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What are the approximate odds for someone to win the Texas Hold em World Series of Poker in 2009?

A friend of mine has been playing poker for one year. He thinks his chances to win the WSOP are better than his chance to win our state lottery. I think he's nuts. How can you begin to even calculate what the actual odds are? Thousands enter and all are at various skill levels. Thanks, ~Tim

Posted 788 day ago

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Davidov 		Your friend is right. His chances of winning the WSOP are higher than his chances of winning the lottery. But that DOES NOT mean that playing the WSOP is a better thing to do than play the lottery. His expected LOSS will be higher playing in the WSOP than it will be playing the lottery. So although he has a better chance of winning the WSOP, the better decision would still be to play the lottery.

As for his chances of winning, it would be impossible to get even fairly accurate results. Ignore the above replies which say that his odds of winning (if there are 9,500 players) is 1 / 9,500. This is wrong, you have to take the pother players skill levels into account. Like I said, it would be impossible to get an accurate result. But I can definitely tell you that he has a better chance to win the WSOP over winning the lottery.

Posted 788 day ago

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fullhouse 		let say 9500 enter his odds of winning is the same as the next person 1 in 9500
as where wining the lottery can be 1 in 12.5 million or so

Posted 788 day ago

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celt71 		It depends upon how you look at it. If the chance of winning the state lottery is 1 in 12.5 million, as someone has stated; and the chance of winning the WSOP is 1 in 9500; then on the surface it certainly APPEARS as if the WSOP is the better bet. But WAIT! It costs $10,000 to enter the WSOP, but only $1 for the state lottery. So for the price of the WSOP you can buy 10,000 chances in the lottery, which means that your chance of winning the lottery is now one in 1250. If you figure it THIS way, then his chance of winning the lottery is almost 8 times as much as his chance of winning the WSOP. And besides, he's only been playing poker for a year? It's VERY doubtful that his chance of winning the WSOP is anywhere NEAR 1 in 9500 anyway!

I agree with you: Your friend is nuts.

Posted 788 day ago

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soutie 		a rookie can get 4 aces
a professional can get junk
let him enter and make his own mistakes
you can play too, dont be jealous

Posted 788 day ago

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ger2000 		These calculations should give a rough estimate before the event actually begins:

Let's assume that 6000 players enter the event. Assuming that everyone were of equal skill then his odds would be 1 in 6000.

If he is twice as good as the average player (which I doubt), then his odds would be 1 in 3000. If he is half as skilled as the average player then he would have a 1 in 12000 chance. Assuming that he is a substantially below average player, for that event, but not hopeless then his odds might be as poor as 1 in 120000.

Several initial factors would greatly influence this. His initial table draw could seriously change these odds, but there is no way to adjust for that.

the odds of winning the lottery are several million to one. So, I would say that his chance of winning the WSOP is better than his odds of winning the lottery.

Posted 788 day ago

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armenece 		No, you are nuts.

The chance of winning a state lottery are in the millions. Granted, it only costs $1 to play it.

Playing the poker tournament costs a lot more, but you have a better shot than millions to 1.

Posted 788 day ago

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ger2000 		That depends on how good he is. Is he talking about the main event, or a normal event? I think there are around 45 events and I know people that have gotten 2nd, 1st, and 4th places. My brother got 2nd in some event, and got $300,000

Posted 788 day ago

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soutie 		The actual odds are impossible to calculate since the tournament takes skill into account. No matter how lucky someone is they can't win on luck alone. And the same goes for skill. Basically, the more skilled your friend is, the less he needs to rely on luck. But, he cannot win without one or the other.

But here is the question. Why worry about winning the whole thing when you can cash and more than double your money. About 10% of all entrants to the main event get at least $20,000 back. Now if you are a skilled player, that is a very good reason for you to enter the tournament because if you don't get unlucky, you should be able to at least double your money or even more. You don't have to win the whole tournament to justify entering the World Series.

Posted 788 day ago

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