor Mate if anyone is interested in reading a medical professional's thoughts on topics related to this. More specifically, "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" is a good read. Dr. Mate has a youtube channel too.

I know a guy who is... forgive the pun... underwater on his boat loan. The thing spends more time in the repair shop than in the water.
The friends and family don't degrade or insult him for being $XXX,XXX in debt on an asset. I doubt they even know, or care about the amount of debt he has on this thing.

Any why would they?

If they treated him like a degenerate who makes bad decision, he might stop inviting them out for weekends at the lake.

If said friend was $XXX,XXX in debt to a loan shark due to gambling, they'd likely wouldn't think too highly of him.

I personally do not see any difference in being $XXX,XXX in debt to a loan shark and being $XXX,XXX in debt over an demonstrably bad investment like I described above.

One has a negative social stigma, while the other, has a positive stigma but the net result is the same. At the end of the day, if you're having fun living your one and only shot at life, then you're doing it right. Anything else, you're doing it wrong.

Scott Tom is your uncle ?

https://www.casino.org/news/absolute...ay-defendants/

Your kneecaps might feel differently if the first debt comes due for collection.

Fair point.

However, folks with bad credit, bankruptcy, liens, judgments, criminal larceny charges, etc are virtually (not physically) kneecapped as well. Try passing a background check for any company on the S&P 500 with anything I just listed. You might be able to gain employment at the lowest levels of said company, if you're lucky.

But to your point, a true degenerate would see this as an opportunity.

"You mean I can pull a Frank Gallagher and get an SSA Disability check and make a claim on my Long Term Disability insurance policy?"

Degens are gonna degen.. and to OPs point, i think it's fair for your friends and family to be concerned. There's plenty of "Poker Professionals" who talk the talk, claim they have receipts... and then they end up like this guy:



I think in life, you have to figure out where your edge is.

I know a guy who is a solid player, could likely go pro... but he's also one of the best attorneys in field of practice. What edge is bigger? In the courtroom, or on the felt?

I think he would agree with me saying this. He could make a million bucks much easier in the courtroom, than he could on the felt.

But Johnny the construction worker? If his skillset is poker and concrete, if he worked on his game and did all the right things, he could probably make more in poker than in concrete.

I never really gave this much thought until I was at a family reunion just after taking a new job shortly after black friday. For about 18 month starting with losing my job during the financial crisis, I had been playing to pay my bills without using my savings with online poker, but never really looked at it as a long term career - for me once I was playing for my sole source of income it was a painful, almost stressful grind and not fun. Anyway, one of my uncles who was a typical college grad 9-5 manager asked me within the first 10 seconds of seeing me, "How did that poker thing work out?" as sarcastically as possible. I replied, I was making decent money and doing fine until the major sites were shut down, which clearly disappointed him that it wasn't due to my failure at the game that I hit the job market when I did.

Other than that encounter, the vast majority of my family and close friends have always been some combination of curious, encouraging, and supportive including two slightly older than boomer parents. (Worth note, I have an engineering degree and and MBA from top colleges, with many years of leadership experience at fortune 50 corporations, so they may have a different bias than families of others playing with no clear plan B). I do have a couple of boomer uncles that fit into the more judgmental group (example above and one other), but if I'm being honest I never really respected either of them enough to care what they thought. Still, was eye opening to see that at least one of them was somewhat actively rooting against me, at least inside his head!

So you can probably infer that I'm older than a lot of you. My advice for the younger crowd getting pressure/judgement from family is to devise and articulate your plan B, or what your other side hustles are to paint a picture of responsibility (helps a ton if it's true, btw). Most of the negativity from people that genuinely care about you comes from worry that you are endangering yourself or your personal or family's future.

My advice is to not give a f--- what your family thinks about you playing poker. If you can't do that, don't tell them about it to begin with.

"No, I quit my job, I didn't really need it to pay the bills anymore."

They all play

Are you Uncle Roger or where is the rest of the sentence in that thread title?

Thanks for this book recommendation, looks good and I ordered it

The boomers are hard to get through to. Back when I was playing a tonne as a side hustle I tried very hard to explain to a few curious family members how I was winning over a large sample….and they just couldn’t grasp it

It’s like ….they can conceptualise how the casino or lottery type game has an EV edge over it’s players. But they cannot switch it over to a player having the same EV edge over the game .

I think it boils down to how drilled into them it is that all gamblers are doomed to lose in the long run, that they cannot bear to have this absolute truth ripped away from them

Back to the point of balance. Poker should only be a part of what you do, one of your income streams if you are serious , or a casual hobby. Full time grinding is just unhealthy , for nearly everyone, so if you are coping it from friends and family they are very likely correct and you know it, you just don’t want to admit it

Obviously they think it's a bad idea, but who cares.

The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinion of the sheep.

You consider your family to be sheep, Mr. Lion ?

I formerly represented concrete truck drivers in the Miami area, construction workers in Las Vegas, and electrical workers in the US, back in the day. Different skill sets than poker calls for, don't get condescending about someone's source of income. Your "Johnny the construction worker"'s money spends just fine.

That said, there probably are 100 fields of endeavor where making "a million bucks" is easier than in poker. Poker is a very hard way to make an easy living.

Don't dwell too much on your "edge", just understand that there are a wide range of ways to make a buck .... obsessing over maximizing your "edge" is foolish, balance it against your quality of life.

Poker's demands to "maximize your edge" seem inconsistent with life outside the poker world, if your "edge" lies in your playing live games.