The Poker Implications of a Stock Market Crash
Well boys and girls, the worst has happened and is not over yet. The stock market is beginning to crash and I can’t see anything good coming out of this for the next year at least. I think we are destined, as can be seen in the world economy today, to deal with the struggles of slowing incomes, job loss, and less money for leisure activities.
This hasn’t particularly hit our sector of work (poker) yet but it will. My current job has already made 2 rounds of cuts and will likely be making at least 2 more before this thing is all said and done. Whether I have a job after all this is kinda pointless. The point I’m making is people are losing their income at record pace. People like me who play stakes such as 400nl+ already have a squeeze on the fish that have access to putting 10’s of thousands online. The US government already made this difficult and the result is there’s only about 2 regulars at 2/4 that are constant big losers. It’s going to get worse. Way worse in my opinion.
People always ask me “who the hell can afford to lose $50k every year at poker”. My answer is always the rich. Its not just the rich though. They can afford it, but the other players who can “afford it” are often daytraders. I think we vastly underestimate the poker players who also plays the stock market. I’d actually venture a guess that many of the fish that lose $50k justify giving some money away online after having a big day in the market. This is going to change.
With the stock market getting leveled, both my favorite types of fish are going to become scarce. The rich are heavily invested in the stock market typically and the daytrader (gambling fish) types aren’t going to be having days where they feel like they have all the money in the world.
You can already see it. Look at the blogs that I have linked on this page… how many of these great poker players are having mediocre/break-even/losing months? Most. How many are having the best month yet? None. I’d say if you look at this month, it will be the beginning of the ugly. Regulars are going to be making less and less profit. I would expect my target for the month to be +10 buyins at 400nl. I often times catch myself not worrying about the stock market or my job because i know i always have something that pays me well beyond that. Well I’m starting to realize they are all linked. And i’m starting to worry about what the trickle down really means.
The only bright side I see to this economy will be the US will likely loosen the strangle hold it has on the poker industry. As resources become thin, they will pretty much have to look the other way with stuff bringing money into the banks aka poker. They won’t have as many agents and agencies to spend time on enforcing. That’s the only plus i see to this entire thing and hopefully that balances out all the people losing money in the market.
We are able to make as much money as we do because people are able to give away as much money as they do. Poker is a game of edges and we are starting to run out of them… hopefully the standard doesn’t turn into 0.5bb/100 @ 2/4 being a standard winrate for a regular but i don’t think we are too far off. Good Luck everyone, and remember that game selection in these times is the most important thing.
I thought the same thing, but during rough economic times, generally money spent on gambling actually INCREASES. Whether or not this will be enough to trickle to 400nl or 600nl remains to be seen. It could be a ton of people throwing $50 at a time in.
Just figure out your edges vs. regs. I think even vs them you’d have enough of an edge to make an ok living.
Fwiw I’m having one of my best months of the year this month, running hot is nice
You are wrong about day traders losing money when the market goes down.
It does not matter to day traders profits the directionality of the market.
Also, if anything they are making more in this climate due to the increased volatility.