The Predatory Side of Online Poker
“I like to play blackjack. I’m not addicted to gambling. I’m addicted to sitting in a semi-circle.”
When I was thirteen years old, I lost over two thousand dollars playing online cash games on Full Tilt Poker.
The year was 2005, and my older brother was already playing poker semi-professionally. One night, he started a ten dollar buy-in tournament and had to leave for a party shortly after. He let me take over, and added that, if I cashed, then I could keep half of the profits. I caught some good cards, and I managed to finish in third place for over fourteen hundred dollars. As many seasoned gamblers know, sometimes the worst thing that can happen is to start out with a massive score.
I now had a seven hundred dollar bankroll—more money than I could even comprehend. I started playing low stakes cash games, but there was a big problem: my brother had over two thousand dollars in his Full Tilt account. I proceeded to lose my entire roll, and then I continued to chase my losses with his money. Over the next few weeks, I drained nearly all the money in the account. One day as I was playing, he issued an ultimatum. I could keep going until there was no money left, then I had to fess up to our parents.
During this period, I was a full-blown gambling addict. I could not stop playing poker, even though I was losing money that wasn’t mine. I was an anxious kid to begin with, and this was too much for me to handle. I had a constant upset stomach and I couldn’t sleep. I felt like I had a horrible secret that I carried around with me everywhere. I remember being so overwhelmed with stress that I would cry at night, wondering how I had gotten myself into this mess, and if I would ever find a way out of it.
The Full Tilt account balance dwindled down to six dollars. I stared at that number in the cashier and felt numb all over. After I lost this last six dollars, I was going to have to tell my parents what I did, and then, I figured my life was over.
Then I decided to play a micro stakes sit-and-go and, to my surprise, I won it. I played a few more, and I won those too. Suddenly, I could not stop winning. I went on a massive heater in sit-and-go’s, cash games, and tournaments, and I even won my first MTT. Several weeks later, I showed my brother the cashier balance. I had made more than six thousand dollars. He shook his head in disbelief. I made my own account, transferred the funds, and spent the next two years profitably playing low-mid stakes cash games and MTTs.
Obligatory gambling meme.
In all seriousness, I share this strange origin story for two reasons. First, because it demonstrates how easy it was to make money during the poker boom of the early 2000s. I certainly had some talent, but as a young teenager, my hourly rate playing mid-stakes cash games was comparable to that of my father’s hourly rate as a college professor. These days, it has become astronomically more difficult to make that kind of money in online poker—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Second, I actually know what it feels like to have a gambling problem. The stress of my childhood experience is seared into my memory. I often wonder what my teenage years would have looked like if I hadn’t turned everything around with that last six dollars. Now, as a professional poker player, I worry about some of the recreational players in my games. It bothers me that I cannot see if they are as vulnerable as I once was.
To be clear, I do think that adults should have the freedom to gamble, or make other choices that may cause them harm. Many people enjoy the thrill of gambling, and can afford to do it. But even poker players who have never personally had a gambling addiction often have family members or friends who do. They’ve seen first-hand how gambling can ruin a person’s life, not to mention the lives of those around them, and they certainly do not want to make their living from the self-destruction of others.
Poker is a unique game because it toes the line between gambling and sport. Much like the earth would soon freeze over if the sun stopped shining, poker would die if recreational players stopped playing, and losing. But professional poker players also compete fiercely against one another. There’s a code of ethics among poker pros which shames predatory behavior. Pros who only play when a recreational player sits at the table are considered “bumhunters,” whereas pros who battle vs. the best and win are glorified. These “reg battles,” especially at very high stakes, are the main reason why online poker is cherished as a spectator sport.
Game selection will always be an important and valid part of any professional poker player’s strategy, but the more players who become bumhunters, the more predatory poker becomes as a whole. This predatory side of poker is harmful to society in proportion to the share of recreational players who are playing with money they cannot afford to lose. In other words, if too many regulars become bumhunters, at too high of stakes, then poker should no longer be considered a competitive sport.
Therefore, the most important factor for the sustainability of online poker as a sport, aside from keeping the games secure, is the rake. The lower the rake, the fewer professional players need to bumhunt in order to make a living.
The average recreational player loses at a rate of around -30 bb/100 when playing against only regulars. That means at a 6-max cash game table with one recreational player and five regulars, each regular will win at a rate of 6 bb/100 on average, before rake. If the rake is greater than 6 bb/100, that means the average regular will lose at tables where there is not at least one recreational player. At low stakes, the rake is significantly higher than 6 bb/100, which makes reg battling impossible.
Most sites set the net rake at 200nl (i.e. $1/$2 blinds) to around 5 bb/100, which makes it the lowest stake where it is feasible to have at least some tables where regulars can battle each other. 200nl also happens to be what most players consider the beginning of “mid-stakes” in online poker, since it is the first stake where players can actually make a legitimate income playing poker full-time.
Net rake comparison at 200nl regular tables (as of 2024).
Via Primedope.com
The fact that poker becomes more sport-like at mid stakes is a good thing, because these stakes are also the point at which playing online poker as a hobby becomes pretty expensive. If we estimate that a recreational player plays about 60 hands per hour, then they will lose at a rate of almost 20 big blinds per hour. Here’s what that looks like in dollars, when broken down by stakes:
Hourly loss rate of a recreational online player by stakes.
The table shows that online poker is relatively cheap entertainment up to mid stakes. It costs about $18 per hour for the average recreational to play one table of 100nl, which is comparable to going out to dinner at an inexpensive restaurant. Unless a person is multi-tabling or playing compulsively, it is unlikely that a person with an average income would do major damage to their finances playing these stakes.
This is why I don’t consider low stakes poker to be problematic, even though all low stakes players are essentially forced to bumhunt in order to win. There is not enough money involved for professional players to make a living, or to cause significant harm for most recreational players.
Problem gambling becomes a bigger threat at 200nl and 500nl. For me personally, it is very important that online poker does not feel predatory at these stakes. At 200nl, the average recreational player loses $36 per hour, and at $500nl, they lose $90 per hour. It is easy to see how a person with an average income could incur significant losses at these stakes. Of course, this is not to say that all recreational players at mid stakes are problem gamblers. It is just to say that problem gamblers who make average incomes become more vulnerable at these stakes.
Note: Some readers may point out that at nosebleed stakes, the games almost always run around a recreational player. But at these stakes, the recreational players are more aptly described as “VIPs.” In most cases, they have enormous amounts of wealth, far more than the regulars, and can afford to gamble for entertainment.
For online poker to grow and flourish, it is essential that the rake at mid and high stakes is kept low enough that reg battles are viable. A poker site which raises the rake to unsustainable levels may profit more in the short term, but in the long term, the ecosystem will break down. If the rake is too high, eventually the regulars will leave, traffic will plummet, and so will the poker site’s revenue.
Unfortunately, online cash games on the industry’s leading site appear to be headed in this direction. Over the past two years, GGPoker has managed to dominate the online poker market while charging disproportionately high rake at mid and high stakes, so that virtually all of their games are unbeatable for the average regular without at least one recreational player per table. GGPoker’s traffic is currently greater than all other sites combined.
Poker traffic history of the biggest poker sites over the last five years.
Via Primedope.com
The rake on GGPoker at mid stakes and above is unsustainably high, and it is only getting higher. April 2023, GGPoker nearly doubled their base rake at 5knl to a staggering 7 bb/100, which triggered a boycott. They eventually reversed that rake hike, but they are now raising the rake once again for shorthanded games at 5knl+.
At 1knl, the net rake (i.e. after rakeback) on GGPoker is currently estimated to be nearly 5 bb/100. At these stakes, GGPoker’s rake is more than double that of PokerStars. This makes reg battling very difficult, despite the fact that bumhunting is actually against GGPoker’s terms of service, and their security team frequently issues warnings and suspensions to players for “predatory behavior.”
Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates recently summed up the concerning direction of online cash games on GGPoker when he posted on X, “If the rake is too high for regs to battle each other, does that not force all pros into the category of predator? And then preclude poker from being a sport?”
It’s worth noting that the net rake at 10nl fast-fold tables on GGPoker was recently lowered to around 7 bb/100. That’s only 2 bb/100 higher than their rake at 100x the stakes! At microstakes, GGPoker’s rake is actually lower than PokerStars.
Net rake comparison at 10nl fast-fold tables (as of 2024).
Via Primedope.com
Net rake comparison at various stakes on major poker sites (as of 2024).
If the purpose of a system is what it does, then we should assume GGPoker’s strategy is to apply the low stakes rake model to all stakes. This would mean the end of online poker as a competitive sport, and the end of the poker dream.
GGPoker has stated in the past that they want what is best for online poker. We can only hope that they stick to their word, and make their business model more favorable to players in the future. If not, then more competition from other poker sites will be needed to give professionals the option to play mid and high stakes without being forced to resort to the bumhunting and predatory behavior that we all abhor.
