Is online poker still worth playing in 2025? This was the question that Doug Polk asked a month ago when he set out on his “Code Doug Challenge,” looking to make $100,000 playing online poker on a brand-new sweepstakes poker site.
Polk’s mission was a fun one for all the poker fans, who were eager to see how one of the best heads-up poker players in the world does against the “Vlog watchers,” as he playfully called the ClubWPT Gold players.
Doug expected to win at a high win rate and make $100k playing for just a month at relatively low stakes, proving the poker dream was still alive and well.
Yet, the results of his challenge panned out quite differently, so we dig deeper into the reasons and try to answer the question: Is it still possible to win in online poker in 2025?
Code Doug Challenge Ends in Failure
Just over a month ago, Doug Polk set out on his ClubWPT Gold challenge. He was going to win $100,000 playing mostly heads-up Texas Hold’em poker on the new platform.
Yet, there were a ton of obstacles ahead. The highest stakes on the site when he started playing were $3/$6, and he could only play one table at a time.
While ClubWPT Gold introduced higher-stakes tables as his challenge went on, the multi-tabling option was still not introduced. This meant Doug would have to settle for anywhere between 40-50 hands per hour, practically the same rate of hands dealt he would have in live poker.
Polk was forced to mix the stakes, play various opponents, and play just one table at a time, which ultimately led to him being stuck almost $50k at one point in the challenge.
As you would expect, one of the all-time greats was able to turn it around with a $70k upswing, which had him up $18k before his final match.
The final day of the challenge was reserved for a 2-hour heads up match with Eric Persson, where the blinds were set at $50/$100.
Polk lost the short match and ended up winning just $1,421 over the course of 160 hours of play. The question, then, is where did it all go wrong?
Breaking Down the Numbers
The Code Doug Challenge saw the legendary poker player and content creator win $8.80 per hour over 160 hours of play, which equates to less than the minimum wage in the USA.
While this number may seem defeating, there are several important facts to look at. For starters, Polk was playing just one table at a time, which means he probably played only about 7,000 hands of heads up poker overall, with a few hundred hands of ring games in the mix.
In contrast, professional poker players play well over 1,000 hands each day, which means Doug didn’t really put in a month’s worth of volume into the challenge.
What’s even more, Doug had to mix stakes across the challenge. Playing $3/$6 and $4/$8 was not going to do anything for his win rate once the bigger games kicked in.
A few bad sessions at $10/$25 and $25/$50 were enough to see him lose almost $50k. This is a completely normal downswing in deep-stacked games at these stakes, and one that pros often run into.
Doug Polk was able to turn it around quite swiftly, eventually getting to about $20k in profit before his heads up game with Eric Persson.
Has he ended his challenge before this match, he would have been up about $18k, good for over $100 per hour, instead of the measly $8.80 he ended up with.
In either case, it is safe to say that some bad variance, very low volume, and mixed stakes were the key reasons behind Doug’s relative failure.
Is the Online Poker Dream Over?
Not by a long shot! Despite what the short-term results of the Code Doug Challenge may indicate, online poker is still a very viable option for upcoming poker players.
If you are new to the game and looking to start building up a bankroll, the NL25 results of players like “kozirek” and “c4rd1n41” are very encouraging.
Both players put in tons of volume in 2024, playing 438k and 384k hands, respectively. Over that sample, the two won $14k and $12k, respectively, winning at 13 bb/100 hands and demonstrating that micro-stakes poker is still very beatable.
Of course, rakeback and promotions are also a big part of online poker, and you can be quite sure that these players received even more money from various promos during 2024, which means they were making a hefty profit even at the lowest of stakes.
Here is a quick look at some other big winners across the stakes in 2024:
| Player | Stakes | Hands Played | Net Won | Bb/100 |
| MarsMiland | NL50 | 364,000 | $20,000 | 11 |
| J4SunO | NL50 | 478,000 | $16,000 | 6.7 |
| AfanasiyBomj | NL100 | 299,000 | $23,000 | 7.6 |
| dayyNnight | NL100 | 242,000 | $21,000 | 8.9 |
| kebab-seta | NL200 | 305,000 | $48,000 | 7.8 |
| Andrey Kuklin | NL200 | 246,000 | $43,000 | 8.7 |
| M4D_T1LT | NL500 | 296,000 | $63,000 | 4.3 |
| WYIYW | NL500 | 106,000 | $59,000 | 11.2 |
| Cameron Couch | NL1k | 108,000 | $61,000 | 5.6 |
| Tom Vogelsang | PLO2k | 33,000 | $113,000 | 17.3 |
As you can tell from the table above, there isn’t a level of play in online poker that can’t be beat for a significant win rate, and these players are only a few of those who have demonstrated it last year.
To make things even better, these results were all recorded on major platforms like PokerStars and GGPoker, which are notorious for their tough playing fields.
Smaller poker sites, including the ones like ClubWPT Gold, surely offer even softer games and higher potential win rates for players who put in the work and the volume.
The conclusion, then, is that new poker players have everything to hope for. Despite Doug Polk not making it in his challenge, online poker still offers a way to financial independence and freedom for those who are willing to do what needs to be done.
If you are a new and aspiring poker player, these numbers from actual poker players across the sites are the best indicator that there is plenty to hope for in online poker in 2025.
