Bankroll, variance and risk of ruin
The edge is fixed, but any single session is dominated by variance. These tools show you the realistic range — not the average nobody actually experiences.
Short answer
Over a session your expected loss is small — about 2.19% of each ante — but the standard deviation is large (roughly 4.94 per hand), so real results swing widely. The calculators below turn your ante, hand count and bankroll into an expected result, a one-sigma range, your chance of finishing ahead and your risk of busting.
Session return & the cost of Trips
Set your ante, hand count and (optionally) a Trips bet to see what a session is expected to cost and how wide the swing is. Adding Trips raises both the expected cost and the variance.
Bankroll & risk of ruin
Now flip it around: given a bankroll, how likely is a session to bust it? The percentile table shows where an unlucky, typical and lucky session land.
How to read variance
Because individual hands are fat-tailed — the Blind can pay up to 500x — real tails run a little wider than the normal approximation. Give yourself more cushion than the median suggests, and remember that a losing session is entirely normal even with perfect strategy.
Common questions
What bankroll do I need?
Enough to absorb the swing, not just the expected loss. Enter your ante and hand count above and read the 5th-percentile result — a bankroll comfortably past that keeps your risk of ruin low.
Why do I lose more than the house edge suggests?
You do not, on average — but any one session is dominated by variance, not the edge. A 2.19% edge is a long-run figure; a single evening can land far above or below it.
Does adding Trips change my risk?
Yes. Trips raises both expected cost and variance. The return calculator above shows exactly how much, for any ante and pay table.