how big of bankroll is needed

[wildman49]

I had been playing .05 poker for 6 years now. The last few years playing a lot more often.I play 10 to 20 coins (.50 to1.00) per hand. I feel like for every 5 coins ( .25 ) I play I need $100.00 to play on. So if I am going to play 20 coins $1.00 per hand I need $400.00. Is this to much or to little? I want to work my way up to $5.00 a hand over the next year but not sure how much to take per trip. Does anyone have soming for me to go by that seems to work for you?

[Minn. Fatz]

Great question, welcome to the site.

As a rule of thumb, the Playboy Guide to Casinos recommends a total bankroll of 3000 bets playing full-pay VP with perfect strategy. So that'd be $3000 playing $1 per spin and $15000 playing $5. Figure one-tenth of that per session and you're pretty close.

Mathematically, the problem is called Gambler's Ruin. It's been studied for a long time. Short answer, how much money you should set aside for gambling depends on where you choose to set your risk of losing it all. A lower risk of ruin requires a larger bankroll.

The classical solution says that if:

B is your bankroll, in bets
Var is the variance of the game or games you're playing
p is your chosen risk of ruin; ln(p) is its natural logarithm
R is the expected return for the game or games you play

then:

B = [Var * ln(p)] / (-2 * R)

(Note that the expected return of a game in which you get all your money back is 0; so the expected return here for Double Bonus paying 10 for a full house and 7 for a flush would be .0017. Also note that if the games you're playing do not have a positive expected return then your risk of ruin is 100 percent; you will eventually lose everything regardless of your bankroll amount.)

The most recent work I know of is the late Michael Canjar's paper "Gambler's Ruin Revisited: The Effects of Skew and Large Jackpots." It's 31 pages of advanced stuff that I admit I don't get. But the short story is that the formula above overstates the required bankroll for "well-behaved" games like full-pay VP.

For full-pay Deuces Wild returning .007620, Canjar calculates a 5 percent risk of ruin bankroll at 4586 bets versus 5078 given by the conventional method.

Bottom line, if you're looking to win money -- or at least not to lose your roll -- stick to full-pay VP, play perfect strategy and set and stick to your limits.

Good Mathematics!

[Quad Deuces]

Except that I think OP is talking about a weekend stake and you're talking about a lifetime bankroll.OP needs to be more specific.You will need to take a lot more cash into the casino if you are planning on playing $1 NSU Deuces than do if you're going to play 10c 10-line 9/6 jacks.  Both are $5 bets, but a $1500 downward swing in $1 NSU will probably happen over the course of a weekend (say 10-15 hours of play), and is a lot less likely on the 10c 10-line JoB.  That -$1500 swing might just start when you first sit down and by 8:00 the first evening, you'll be paying ATM fees - if you can withdraw more than $500 which can go like *that* at $1 VP.  It'd be a lot better to have, say $5K cash for the weekend instead.I play at a casino with machines that have 10c 10-line NSU Deuces (99.73%) and 10c 10-line 8/5 Super Aces (99.94%)  Slot club is the same (.25% or .50% (2X)) for both.I used to feel comfortable I could play all night on $500 when I played NSU.  After I switched to Super Aces I found I needed $1000 - $1500 when things ran bad.  Both are $5 bets.  Even though I know it's worth it to get the extra .2% playing Super Aces, I have to prepare for the inevitable bad nights when quads, especially in Aces, are simply nonexistent.  It just means I walk in with more cash (or at least access to more cash).

[BillyJoe]

Whatever bankroll you choose to put at risk, I suggest setting loss limits on each playing session of your trip. That way, you will still have some gaming money to play on throughout your visit.  

[royal flush]

vp as in life is a "continous session" and one must not play more money then they can afford to risk

[Minn. Fatz]

I used to feel comfortable I could play all night on $500 when I played NSU.  After I switched to Super Aces I found I needed $1000 - $1500 when things ran bad.

The key here is variance. Your variance for Super Aces 8/5 is 63.36; for NSUD it's only 25.78; the expected returns are not that much different. Playing a higher variance game requires a bigger bankroll for the same risk of ruin.

[Quad Deuces]

Yeah, I get it.  I was using it to illustrate the fact that we simply cannot answer the question with no info.Hoping OP tells us what game and at what stakes he wants to play, otherwise the right answer is "fill your pockets with cash and hope for the best."

[wildman49]

 I am going to stick with JOB 9/6 for the time being. I have had 7 royals since May of this year 5 of them on JOB and 2 on DW. I am just looking for an number that others use to ride out say a 4-6 hours of play time As I move up from $1.00 bets to $2.50  bets and over  the next year  get to $5,00 a pull, just wanted to get a feel for what others use as a bankroll. Thanks!

[54merk]

This is what I use for a 2-3 hour session.

If I play .25 I take 250.00
          .50        500.00
        1.00       1000.00

5 coin single line.

[wildman49]

This is what I use for a 2-3 hour session.

If I play .25 I take 250.00
          .50        500.00
        1.00       1000.00

5 coin single line.Thank you 54merk ! Very helpful!