The Average Salary of a Professional Pool Player

...stake horse..?
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No bakers, no stake horses, just my pocket and yours. I don't know where you guys play, but i can do a 3h session for 20$ around here. I am no house pro or anything...so If I win an average of 3 sets of 100$ minus table time and other expenses i'll still be able to go home with 250$ in my pocket. If you can do that 4nights (only) per week, you're good to go. 4000$ a month for only ~50h of work....well seems fair to me sir. I didn't count local tourneys and other activities (being a dealer for cue companies, maybe a sponsored challenge match or whatever..)
I am sorry to say, but nobody will ever convince me that hard work (no matter what you do) won't pay off ..eventually.


Note: let's be clear...I am not talking about me here...but generally. A married with kids has no time for this kind of stuff...maybe a league night ending with a 20$/set to pay the soda...lol

Chris@2015


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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LAMas said:
I know of a couple of UPS drivers who got stock lieu of pay and they are millionairs now.
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I believe you-They work you hard but if you can hack it, you can do pretty well there-Certainly better than 99.8 % of pool players.
 
West Point 1987 said:
IMHO (having tried this for a while back in the '90s) you have to keep moving. You can fish the hole for a couple of nights, but you need to let it fallow out for a week before you hit it again. College towns/bars are great, so are military towns. The "regular" crowd is smaller, but the majority of the fish are transient, never visiting the same bar twice in a month. So you can fish those holes longer. Pretty soon the action dies out for you around town and it's time to move a few exits down the road...you can come back later. That's how a C or B player can make decent coin gambling...and frankly, that action is as strong as it ever was. Everybody talks about the big scores, trying to match up with a spot the better player can't outrun, but $200 or $300 four or five nights a week playing nickel/dime games against bangers add up to more in the long run, and you don't have risk four digit sums to beat a AA/AAA player to cash...
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Very nice way of looking at it. And probably very true. You might risk more fights playing the A/B.
 
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Not sure what tourneys are counted. If you look at amount of tourney's for each players. Most don't show that many tourney's in a year. So how many tourney's would be considered a full time pro. Most seem to be part time pros.
 
Bob Jewett said:
Last year the 25th top men's US earner was Shane McMinn with about $7500.
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I guess it would be better if it showed every tournament entered, paid or not. This would not appear to be a full time pro.





2015 Year in Review
EARNINGS AZB MONEY LEADERBOARD
$6,305 82nd
PAYOUT RANK TOURNAMENT
$3,000 2nd The Memphis Pro Ten Ball Open 2015
$750 5th MCC 2015 Open Div.
$530 5th 1st Texas 10-Ball Championship
$325 5th 3rd Big Tyme Classic 9-Ball Banks
$1,250 7th US Open 10-Ball 2015
$200 49th DCC 2015 9B Banks Div.
$250 50th DCC 2015 9B Div.
 
PoolBoy1 said:
Streaming will double the $$ earned as more and more advertisers of all sorts start investing. The past has been horrific except for a few top earners that get backing. Besides that a dress code for tv and time clock are necessary.
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Advertizers on streams are paying the streamer .
 
Jaden said:
The estimates that you can't make decent money playing pool I think is a little off.

You can play dive bar and local pool room tourneys basically every night of the week. Place 3rd or better in them and that's better than 2500-3500 a month alone. throw in an occasional win in a monthly tourney and an average winnings of 300 a week matching up and your talking $50K a year.

Now there are other costs like travel and such but that's mostly factored in to the above.

Now this is taking into consideration having the skill set to compete at a pro level.

Now that being said...I probably have the skill set... would I give up my higher 5 figure salary to do it....hell no...I've got a family to support...a mortgage to pay....a car payment to make...

If I can get to a point where I'm guaranteed income and can devote the time really necessary, I may reconsider...We'll see what happens.

Jaden
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I agree with you Jaden. If I want to put in the effort, and have done so in the past, I can grind out anywhere from 150 (bad week) to 500 or more just playing weekly's. It can get awfully monotonous playing weekly's but there are enough around this area that I can play every night and twice on Sat and Sun including alternating tournaments not to wear out my welcome.

The 30 figure probably is accurate with good to top players. Throw in stakehorses, calcutta's, etc and there are several shortstops than can make that figure. The problem arises with money management, expenses, pom (pissing off money - gambling, drinking, etc.)

Take a motivated player (oxymoron) that brands themselves, gets sponsors, gives lesson, presents professionalism, and do exhibitions can make a decent living. The problem is that many players just want to play pool and as of right now it's only a handful that can do that and be financially comfortable.
 
george canon said:
It is a shame, a disgrace, the top 25 pros don't all make a million a year, like in all the other top sports. They put in the same amount of time, years of practice and pain, a Tennis or golf pro does, and all they get for it, is the shaft. Tiger Woods made a billion dollars. TV, pays these sports millions to air them. Pool only got on ESPN, and paid them. The failure of pool, to hit prime time TV, and rake in those millions, is why the pros get so little today, and their pro tour, even collapsed a few years ago. Wanting to become a pool pro today, is not a smart thing to do. There is simply, no reward for the effort and time, a decade you have to put in, before it even begins to pay out. This is why so many kids, went into Poker instead. You could hit the big time, in 3 months. :(
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Wtf are you talking about? It pays what its worth to society, not up for debate.

Damn commie!:eek::grin-square:
 
If I had posted that I would have been very clear about pointing out that I didn't write it because I don't want people to think I'm a moron.

It reads like that "get your car ready for winter" or "how to clean your patio furniture" filler articles in section 2 of every small town newspaper in the US.
 
devorator said:
No bakers, no stake horses, just my pocket and yours. I don't know where you guys play, but i can do a 3h session for 20$ around here. I am no house pro or anything...so If I win an average of 3 sets of 100$ minus table time and other expenses i'll still be able to go home with 250$ in my pocket. If you can do that 4nights (only) per week, you're good to go. 4000$ a month for only ~50h of work....well seems fair to me sir. I didn't count local tourneys and other activities (being a dealer for cue companies, maybe a sponsored challenge match or whatever..)
I am sorry to say, but nobody will ever convince me that hard work (no matter what you do) won't pay off ..eventually.


Note: let's be clear...I am not talking about me here...but generally. A married with kids has no time for this kind of stuff...maybe a league night ending with a 20$/set to pay the soda...lol

Chris@2015


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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You failed to factor in ever losing (it happens) and the fact that anyone pocketing a grand a week in winnings will get away with that for about 3 weeks before he has to take to the road for some fresh action..... which means expenses.
 
logical said:
You failed to factor in ever losing (it happens) and the fact that anyone pocketing a grand a week in winnings will get away with that for about 3 weeks before he has to take to the road for some fresh action..... which means expenses.
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Exactly right. If you don't have a high win percentage then you probably aren't making much money and can't support yourself off of it to begin with. And if your win percentage is high, then that local action is going to dry up real fast so you likely aren't going to be able to support yourself for very long like that. People know that the only way you can have a real high win percentage is because you won't play with spots that give them a realistic chance and they aren't going to be having that for very long. It is a real catch 22 and makes it hard to stay anywhere for very long making any decent money. And if you continually move from area to area so you can keep your win percentage high then you have all those traveling expenses eating away at your profits. Real tough way to make a living any way you try to do it
 
beneath_the_sur...I'm with you! I love watching any kind of high-level pool of any variety. It"s the perfect execution of stroke that appeals to me...whatever the discipline. :thumbup:

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

beneath_the_sur said:
I dont think pool playing is boring to watch when its people who are pretty good
I enjoy the hell out of it, 9ball straight pool 8ball 3c all of it is very interesting to me
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Poolplaya9 said:
Exactly right. If you don't have a high win percentage then you probably aren't making much money and can't support yourself off of it to begin with. And if your win percentage is high, then that local action is going to dry up real fast so you likely aren't going to be able to support yourself for very long like that. People know that the only way you can have a real high win percentage is because you won't play with spots that give them a realistic chance and they aren't going to be having that for very long. It is a real catch 22 and makes it hard to stay anywhere for very long making any decent money. And if you continually move from area to area so you can keep your win percentage high then you have all those traveling expenses eating away at your profits. Real tough way to make a living any way you try to do it
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That's the reality except it is usually worse and you wind up sleeping in your car or getting an hour or two's work out at the truck stop.
 
If you go on a winning streak, and stay in 1 area you could try to lower your bets to get a variety of players to play you instead of limiting yourself only to the bigger fish. At least until you move on.
 
Poolplaya9 said:
Exactly right. If you don't have a high win percentage then you probably aren't making much money and can't support yourself off of it to begin with. And if your win percentage is high, then that local action is going to dry up real fast so you likely aren't going to be able to support yourself for very long like that. People know that the only way you can have a real high win percentage is because you won't play with spots that give them a realistic chance and they aren't going to be having that for very long. It is a real catch 22 and makes it hard to stay anywhere for very long making any decent money. And if you continually move from area to area so you can keep your win percentage high then you have all those traveling expenses eating away at your profits. Real tough way to make a living any way you try to do it
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Exactly. I don't get how people claim a decent living can be made gambling in pool halls and bar room tables. Either you are going to be taking candy from a baby for a few racks, and then they will stop, or you are playing good competition and you are not going to be winning consistently enough to be making sustainable cash. Otherwise, you are missing shots on purpose, and just barely winning. At some point, doesn't that catch up with you by pissing off the wrong person? Perhaps 25 years ago this would have been fun, but college and getting a consistent pay check was more important. Now family\life expenses and a fear of getting my old ass kicked keeps me away.

I'm going to keep the day job. I will play 10 or 20 dollar sets with friends, buying beers for each other through out. I win a bunch more than I lose, and some will not play straight up anymore. Most honestly believe next time will be different and keep playing...It's not exactly rent money for any of us, so perhaps they don't care and it's the thrill of trying to win and elevating the game in the process that matters.
 
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