Poker Prop Players

A poker prop player, short for proposition player, is a person hired by a brick-and-mortar or online card room to generate poker action by starting a new game or sitting in an existing one to keep it from ending. Prop players almost always play with their own bankroll, but are compensated in a variety of different ways. For example, brick-and-mortar card rooms usually pay an hourly wage while most online sites compensate prop players by returning a percentage of a player's contribution to the rake, which is usually paid in a weekly lump sum into the player's online account. Pay for prop players varies but an example of a pay scale is:

So, if a prop player played 4,000 hands in a given week (usually accomplished by playing multiple tables) the pay may look something like this:

• 1500 hands at $2/$4 = $180
• 1600 hands at $3/$6 = $224
• 900 hands at $5/10 = $180

"There is another type of player, aside from a prop player, found in some card rooms, known as a "shill." A shill is a player who is employed by the card room simply to provide action, but is quite different from a prop player; for instance, shills do not use their own bankroll, are generally paid a small hourly wage, and are not allowed to keep any of their winnings. Though almost anyone could be a prop player, many card rooms require that a prop player act polite towards all the other players, play in short handed games and in lots of heads up situations, keep composure when dealt a bad beat, play multiple tables most of the time, and understand that they won't be allowed to freely play around at any limit and at any table they choose. One overwhelming concern from regular players is a feeling that prop players increase the likelihood of collusion at the poker table. This is simply not the case as the creator of parttimepoker.com explains:

The job of an online prop, or any prop for that matter, is to start and save games. That's it, really. Say there's a game that's about to break - it's a prop's job to sit in and try to keep the game going, or if a site has a few tables open at a given limit, or a waiting list for a certain game, it's our job to sit and start a new game. Collusion doesn't even come into it - I have no more way of contacting a prop to share info than I would any regular player in a regular game, and we certainly get no help from the house. If anything, the house pays MORE critical attention to props because those players are getting paid."

Though positions as a prop player vary in brick-and-mortar card room, almost all online card rooms utilize prop players. The creator of parttimepoker.com explains how to go about finding a position as an online proposition player: "Most rooms contract out their prop teams to a third party, like us at PTP. It's just easier from the day-to-day perspective in terms of managing a team and also easier in that we already come with a built-in team, so you don't have to grow one from the ground up. If you search 'prop player' via Google, you'll find a number of third party contractors."

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