Salary
Average Salary: $15,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $626,220
Ah, the money. It's what lures poker players to the table, like Greek sailors following a Siren's call onto a rocky shore. Nobody ever talks about the $15,000 average yearly take (source). That's not exciting enough for ESPN viewers.
They want to see mountains of cash being placed on tables and jubilant winners throwing fistfuls of Benjamins in the air. And hey, can you blame them? Watching people win a bazillion bucks is fun—especially when they make it look easy.
There's a lot to be won, it's true. But there's so much more to be lost. Remember, the casinos aren't running these tournaments and hosting these cash games because they like to have guests over. They're cool if you win, but when you lose, they keep your cash. Guess what they're hoping you'll do?
You not only have to best your peers, you also have to make enough of a profit that you negate what the casino is taking from you. And you have to do it all the time. This isn't like professional football or baseball where you're guaranteed a huge paycheck even if your team misses the playoffs. If you don't win, you don't get paid.
You've got to build up your savings as well, so that when you go on a painful and protracted run of bad luck—as you most surely will—you can withstand the swing financially as well as emotionally.
The whole reason why people get into this is because they want to get into the biggest live tournaments and win. Who wouldn't want to be an instant millionaire? But you'll only see a penny of it if you actually win the thing (or finish in the top few spots).
That's pretty unlikely—we're talking thousands of entrants all playing a game that's based on luck. Even if the top ten percent get a cash prize, that still means you could be better than almost ninety percent of the players and still not get paid diddly.
Even if you do (barely) make your way into the money, you're still going to owe taxes on those winnings. Oh yeah, taxes. Even when you get lucky and record a big score, you're still only looking at taking sixty percent or so of it home with you. You could complain, but considering these are taxes on money earned without having an actual job, we'd say just take what you can get.