What is your definition..,

This is pool we are talking about. But in general anyone making their income off of something is considered a professional.

Seeing how crappy tournaments are paying. The top players are not making a living on what i would consider comfortable for me. Right now Fuller is in the lead making $95K the Gorst making $58k next. Not livable at all where i live.

Now we have professional level players. These are players that are probably as good or if not better then most tournament players, But don't choose to play on any tour, the money is not lucrative enough. Most would consider this level 700+ on a fargo rating
 
Bob Jewett said:
Look at the money leader board for last year. Scroll down until you conclude, "That's not a living." The players above that line are professional pool players.

www.azbilliards.com

Money Leaderboard - AZBILLIARDS.COM

The A to Z of Pool and Billiards Online
www.azbilliards.com www.azbilliards.com

The first page looks great. The second page looks OK.

Page 3 is, "Maybe it's not so expensive to live in their country. Page 4 is, "Maybe they still live with their parents or have a side job."

Not all winnings are recorded there in spite of the very hard work of Mike Howerton, so some of the amounts are low. I think heyball and such are not recorded, so Chris Melling is probably a lot higher.
Click to expand...
You also need to include travel expensies take the winnings and cut it in half and see where you end up. Anything below 4th is not worth it for me
 
Zerksies said:
This is pool we are talking about. But in general anyone making their income off of something is considered a professional.

Seeing how crappy tournaments are paying. The top players are not making a living on what i would consider comfortable for me. Right now Fuller is in the lead making $95K the Gorst making $58k next. Not livable at all where i live.

Now we have professional level players. These are players that are probably as good or if not better then most tournament players, But don't choose to play on any tour, the money is not lucrative enough. Most would consider this level 700+ on a fargo rating
Click to expand...

is that a 2025 list? hasn't been many tournaments yet.. fedor's haul last year was surely above 500k
 
Bob Jewett said:
Look at the money leader board for last year. Scroll down until you conclude, "That's not a living." The players above that line are professional pool players.

www.azbilliards.com

Money Leaderboard - AZBILLIARDS.COM

The A to Z of Pool and Billiards Online
www.azbilliards.com www.azbilliards.com

The first page looks great. The second page looks OK.

Page 3 is, "Maybe it's not so expensive to live in their country. Page 4 is, "Maybe they still live with their parents or have a side job."

Not all winnings are recorded there in spite of the very hard work of Mike Howerton, so some of the amounts are low. I think heyball and such are not recorded, so Chris Melling is probably a lot higher.
Click to expand...

The catch is expenses. I suspect Shane would be losing money without sponsorship. In the days just before pro bull riding exploded the world champion won $120,000. Sounds good but that didn't even cover travel expenses much less the household at home. I knew two brothers that ran three log books each trucking for nine months out of the year to rodeo three months.

Getting back to pool, Webster says I was a pro when I made a living at it for months on end. I would never claim to be a pro by any other definition. I took a hard look in the early seventies and didn't like what I saw.

Today, I would say a pro is someone that can make a decent living off of winnings, sponsorships, and appearance money. I don't think instruction fees should count towards pro consideration. Some instructors do better net than the top pro's but nobody considers them pro players.

There are also the starving pro's that pursue the sport full time but are not making a living at it. Many pro baseball players spend most of their time in the minors. They didn't and I assume still don't make as much as a skilled blue collar worker.

I guess when it is all said and done a pro is someone who doesn't hold another full time job and considers themselves a pro. I was playing around with ideas for a senior amateur tour and one way to sort amateurs was someone who hadn't placed high in a pro event in the last three or five years.

Hu
 
Texas3cushion said:
There is many players that play at the professional level that don't make a living playing pool.

In fact it's just as fascinating to me that many of these players have full-time jobs and still play professional level.

I don't see why being paid by someone matters if you can still produce the results of a professional player.
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And there are plenty of folks who don't play well and 'make a living' playing pool.
 
"I made a living playing pool".
Sure, okay. A lot of players like to kid themselves about that! Usually it's a laugh when you see how they live.
Some probably don't much care how they live as long as they are free to play pool and gamble all the time.
The median household income in the US is about $65,000 a year. If you are not real close to that from JUST playing pool for at least a few years in a row, you're not making much of a living, may NEVER be well off enough off to retire, and when you do, may only get minimum social security and health care, and live in a home that has wheels.

Plan your future is all I am saying. If you don't have a plan, it won't work.
 
A "pro" in any sport is skill based, not money based.

In pool I'd put it at 730 and above with today's rating scale.

A "professional" in a dayjob is someone who is a full time plumber.
 
Bob Jewett said:
Look at the money leader board for last year. Scroll down until you conclude, "That's not a living." The players above that line are professional pool players.

www.azbilliards.com

Money Leaderboard - AZBILLIARDS.COM

The A to Z of Pool and Billiards Online
www.azbilliards.com www.azbilliards.com

The first page looks great. The second page looks OK.

Page 3 is, "Maybe it's not so expensive to live in their country. Page 4 is, "Maybe they still live with their parents or have a side job."

Not all winnings are recorded there in spite of the very hard work of Mike Howerton, so some of the amounts are low. I think heyball and such are not recorded, so Chris Melling is probably a lot higher.
Click to expand...
Here's a look at the number/percentage of women vs. men and USA vs. other for those who won more than $10K:

Top 75 (pages 1-5, winnings $25K+)
Women: 17 (23%)
Men: 58 (77%)
USA: 11 (15%)

Next 60 (pages 6-9, winnings $10K-$24,999)
Women: 13 (22%)
Men: 47 (78%)
USA: 23 (25%)

Top 135 (pages 1-9, winnings $10K+)
Women: 30 (22%)
Men: 105 (78%)
USA: 34 (25%)

Gorst (#1) is way out front ($500K vs Filler's $316K).

And here's the number of players from each country in the top 75 (winners of $25K+).

Screenshot 2025-04-11 181640.png


pj
chgo
 
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The money lists simply do not apply to pool. Bergman and Deschaine are both top USA pros, for example. Neither is on any money list. Pool pro's are 1000% skill based. IDK why ppl keep bringing up money every time this question comes up.
 
Even a "dayjob" pro should not be about money. You could have a professional welder, or a doctor, who go to Africa for 5 years and volunteer all of their time and expertise.

Professional means you know your craft inside and out. Skill, not money.
 
We've discussed this before on the forum. For starters, one can argue that there is no such thing as a pro in our sport, but let's say we are talking about pro speed, an arbitrary matter of personal perception.

For the men, my idea of pro speed starts at about Fargo 730. As many on AZB have suggested the cutoff should be closer to 750, I'll meet them halfway at 740. Using that measure, there are 66 pro speed players in America at present. Still, I consider anybody earning their primary income from teaching pool to be a pro, but unless their Fargo is 740+, they are not a playing pro. Yes, most of the pros in America are teaching pros who are incapable of playing pool at a pro speed.

My sense of things is that women's pro speed is more like Fargo 600, so there are 43 American women at 600+, and others that may be teaching pros.

When there is a full-time tour that has a fixed number of roster players, drops a fixed number of them from that roster after every tour season, and adds, through a qualifying system, the same number of players as they drop, we can reconsider the topic. In today's world of competition, in which so many dead money players make it into the fields even at the majors, fans are seeing pro/am events, not pro events. Of course, that all changes in Stage 2 at the majors.

Tough subject!
 
it’s not about income vs. expenses and taxes paid

the defining differences between a pro and a non-pro
are attitude, lifestyle, satisfaction, and ability
 
markjames said:
it’s not about income vs. expenses and taxes paid

the defining differences between a pro and a non-pro
are attitude, lifestyle, satisfaction, and ability
Click to expand...
No. Ability only. What does attitude, lifestyle, and satisfaction have to do with running out!?
 
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