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Full HouseRaising a family on poker.

By Erin HanusaPosted Monday, July 3, 2006, at 11:48 AM ET

When my husband, Cero, first started playing poker for a living, the question was, "Aren't you worried he's addicted to gambling?" Now people say, "When will I see him on TV?" Thanks to shows such as the World Poker Tour and Celebrity Poker Night, we can now tell our relatives what Cero really does for a living. And I won't lie—the lifestyle can be great: flexible schedules, the ability to be generous with friends and family, and, for Cero, the freedom to pursue his passion. But, for a young family, living on poker isn't a game.

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The highest-paying straight job Cero had ever had was managing an independent video store, for which he made about $300 in take-home pay every week. Adding that to my grad-student stipend, we lived comfortably. But even recreational poker-playing was clearly a better income stream. Although Cero liked his job, he felt like he was wasting time when he could be making more money doing what he loved most. How could I argue with that?

Before quitting, Cero agreed to amass a $10,000 bankroll. That amount was vastly larger than the recommended starting bankroll for the $10-20 limit games he was playing, leaving room for error. Next, we socked away four months of expenses into an account we called "the cushion." This money was untouchable, to be used only if Cero went broke. The last proviso was that we would also put away as much as we could for savings, to have an extra-cushiony cushion.

If you make your living playing poker on the Internet, your only expenditures are a decent computer (or two or three) and your broadband connection. However, the travel expenses of live-game players can mount up quickly. For Cero, trips to casinos are worth the cost only if he's able to stay for a couple of weeks. A plane ticket, car rental, and two weeks of food raise the stakes considerably, and there's no expense account to be had. So, he needs time at the tables to recoup travel and hotel costs, and then bring in some income. There are benefits, though: Some hotels offer a "poker rate" for players who log a certain number of hours in the casino, and all of the trip's costs can be written off on our taxes. (And yes, we do pay taxes. Oh, do we.)

For members of a poker family, tournament time means one of two things: a lonely couple of weeks away from your loved one, or making a casino your home. We've tried both. With a 2-year-old, it's usually easier to stay home. When our son Dario was 7 months old, he and I flew to be with Cero while he played in a World Poker Tour tournament at Foxwoods in Connecticut. As Cero was busting out of the tournament, Dario was learning to crawl in a hotel room in Mystic.

That's not to say that poker keeps us apart. Because Cero can choose his own schedule, we can share care of Dario. Poker has also brought us more money than either of us has been able to make at any other job. (I'm a poet, so you can guess how much I'm banking.) The bursts of cash are admittedly fun to spend. When Cero began playing and would have a big win, he'd come home and say, "Let's go somewhere nice for dinner." He's never been a worrier. He saved money because he knew it was important to me, but he didn't sit around wondering if it was really wise to spend that $15 on a CD when he'd just bought a few the week before.

Cero keeps a tally of his daily wins and losses, but I don't look at it. I'd ask him how his day went when I felt like it, and sometimes he'd tell me if he felt like it. But I've never grown comfortable enough with the amounts of money that he tosses around in a day—hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars—to keep it all in my head all the time. Early this year, I noticed that Cero was acting more withdrawn. He'd come down from his computer sighing heavily, and sometimes I'd hear him shout and hit a wall while he worked upstairs. His interactions with our son and me clearly cheered and pained him at the same time.

We sat down on the couch one morning. I asked how much money was left. "Seventeen-hundred," he said. My chest tightened. The last time I could remember asking him this question, there was maybe $15,000 in the bankroll, much lower than its high of $65,000, but still sufficient for his purposes. Seventeen-hundred wasn't enough to pay a month's bills. "What about the cushion?" I asked. It was gone. I had some vague memory of conversations about needing to borrow from it, that we'd put it back. At the time, despite the "rules" we'd made about it, I thought it was OK. We were doing fantastically well. How could there be a problem?

I began to totally freak out. The day Cero told me that we had only $1,700 left happened to be my birthday and we had friends in town. One of them bought Chinese food for a celebratory supper and the next night I maniacally insisted that we eat the leftovers for dinner, even though there wasn't enough for all of us. I don't think I slept at all that night, or for a few nights after that. So, what happened then? A miracle. Cero made a miracle comeback. Suddenly he began winning several hundred or a couple thousand in each session at the computer. Incredulous, giddy, I felt our boat begin to float again.

We are getting by now. We cook at home more and buy fewer things. We still like to tip on the big side. The budgeting that families on a regular paycheck learn has taken us a little longer, in some part because of our good fortune. Our cushion is back in place, with iron bars, concertina wire, and an electric fence around it. We check in about our money situation every day. It's not always comfortable, but it's better than ignorance. During that awful time I might have questioned Cero's sanity, but I certainly questioned my own. How could I have been so blissfully spending money, never balancing a checkbook? Money had become unreal not just to the poker player, but also to the poker player's wife. Once again Cero has won a seat in this year's World Series of Poker, currently under way in Las Vegas. This may be the year I get to say, "Look, Dario. Daddy's playing poker on TV."

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Erin Hanusa is a poet living in Madison, Wisc.

Illustration by Rob Donnelly.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

I've been playing poker for a living since 1987. I'm married with 3 kids. This is how you do it (trust me, I've seen so many people fail at this, and am almost the only "whole life" pro I know):

1. Have your husband make a regular deposit into the bank every month. Whatever you need to pay your bills. He has to make this deposit, rain or shine, working or not. You need this stability. If he ever can't make it, his career is over and he gets a job. [...]

2. Do NOT ask him how he's doing. This has a negative affect on his poker, AND it leads to lies, which leads to distrust, which leads to... Just let him be. [...]

3. Move to someplace where he can play without traveling far. You need to be in a good poker city, but one that's good for YOU, too. LA, SF, Vegas, Phoenix, AC, etc. The expenses will crush his BR if he doesn't get control of them, but even worse, his time away from the family will crush his spirit.

--uhhh

(To reply, click here.)

Though separated, I am still married to a man who thinks that this is the fast track to riches. We reconciled after he lost my beautiful home in California. This fantasy that he had about his fantastic poker ability caused a tremendous amount of trauma to me and our child. After we reconciled (in Las Vegas for gods sake), he promised me that he had quit this fantasy life. Within 9 months he once again lost 2 homes and my son and I are now living with my mother and my husband is [who-knows-where]. This lifestyle is very dangerous and if lived requires much planning. My spouse was so obsessed that he actually sold my son's expensive YuGioA cards to fund his addiction. How sad is that? I hate gambling now with a passion.

--hystera

(To reply, click here.)

So, this couple is irresponsible because their main source of income is not a steady paycheck? Do you feel the same about real estate salespeople? "Oh my Gawd, if there is a slump in the housing market, we're doomed!" Personal Injury lawyers? "What if he hits several sane juries in row and doesn't get a dime because some idiot kid jumped off a neighbor's roof and broke his back?"

Selfish regarding his family's future? What about a cop or firefighter? They could die on any given day, and I'll bet very few of them have the type of income that the author's husband does.

The guy is apparently good at what he does, enjoys it, and has made a living from it. Good for him.

--itZjusDave

(To reply, click here.)

My husband fancies himself an up-and-coming professional poker player. He spends his evenings and weekends glued to the television studying the players on The World Series of Poker. He's joined up with every online poker site imaginable and he talks endlessly of winning one of those gold bracelets. All this enthusiasm was brought on by a series of big wins last year. [...] He won at every game he played. Even I thought, "Wow! This guy's good! I bet we could make a serious living at this game!"

I couldn't have been more wrong. This year alone, [...] he's lost close to $8,000. It may be more than that, he won't fess up to how much he's spent - and lost - at the casino. [...] My husband is not disciplined enough to stop once he's lost his initial bankroll. He'd keep going because "just one more shoe is going to change the direction of the cards." Yeah, right.

--PokerWidow

(To reply, click here.)

Poker is indeed a zero sum game. For one player to make a living another as to be losing that money. Consider that if most start with smaller stakes (the author said so in her column) and if but for a remaining $1,700 tapped out of their emergency fund this family would have been bust and probably on welfare then how many families did lose their stakes for the authors husband to be able to do this "for a living". . How about a column from someone who went under next week? Or maybe the author can write that one too in the near future.

--Mark14

(To reply, click here.)

Going from 65,000 to 1,700.00 is a big red flag, once he gets even, he should quit immediately, or even write it off as a loss. Everyone wants a fun way to make money. But its called gambling for a reason. You don't do it as a job. The ugly side of professional gamblers that you never hear on TV is they made their money mostly by taking advantage of suckers and vacationers in Vegas or other casino sites.

--lawdog

(To reply, click here.)

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