What is a Good ROI in Poker Tournaments?
A tournament ROI of 15% to 30% is a solid winning result in large online fields, 5% to 15% is a normal figure for a winning regular, and -10% to 5% is where most of a field sits once the fee is counted. The average across a whole field is not zero and cannot be: prize pools return the buy-ins and keep the fees, so in a $10 plus $1 tournament the field's combined ROI is the fee as a share of the entry, -9.1%. The hard part is knowing your own: at a per-tournament standard deviation of 3 buy-ins, a 15% ROI over 500 entries carries a 95% interval from -11.3% to 41.3%.
| ROI | Reading | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Under -10% | Losing | Worse than the entry fee alone explains, so the leaks are in the play rather than the structure. |
| -10% to 5% | Around break-even | Where most of a field sits once the fee is counted. Game selection and rakeback move this band more than strategy does. |
| 5% to 15% | A small but real edge | A normal figure for a winning regular in big online fields, and plenty at volume. |
| 15% to 30% | Solid winner | A strong result in large fields if it holds up over thousands of entries. |
| 30% to 60% | Strong, or a soft pool | Common in small, soft or live fields. Over a large online sample it is rare. |
| Over 60% | Very high | Usually a small sample with one deep run in it. Check the interval before believing it. |
What ROI measures
ROI is measured on the total cost of entering, buy-in plus fee, because the fee is money you had to pay to play. A $10 + $1 tournament costs $11, and 100 of them cost $1,100. So ROI is total winnings divided by total cost, minus one, expressed as a percentage: win $120 back from ten $10 plus $1 entries and your ROI is measured on the $110 you spent, not on the $100 of buy-ins. Measuring it on the buy-in alone is the commonest way to flatter a graph, and it matters most at small stakes, where the fee is the largest share of the cost.
The bands, and what they are worth
The table above holds the rules of thumb, and it is worth being clear about what they are: compiled from published player discussion, not measured from a database. The shape of it is still informative. Losing, under -10% is worse than the fee alone explains, so the problem is in the play. Around break-even, -10% to 5% is where a field sits by construction. A small but real edge, 5% to 15%, is plenty at volume. Solid winner, 15% to 30%, is a strong result if it holds up over thousands of entries. Above that, 30% to 60% usually means a small, soft or live field, and over 60% usually means a short sample with one deep run in it.
The average ROI in an MTT, honestly
People search for the average tournament ROI expecting a positive number. It is not positive, and the arithmetic is exact rather than pessimistic. A prize pool pays back the buy-ins and the room keeps the fees, so if every entrant in a $10 plus $1 tournament pooled their results, their ROI on total cost would be -9.1% — the fee as a share of what it cost to play. Everything above that line is a transfer from the rest of the field. Two things shift it in your favour and neither is strategy: rakeback or loyalty schemes, which hand back part of the fee, and overlays in guaranteed prize pools, where the room tops up money nobody paid in.
How many entries before an ROI means anything
This is the part that decides whether your number is a result or a rumour. At the large-field standard deviation of 3 buy-ins, a 15% ROI comes with these 95% intervals:
- •500 entries: -11.3% to 41.3% — an interval that still contains losing.
- •1,000 entries: -3.59% to 33.59%.
- •5,000 entries: 6.68% to 23.32% — the first of the three that would let you claim a real edge.
- •To pin an ROI to ten percentage points either way takes about 3,458 entries; to five points, 13,830 — about 5 years at fifty tournaments a week.
Why those intervals flatter you
Those figures are normal approximations, and tournament results are anything but normal: most entries return nothing and a rare deep run returns fifty buy-ins or more. Simulating skewed results shows which way the approximation fails. At small samples, almost every interval that misses the true ROI sits entirely above it, because one deep run drags a short sample upwards and carries the whole interval with it. So a tidy-looking interval on a few hundred entries is not merely uncertain, it is biased towards good news. The practical response is the sample-size figure rather than the interval: if the entries you have are a tenth of the entries the margin needs, the ROI on your graph is a description of your luck as much as your play.
Formats differ, and so do their standard deviations
Per-tournament standard deviations are quoted in buy-ins and are estimates compiled from published player discussion, not measured from your results. Use the range rather than the midpoint when you want to know how wrong an interval could be. The three the ROI calculator offers are 3 buy-ins for a large-field MTT (range 2.5 to 3.5), 1.8 for a mid-field tournament (1.5 to 2.1) and 1.3 for a nine-man single-table sit-and-go (1.1 to 1.5). That spread changes everything about how much play it takes to know your own figure: five percentage points of margin needs about 13,830 large-field entries, 4,979 mid-field ones, or 2,597 sit-and-gos. It also moves what counts as good, because a smaller field means a smaller prize for first and a bigger share of the pool eaten by the fee.
Work out your own
The ROI calculator takes either your totals or a pasted list of results, measures ROI on buy-in plus fee, and returns the confidence interval and the sample size your margin needs rather than a single flattering number. If your tournament results are thin, the same arithmetic applied to a cash-game sample is quicker to settle, and the leak report grades the frequencies that produce a win rate in the first place.
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Frequently asked
What is a good ROI in poker tournaments?
15% to 30% over thousands of entries is a solid winning result in large online fields, and 5% to 15% is a normal figure for a winning regular. Anything over 60% is usually a small sample with one deep run in it rather than a better player.
What is the average ROI in an MTT?
Negative, by exactly the fee. Prize pools return the buy-ins and the room keeps the fees, so the whole field's combined ROI in a $10 plus $1 event is -9.1% on total cost. Rakeback and overlays are the only things that move that line without taking money from another player.
What is a good ROI for sit-and-gos?
These bands are rules of thumb for multi-table tournaments, compiled from published player discussion rather than measured. Single-table SNGs sit far lower: 5% to 10% is a good ROI there, because the fee is a bigger share of a smaller prize pool, and their per-tournament standard deviation is under half a large-field MTT's.
Is a 50% ROI good?
It is in the 30% to 60% band, which is common in small, soft or live fields and rare over a large online sample. Before treating it as your edge, check the entries: at a standard deviation of 3 buy-ins, a few hundred tournaments produce intervals wide enough to contain both 50% and zero.
How many tournaments do I need to know my ROI?
About 3,458 entries to know it to ten percentage points, and 13,830 to know it to five — roughly 5 years at fifty a week. The interval narrows with the square root of the sample, so halving the margin costs four times the volume.
Should I measure ROI on the buy-in or the total cost?
On the total cost, buy-in plus fee, because the fee is money you had to pay to play. Measuring on the buy-in alone inflates every figure, and it inflates them most at small stakes where the fee is the biggest share of the entry.
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