You're right. It is a lottery. They're paying for promotions with your money. Here in Colorado, we have qualifying quads beaten with a $2 BBJP drop that leads to big 6 figure jackpots in the big room. When the JP is big, there's a huge buzz. It is exactly a lottery, as you say. The room advertises this huge payout with money that comes from everyone who played.

The old Monte Carlo room in Vegas had a high hand JP with a $3 rake and $1 drop. It paid out for quads or better on a board with various buckets of hand types. This kind of JP is much less rare, and you can kind of break even in a much shorter term. Still a lottery, but it isn't 5 lifetimes of live poker and then hit a $500k score.

Here's the secret of making it as a live player, imo. Most people need to run a little bit good to make it. Is that not running bad for 3 months in a row? Is it hitting a couple jackpots, maybe a table share and then a mid sized one? Is it just running no worse than average when shot taking? It is hard to have the BR and mental fortitude to take a Black Swan early on. Something probably has to go at least OK for most people to make it. That's fine and is part of poker. Most of us who have played a long time at least didn't have a bunch of stuff go wrong at the worst times. Every time you talk to a long term pro, think about the survivor bias in them being there. Same as startup bazillionaires -- luck happens in the real world. You do your best so that you need as little as possible.

If someone says you were a little bit lucky with X or Y, just smile and know that's standard for most everybody. The people who started out really unlucky are working a day job.

subbed. hoping for an update

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