Hello,

I read a lot of articles about making a living with poker. They are mostly concerned with BB/100 and $/hour, but I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

Once you become a winning player, will online poker rooms allow you to play and make money this way? Isn't there a danger you will quickly get banned everywhere and simply become unable to use your poker skills to make profits?

It is well known that many sports betting sites ban long-time winning players. And there are a few accusations here and there that some poker sites do it too. Looking from the poker room perspective, it certainly makes sense. Fish deposit money, and this money ends up being distributed between the poker room (via the rake) and winning players (cashing out their winnings).

Ban winning players - and all money deposited by fish will end up as revenue, as opposed to just part of it.

Am I being too paranoid here?

Not just paranoid, conceptually incorrect.

This statement is wrong

ducy?

Sports betting sites may ban winning players because the company itself is paying out the money (from their own pockets) After black Friday every poker room "should" keep players deposited money separate from operations money. This means that rake generated is moved from player money to operation money and therefore it wouldn't make sense to ban them for simply being profitable.

Second, if they ban winning players how would that effect the image of the company. With forums and other outlets, it would be easy to drag a non reputatable company through the dirt and scare anyone from depositing.

If you are worried about being banned for winning in an online poker room, you're either overly paranoid...or up to no good.

they dont ban players for being too good. you need winning players to start games. the recreational players are not numerous enough for that.

many casinos still havent got that in their brains yet. and dont realize how the winners are winners for them as well.

Except in highly suspicious circumstances (a handful of players have been banned based on "cheating" with no evidence actually supplied) this doesn't happen. Even if one winning player was banned, that just means that the second best player at the table becomes a winner. There are literally thousands of people making money from online poker and they don't have problems with cashouts. In poker, you're not directly playing against the house (like in Blackjack or sports betting), so sites don't much care who is winning and who is losing. The site earns rake from everyone.

I am not talking about suspected cheating.

I am talking about the poker room making a business decision to close accounts of long-term winners (and cashing out their bankroll). The player doesn't lose money this way, but he obviously loses the ability to earn money in the future.

There are lots of stories like this, here is one, for example. Since the players in question got their funds cashed out without even having to fight for it, it is very unlikely cheating was involved here.

Are there any poker sites which do not use the rake model and use other means to generate revenue (e.g. having a hefty cashout fee instead)?

The poker business is really simply from an operational standpoint. They require as many seats be filled at as many tables as possible so that they
can generate as much rake as possible. Banning players for being skilled makes no sense because regulars constitute a large percentage of the player base and they, like any frequent customer in any business, need to be encouraged to stick around. This is why all poker rooms try to lure you in with their (albeit currently underwhelming) frequent player programs.

Poker rooms don't care who is at the tables so long as there are people at the tables. Ecosystems complete with bottom feeders and apex predators are healthy!

Why would they ban the current winning players. That just means people who are breaking even right now have more breathing room and start winning. You can only get all the deposit money when everyone is equal skill or....

you simply increase the rake.

Yes online poker sites will allow you to play and make money. If you were even remotely tuned into the poker scene you'd be well aware that they do. Banning winning players doesn't make any sense. In fact poker sites comp the highest winning players to encourage them to continue playing on their sites. The more a player wins the more rake he/she will be paying. There's an endless supply of losing players.

Speculation only

I was referring to a handful of cases where PartyPoker closed the accounts of some winning players and the vague reason given was "Automated AI software", but Party never named the software or produced any evidence it even existed. The players affected (well known regs in a couple of occurrences) were completely mystified and are adamant they didn't use any illegal software, so it seemed the site was arbitrarily banning them. There's literally only been a handful of cases though.
The Mexico thing also only affected a small number of players, but it did seem rather like it was an attempt by 888 to reduce the number of winning regs (ex-pats from the US). They might have had other (legal/licensing) reasons for doing it though.
In the main, there is no need to worry about being banned for winning, unless you are actually breaking the rules.