While the official Harry Potter craze has waned, David Vamplew, a Harry Potter look alike is creating his own magic from the comfort of his living room and making a lot of money playing online poker. David has won more than £500,000 during 2013 and is likely to add to that during the month of December.
David who is 26 years old has done exceptionally well playing online poker that he does not need to work a full time job. He does work hard and has sometimes played 14 hours straight but the results have been worth the effort.
In the last 4 years alone, David has won close to £2.5 million pounds but confesses that he has not spent a lot of the money as he spends most of the time at home.
While he does spend a lot of time at home, his love for the game also motivates him to fly and attend live poker events where he can play against some of the best in the game. In 2013, David attended the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and came second at two events giving him a total prize money of £469,000.
It was back in 2010, when David started getting a lot of attention when he won the main event at the Pokerstars European Poker Tour in London in 2010 and received £90,000 making David Vamplew Scotland’s highest earning poker player.
In a statement, David said:
A decent session is probably eight to 10 hours, once you’ve entered a tournament, you have to play until it finishes. The longest I’ve played is 14 hours, especially if you’re winning, you just have to keep playing and playing. It can be 7am before the end of it but staying awake and concentrating isn’t too much of an issue because at that point you’re playing for really big money.
David learnt how to play poker when he attended Edinburgh University back in 2005. He initially started playing with his mates before becoming a member with the university’s poker society. Seeking stronger competition and higher payouts, David started playing online poker and started to win regularly. David who used to work at a super market soon found that his online revenue was a lot more than his regular job and quickly made the decision to pursue online poker as a full time job as the benefits were far more lucrative than what the super market could pay him.
David does not splash his money on fancy or flashy things as he wants to build his savings as he realizes that poker does not necessarily offer him the security of a full time job. He said
I don’t really have to worry about money too much although the nature of my job being poker means I have to be a bit more careful about planning for the future because there’s no guaranteed income
