Sonewhat. I'm a poker pro and am friends with a few. Some are gamblers and do a lot of sports betting and playing table games but myself and a couple others I know don't do that at all. I'd say the majority of poker pros are degens but definitely not all.
I lived with a friend of mine after college because both of us had relocated to the NoVa area after school (where rent is fucking crazy for someone just entering the work force), he was a tax accountant with Hilton Worldwide and after a year or so had his CPA and was making pretty good money there ($150k/yr.) But he would also go to Vegas like 2x a year for 3 week trips because he was a crazy poker addict, I think one of his trips he did come back with like $30k in winnings but he had some bad trips too. He also would play online poker constantly--this was back before they I guess regulated that shit b/c you could just play for real money unrestricted anywhere in the U.S. on Poker Stars and shit like that. All told he claimed he was making decent money every year off of his poker habit, but not enough to like fully replace his day job. But he also was constantly on drugs, constantly drunk etc etc, he eventually quit his good paying Hilton job and moved to Vegas to try and do the poker thing full time and I haven't really heard from him since. I think he's still living that life but has never made it big or anything, I always thought for him it wasn't really the money but just the fact if he switched to that full time he could go from being drunk/high every hour other than 9am-5pm to being drunk/high 24/7 and I don't think the typical poker pro is too different from that.
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