Quick facts by PokerStrategy
- Risk of ruin refers to the risk of losing your entire bankroll.
- It’s calculated based on your variance, percentage of winning, bankroll, and volatility of games.
- To have an estimate of your chances, give risk of ruin calculators a try.
- Prudent fund management is your best protection against going bust.
What Is the Risk of Ruin (RoR) in Poker?
Risk of ruin (RoR) is the probability of losing your entire bankroll before becoming profitable.
It’s a key concept for players who sit down at real money poker sites where variance and stakes make bankroll management essential.
Calculations of risk of ruin are most valuable where variance is large, such as in cash games and tournaments. Where your outcomes have significant variance and your bankroll is smaller compared to those stakes, your risk of ruin is larger.
A player with a limited bankroll who plays games of high variance has better chances of going broke than does a player who plays good bankroll management.
Understanding the risk of ruin’s meaning is most relevant to long-range achievement, as you must set your risk tolerance against your bankroll and your probable winning percentage.
How Risk of Ruin Works
Risk of ruin isn’t about playing badly. It’s a statistical look at what might happen even if you’re a winning player.
The basic inputs in this calculation are:
- Win rate (BB/100).
- Standard deviation (SD).
- Bankroll size.
- Volume of hands played.
If two players have the same bankroll, but one has a higher win rate and lower standard deviation, that player has a lower risk of ruin. On the other hand, a break-even player with wild swings is far more likely to go broke over time.
This is especially true if the bankroll isn’t big enough to absorb normal variance.
Factors That Influence Risk of Ruin
Understanding what increases or decreases your risk of going broke can help you play more sustainably.
- Bankroll Size: Larger bankrolls help absorb variance. For high-volatility games, a deep bankroll, like 100 buy-ins, can drastically reduce your risk.
- Win Rate: Your edge matters. A solid win rate gives you a cushion against downswings. Without that edge, even a big bankroll can vanish.
- Standard Deviation: This measures how wild your results are. Higher swings mean a higher chance of ruin unless your bankroll and win rate are strong enough to balance it.
- Game Type: Games vary in volatility. Heads-up and 6-max no-limit games swing more than full-ring limit games. Tournaments are the most volatile of all due to payout structure and field size.
- Volume: The more hands or games you play, the more variance comes into play. Over time, a real win rate asserts itself – but only if you’re still financially in the game.
- Tilt and Mental Game: Even a great player can go broke if they tilt. Emotional decisions or playing tired can skew your results far beyond what stats predict.
How to Calculate Risk of Ruin
A basic way to calculate your risk of ruin uses this simplified formula:
Risk of Ruin = exp [–(2 × Win Rate × Bankroll) / (Standard Deviation²)]
Where:
- Win Rate is in BB per 100 hands.
- Bankroll is in BB.
- Standard Deviation is also in BB.
This formula assumes that each hand is an independent event, but this is far from true for realistic play because of the way that table dynamics, fatigue, and psychological factors correlate between hands.
It’s rather inaccurate, but as an approximation, it’s good enough for rapid results. You might also use an Internet poker risk of ruin calculator that can use your statistics to give you an approximate notion of your chance of going bankrupt.
With tourney play, you would have to potentially include models such as ICM or employ strategies such as the Kelly Criterion to better your estimates.
Bankroll Management and Risk Control
Your bankroll strategy should match both the volatility of the game and your appetite for risk while adhering to some common guidelines.
Cash Games
- Conservative: 100 buy-ins for swingy games like PLO or HU NLHE.
- Aggressive: 20–30 buy-ins for low-variance, tight full-ring games for experienced players comfortable with risk.
Tournaments
- Minimum: 100 buy-ins for standard MTTs.
- Recommended: 200–300 for large-field or turbo formats with high variance.
Sit & Go’s
- Typical Range: 50–100 buy-ins, depending on ROI and format.
The goal isn’t just to survive bad luck; it’s to still be around when your skill advantage starts to pay off.
Risk of Ruin in Online Poker vs Live Games
Your risk of ruin also depends on whether you’re playing online or live.
Online Poker
- High volume (thousands of hands/month).
- Tougher fields, faster variance realization.
- Higher variance means you need a deeper bankroll.
- Standard deviation is typically between 50–80 BB per 100 hands in online 6-max NLHE games.
Live Poker
- Slower play (20–30 hands/hour).
- Generally softer opponents, less short-term variance.
- Results can be misleading due to small sample sizes.
Ruin risk in live poker often feels more emotional than statistical due to slower feedback and smaller sample sizes.
Online players generally need a bigger buffer due to faster swings. Live players, meanwhile, need patience more than anything.
Misunderstandings About Risk of Ruin
Many players misunderstand or ignore the risk of ruin definition entirely.
Let’s clear up some common myths:
“I’m a winner, so I’m safe.”
Not true. Even winning players hit extended downswings that can wipe out small bankrolls.
“Variance only hurts bad players.”
Wrong. Everyone is subject to swings – no one’s immune.
“I’ll just move down if things go bad.”
It sounds easy, but it’s hard to do in practice. Many players chase losses or avoid moving down out of pride.
“I play microstakes, so I’m fine.”
Even tiny games can break you if your bankroll is too small relative to the stakes.
“It’s a precise science.”
Formulas help, but no equation can fully account for psychological variance.
Final Thoughts
Poker is a risk versus judgment. You can’t eliminate risk entirely, only manage it effectively. You want to have a sense of what your limits are, what your chances are, and what your bankroll can withstand of the inevitable swings.
Risk of ruin respect is allowing yourself enough latitude that you’re still in the equation when your luck is not.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s an acceptable risk of ruin?
An acceptable risk of ruin depends on your goals. For professionals, less than 1% is ideal. Recreational players may be okay with 5–10%. Your bankroll should reflect your comfort with potential losses.
How is variance different from risk of ruin?
Variance is the natural up-and-down of results. Risk of ruin is the likelihood that those swings wipe out your bankroll. They’re linked, but not the same thing.
Can I eliminate the risk of going broke?
Not entirely. But with a large bankroll, solid win rate, and good discipline, you can reduce the risk to almost nothing.
Why do good players still go broke?
It comes down to bad bankroll choices, tilt, ill-fated staking agreements, unexpected expenses, or hanging to tougher games than their skill level.
How to reduce the risk of ruin in poker?
To minimize the risk of ruin in poker, players should:
- Employ conservative bankroll management (e.g., 100+ buy-ins for high-variance formats).
- Play within bankroll limits, even after large wins.
- Prevent emotional decisions and tilt, which result in unnecessary losses.
- Select easier games that raise win rate and reduce variance.
- Avoid taking unnecessary risks.
- Monitor and measure performance.
- Don’t overestimate ability, particularly in unknown formats or stakes.
Why is the risk of ruin important?
Knowing the probability of risk of ruin is significant since it establishes if a player has any realistic chance of withstanding the natural swings of poker long enough for his skill advantage to take effect. Even an extremely skilled player with a high win rate is at risk if they are underbankrolled or compete in games with a high variance.