How Much Bankroll You Actually Need
Updated
There are two completely different answers depending on which player you are, and conflating them is how people get hurt. If you have an edge, bankroll is a technical requirement with a number attached. If you do not, bankroll is just the amount you are prepared to spend.
- With a 1% edge: 400 units keeps risk of ruin near 0.2%.
- 100 units at the same edge is about 21% — too high to be sensible.
- At $25 a unit, 400 units is $10,000.
- Without an edge there is no safe bankroll. There is only a budget.
If you are counting
The requirement comes straight from risk of ruin. At a realistic 1% edge:
400 units is the usual practical floor, giving roughly 0.2% chance of ruin. At $25 units that is $10,000; at $100 units, $40,000.
Below 200 units you are not really an advantage player — you are someone with a small edge and a real chance of losing the lot before it shows up. The edge does not care how confident you are.
If you are not counting
Then bankroll is the wrong word and the number does not exist, because the expected result is a loss no matter how much you bring. Bringing more money does not improve the odds; it extends the session.
The useful question is different: how much is this evening worth to you? Decide that before you sit down, treat it as spent, and stop when it is gone. We wrote that out properly.
Choosing the unit
Work backwards. Decide what you can genuinely afford to lose, divide by 400, and that is your unit — not the other way round. A $2,000 bankroll implies a $5 unit, which means finding a $5 table, which is most of the reason people abandon this arithmetic.
The Kelly criterion gives a more precise answer that varies with the count. In practice most players use a fixed unit and a bet spread on top of it.
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By Martin Kosek · every number on this site is computed by us, not copied.
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