Bankroll Calculator

How to Calculate Your Poker Bankroll

Proper bankroll management is the single most important discipline for long-term poker success. Even winning players can go broke without sufficient bankroll to weather the inevitable downswings.

The Risk of Ruin Formula

This calculator uses the risk of ruin formula to determine the minimum bankroll needed:

Bankroll = (SD² ÷ (2 × WR)) × ln(1 ÷ RoR)

Where SD is your standard deviation, WR is your win rate, and RoR is your acceptable risk of ruin expressed as a fraction (5% = 0.05). For cash games, SD and WR are in bb/100 and the result is in big blinds (100bb per buy-in). For tournaments, enter ROI and standard deviation as percentages per tournament and the same formula returns the answer directly in buy-ins, since the normal-approximation bb/100 model does not capture top-heavy MTT payout variance.

Key Factors

• Win Rate: Your expected profit per 100 hands. Higher win rates require smaller bankrolls.
• Standard Deviation: A measure of variance. Higher variance games (PLO, tournaments) require larger bankrolls. Typical values: 60-100 bb/100 for cash games.
• Risk of Ruin: The probability you'll lose your entire bankroll. 1-5% is standard for professional players.

Cash Games vs. Tournaments

Tournaments have much higher variance than cash games due to top-heavy payout structures and the all-or-nothing nature of each event. This means tournament players need significantly larger bankrolls, typically 100+ buy-ins compared to 20 to 50 for cash games.

Buy-in Requirements by Format

Variance is not the same across games, so neither is the roll you need. These are common professional guidelines. The calculator above lets you replace them with your own win rate and standard deviation.

• No-Limit Hold'em cash: 20 to 30 buy-ins to take shots, 40 to 50 to play stress-free. Standard deviation runs roughly 80 to 100 bb/100.
• Pot-Limit Omaha cash: 50 to 100 buy-ins. PLO swings are far larger than Hold'em because equities run close and big pots go in preflop, so the same win rate needs a deeper roll.
• Multi-table tournaments: 100 to 200 buy-ins for standard MTTs, more for high-field or high-variance events. Top-heavy payouts mean long stretches without a cash.
• Sit-and-gos and Spins: 50 to 100 buy-ins for standard SNGs. Hyper-turbos and lottery-style Spins need the high end of that range or more, because of the jackpot variance.

Shot-taking: Moving Up in Stakes

A bankroll is a floor, not a ceiling. When you build a cushion above your requirement for the next level, take a shot: move up for a set number of buy-ins, and move back down the moment you drop below your threshold for the higher stake. Disciplined shot-taking is how you climb. Ignoring your own stop-loss is how winning players still go broke.

Keep Studying Bankroll and Variance

For the full framework, read our guide to bankroll management for serious poker players, or see how to split a roll across a series in the WSOP bankroll allocation framework. To size short-stack decisions, pair this with the Stack-to-Blinds Calculator, and for final-table deals use the ICM Deal Calculator.