Both poker and blackjack are great potentially money making hobbies. But it’s a skill you learn only to be disallowed from playing. Blackjack is definitely easier to become proficient in and know you’re playing with an edge. But I would not recommend either blackjack or poker as a full time career to anyone, despite having done so myself for the last 15 years. If you’re trying to make a full time career out of gambling, poker is the way to go. Because edges aren’t defined, some good players who run poorly early simply move on, and the ones you see who never hit a major rough patch are either very good or have been lucky. But the vast majority of poker players who are making money aren’t immune from downswings comparable to blackjack. If you’re truly a crusher, making double my winrate at the same stakes with similar standard dev, sure, that 1000 breakeven stretch for me looks more like “merely making 50 an hour” for that stretch.
I’m a mid-tier mid-stakes pro poker player (57/hr over appx 16k hour sample) and I’ve gone on a 1000 hour breakeven stretch (clawing out of a 40k downswing) in that sample.
