What Is a Poker Bankroll?
Your poker bankroll is the money you’ve specifically set aside to play poker — separate from rent, groceries, and life expenses. The size of that bankroll determines what stakes you can safely play. Play too high relative to your bankroll and a normal downswing can wipe you out; play too low and you grow your roll painfully slowly.
The job of a poker bankroll calculatoris to tell you the minimum bankroll required to play a given stake with an acceptable risk of going broke. The math is straightforward: take the per-game cost (buy-in for tournaments, 100 big blinds for cash) and multiply by the number of buy-ins recommended for your risk profile. The calculator above does this for cash games, multi-table tournaments (MTTs), and Sit & Go single-table tournaments.
How Many Buy-Ins Do I Need?
The number of buy-ins required depends on two things: format variance (how much swing you should expect) and risk tolerance (how willing you are to go broke and have to drop down or quit).
Cash Games
Cash games are the lowest-variance format in poker — most pots are small, you can quit at any time, and your skill edge converts to real EV every hand. 25 buy-ins (2,500 big blinds) is the standard recommendation for a serious recreational or professional player. Conservative grinders carry 40+, aggressive shot-takers may run 15.
Sit & Gos (SNGs)
Single-table tournaments have moderate variance — payouts are top-heavy (typically 50/30/20 for top three of nine), so cashing isn’t enough; you have to win or finish second to make real profit. 50 buy-ins is the standard for SNGs. Hyper-turbos and 6-max formats run higher variance and warrant 70-100.
Multi-Table Tournaments (MTTs)
MTTs are the highest-variance format in poker. Even great players cash 12-18% of fields and final-table maybe 1-2%. That means most of your buy-ins are losses, with rare big scores carrying your win-rate. 100 buy-ins is the standard MTT bankroll; serious MTT regs carry 200+ to survive 50-buy-in downswings that the format produces.
Bankroll Management Rules
Calculating the right bankroll is step one. Sticking to it is harder. A few rules that bankroll-management literature converges on:
- Move up only after hitting the next stake’s threshold. If 25 buy-ins is your rule and you’re playing $1/$2 ($200 buy-in = $5,000 bankroll), don’t move to $2/$5 ($500 buy-in = $12,500 bankroll) until your roll has hit $12,500.
- Move down at the lower stake’s threshold. If you’re playing $2/$5 with the same 25-BI rule and your roll drops below $5,000 (25 × $200 at $1/$2), drop back to $1/$2 immediately. Stubbornness at higher stakes is how bankrolls die.
- Treat poker money as separate. Don’t pull from your bankroll for non-poker expenses; don’t add money to chase losses. The bankroll is its own entity.
- Track every session. Without tracking, you can’t tell a downswing from a leak. A spreadsheet or tracker app showing your true hourly/per-tournament rate at each stake is non-negotiable for any player at the $0.25/$0.50 level or higher.
- Variance is bigger than you think. 25 buy-ins is the minimum for a winning cash game player; even at 25 BI you have meaningful risk of ruin during a normal downswing. Carry more if you can’t reload from outside income.
What if I’m a Losing Player?
Bankroll math assumes you have positive expected value. If you don’t — if your true win-rate is zero or negative — no bankroll is large enough. The math just delays the inevitable. The reasonable use of this calculator for a losing player is: this is the bankroll I need to set aside as my poker entertainment budget, expecting to lose it over time the way someone budgets for golf or concert tickets.
If you’re trying to win at poker and the bankroll is shrinking month over month, the answer isn’t a bigger bankroll — it’s drilling fundamentals at lower stakes (or free, like on this site) until your win-rate flips positive. Play free Texas Hold’em here against AI opponents tuned to different difficulty levels — the chips are play-money so you can experiment freely.
FAQ
- What is the 5% rule in poker?
- A common rule of thumb for tournament players: never have more than 5% of your bankroll in play in a single tournament. At a $10,000 bankroll, that's a $500 maximum buy-in. The 5% rule is equivalent to the 20-buy-in (1/20 = 5%) version of bankroll management.
- Is 30 buy-ins enough for cash games?
- For a confirmed winning player with a true win-rate of 5+ BB/100, 30 buy-ins is reasonable but on the aggressive side. Most professionals run 50-100 buy-ins so a normal downswing doesn't force them to move down. 30 BI is appropriate for a player taking shots with outside income to refill if needed.
- How much bankroll do I need to play $1/$2 NLHE?
- At standard 25 buy-ins, $1/$2 with a $200 buy-in needs $5,000. Conservative players (40 BI) carry $8,000. Aggressive shot-takers (15 BI) play with $3,000 but accept a much higher risk of going broke during normal variance.
- Should I include rake in my bankroll math?
- Rake reduces your win-rate, which indirectly means you need a larger bankroll. The bankroll calculator above assumes your win-rate is positive at the stake; if rake makes you a break-even player at $0.50/$1, you need a bigger edge (or lower stakes) before any bankroll size is "safe".
- Do online and live poker need different bankrolls?
- Live poker is lower variance than online (fewer hands per hour, weaker fields, slower decisions) so live cash games can be played with slightly fewer buy-ins than the calculator suggests. Online MTTs are higher variance than live MTTs due to the larger fields, so add 50% to the calculator's recommendation if you're grinding large-field online tournaments.
Want to practice without risking your bankroll? Play free Texas Hold’em against six AI opponent personalities. Or compute hand equity with our Poker Odds Calculator.