young aussie degenerate wishing to retire early!

O

ozdgen

Confused about dryer sheets
Joined
Jan 2, 2008
Messages
5
gday, my name is jeff and i am from australia. i am 24 years old and play online poker professionally. some may or may not approve of my "job" but i guess that isnt really important, it is what i do to make money.
i made 155k tax free this year playing poker, and have a stock portfolio of 275k which is my only investment vehicle. my networth might be around 350k.
i come from a well off asian family so we all live together and i will probably never have to buy a home since it is cultural to be a tight nit family.
my hope is to retire by age 30 but at the latest age 35. i do not enjoy playing poker so i do not wish to play at all once i am financially secure, i merely do it now because it is so lucrative.
i live a very frugal existance, but this has been my "new years resolution" to achieve my financial goals. i used to own an expensive car and spash money around for fun, buy toys etc but it really did not make me happy. i would much rather be happier knowing that i wouldnt have to ever worry about money again.
now, for my retirement plans, i figure i need around a 1.5-2 million share portfolio. is this too low/high?
keep in mind i think i might spend 50k a year on living expenses, if that.
anyway hope to get some feedback, i think most of you guys are a lot older and wiser than a young punk like me :)
jeff
 
Wasn't there a variation on this post with a different user-name about a year ago.
 
Are poker winnings really tax free in Australia?


Don, we have had other poker players who have claimed big winnings, but they don't seem to stick around long.
 
hmmm, not an encouraging start.
probably shouldnt have mentioned how i make money as that is the typical attitude.
i am a cash game player, not a tournament idiot who got lucky once from a big tournament score. i have played over 500,000 hands of poker this year. i have played over 2 million hands lifetime. if i am just a lucky idiot, then i am THE luckiest idiot ever. it is statistically impossible to get lucky that long. but i suppose if you dont understand it, then you just wont understand it. people have ingrained attitudes towards gambling in general, but i thought it was more acceptable in america.
yes poker winnings are tax free in australia, or should i say, it is such a grey area that no one has ever paid taxes on gambling winnings and if they were to tax them, then every joe blow would be able to claim tax deductions when they lose.
anyway, i hope i can get some actual feedback on ER
 
ozdgen said:
gday, my name is jeff and i am from australia. i am 24 years old and play online poker professionally. some may or may not approve of my "job" but i guess that isnt really important, it is what i do to make money.
i made 155k tax free this year playing poker, and have a stock portfolio of 275k which is my only investment vehicle. my networth might be around 350k.
i come from a well off asian family so we all live together and i will probably never have to buy a home since it is cultural to be a tight nit family.
my hope is to retire by age 30 but at the latest age 35. i do not enjoy playing poker so i do not wish to play at all once i am financially secure, i merely do it now because it is so lucrative.
i live a very frugal existance, but this has been my "new years resolution" to achieve my financial goals. i used to own an expensive car and spash money around for fun, buy toys etc but it really did not make me happy. i would much rather be happier knowing that i wouldnt have to ever worry about money again.
now, for my retirement plans, i figure i need around a 1.5-2 million share portfolio. is this too low/high?
keep in mind i think i might spend 50k a year on living expenses, if that.
anyway hope to get some feedback, i think most of you guys are a lot older and wiser than a young punk like me :)
jeff
Click to expand...

Well for starters, using the 4% SWR, you should need around a $1.25M portfolio to sustain yourself with expenses of $50K a year.

Read this thread for details:

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f35/explain-4-withdrawal-rate-19234.html

And welcome :)
 
cute fuzzy bunny said:
Thats quite a feat. Is my math off or does that equate to one hand per minute, 24x7, every day of the year?
No wonder you want to retire early.
Click to expand...
Ah, that rang my bell hard enough to go through the other 251 threads containing the word "poker"-- accountingsucks, are you still doing online poker?

On the Internet, nobody knows how many hands you have going at the same time...

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/showpost.php?p=408760&postcount=13
http://www.early-retirement.org/for...out-ban-internet-gaming-23567.html#post437322

Oz, I don't think anyone here particularly cares how you make your money. You're the guy using pejoratives like "punk", "idiot", "attitude" and "just don't understand". If this board consorts with lawyers, CPAs, financial analysts, used-car salesmen, and submariners then I suspect we can handle a poker player or two.

Another issue is that your first few posts are shaping up to incite a ruckus over how you earn your money. We've had a long trail of new posters over the last three years who've tried to cannonball into the shallow end of the discussion-board pool using that approach, with predictable results. Some of them espoused online poker, and perhaps you've been lumped in with a group that's experienced a rocky start.

So maybe you'd want to put down your chips (including the one on your shoulder) and take the time to look around the table for a few minutes. In addition to the other suggestions, try reading this post and the FAQs forum (http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f47/).

Home ownership isn't particularly critical to ER (unless you buy above your means or have high carrying costs) and neither is age. Some people mention an ER "goal age" for medical/pension benefits or because they can predict their annual income and thus their savings, but neither of those situations appear to apply to you. Lifestyles are all over the spectrum, with one group generally spending $2K (U.S.) per month and another group around $4K/month, but it's a broad curve with fat tails.

What's critical to ER is tracking your expenses and building a portfolio that can handle roughly a 4% withdrawal rate. (At younger ages a lower rate might be more important, but there's not enough data to say definitively either way.) Part of the withdrawal-rate issue is concerned with your ER portfolio's asset allocation-- consuming your portfolio over your lifespan has more risk of running out of money, but living conservatively off the principle requires a bigger portfolio.

Once you sort out your financials you can tackle another major ER-impacting issue-- spouses & kids.
 
Last edited:
thanks for the links, i have been looking around the forums, interesting and useful stuff.
anyway, cfb ur math is slightly off, i 12 table on 3 20 inch monitors, so i can get in a ton of hands. this is quite common amongst online pros as we can increase our win rate dramatically. i have been known to play 5000 hands a day if i am really working hard, but i am completely fried by the end of it.
nords, the current online gambling climate is certainly unstable at the moment, especially in america, where they have banned players from sites, however i can still play anywhere and the games are still quite easily beatable so i am not worried yet. people will always gamble as far as i am concerned but as you can see, i do not see myself having a long term future in it so i am actively trying to invest and think about my future away from poker.
the 4% withdrawal rate is an interesting concept i had never heard of and i am working around that now. i always thought a portfolio around 1-1.5 million would do it.
 
Well Oz, I will tentatively take back the troll question - you do sound serious. Since you haven't heard about the 4% SWR concept you should read the thread - it isn't a continuing 4%, it is 4% of the starting portfolio increasing annually to accommodate inflation. You need a well diversified portfolio to support it.

5,000 hands a day. Sounds like work to me.
 
donheff, it most certainly is work and i have approached playing poker as a real job for the past 2 years. try to achieve set amount of hours per week, set amount of hands per month and i get annoyed at myself when i get lazy.
one thing i am concerned about is that i have 95% of my money invested in the australian stock market. i understand that globally the asx only accounts for <5% of the global market. am i too concentrated here? i have been riding the resources boom for this past year and i hope it continues however i am quite concerned about the sustainability of china and its consumption habits.
i am not a trader, and am currently reading the intelligent investor by ben graham but still feel like i have no idea what i am doing really. are there any aussie specific forums that you guys are aware of?
 
I read a Fortune article on the resources boom going on down under. Sounds like a modern day gold rush.

Welcome ozdgen. Be patient... there's a boatload of good insight(s) here.
 
ozdgen said:
donheff, it most certainly is work and i have approached playing poker as a real job for the past 2 years. try to achieve set amount of hours per week, set amount of hands per month and i get annoyed at myself when i get lazy.
one thing i am concerned about is that i have 95% of my money invested in the australian stock market. i understand that globally the asx only accounts for <5% of the global market. am i too concentrated here? i have been riding the resources boom for this past year and i hope it continues however i am quite concerned about the sustainability of china and its consumption habits.
i am not a trader, and am currently reading the intelligent investor by ben graham but still feel like i have no idea what i am doing really. are there any aussie specific forums that you guys are aware of?
Click to expand...

I would put 15-20% in the US markets for diversification purposes..................
 
ozdgen,

What limits? What books on poker would you recommend?
 
financedude, do you mean to just put 15% into a managed fund that has exposure to the US markets? am i just aiming to match their return? i dont know anything about the us market and have been concentrating on the asx only. i think i have a pretty strong balanced portfolio atm and am just adding to it when i make money.

ticktock, my main game is 5/10nl 12 tabling.
books to recommend, anything by david sklansky and 2+2, he is a genius. theory of poker, no limit holdem theory and practice are very good for concepts about the game.
barry greensteins ace on the river is the best for more poker pro lifestyle management side of things.
also check out the 2+2 forums
 
ozdgen,

For your investing library, I recommend A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Malkiel, then The Four Pillars Of Investing and The Intelligent Asset Allocator by Bernstein.

As you read these, keep in mind that your risk tolerance and understanding of the math involved is likely to be higher than the average person's.
 
Hi Ozdgen,
Please take no offense.... but it also might help to use Capital letters at the beginning of sentences in your postings. People would tend to take them a bit more seriously if you did. I wish you luck in your poker and retirement goals...
 
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