What is a good ROI in poker, and why is it lower than most players assume?

Return on investment measures profit against the total amount staked, and in tournaments it is the standard way to describe an edge. The first thing to understand is that the realistic scale is compressed. A losing player has a negative ROI, a break-even player sits near zero, and a winning player typically lands somewhere in the low double digits. The dramatic figures sometimes quoted online almost always come from short, lucky runs rather than a true, repeatable advantage.

For multi-table tournaments, a sustained ROI in the region of ten to twenty percent is generally treated as a strong result. Crossing that band consistently across a large sample places a player among the best in their pool. A figure near zero is not failure either: it usually means the player is roughly clearing the rake, which is more than the field as a whole achieves. A persistently negative ROI, by contrast, points either to a genuine leak in strategy or, just as often, to a sample too small to mean anything yet.

01Why a "good" ROI is lower than beginners expect

The instinct is to imagine doubling or tripling the buy-in over time, but two forces hold the realistic number down. The first is rake: every entry is taxed before any prize money is paid, so a slice of each player's stake is gone regardless of how well they play. The second is the strength of the opposition. Edge in poker comes from out-deciding other people, and as the standard of a pool rises, the margin a strong player can extract shrinks. Put together, these pressures cap the achievable ROI well below what intuition suggests.

This is why a modest-looking percentage deserves respect. A player holding a positive ROI of just a few percent across thousands of entries is doing something the majority cannot, because they are not only beating other players but also overcoming the constant drag of the rake.

02ROI by format and field size

There is no single benchmark, because the format reshapes what is possible. The relationship between ROI and the shape of a tournament runs roughly like this:

• Large-field tournaments. The best players can post a higher ROI here because the top prizes are large, but the result swings violently and needs a huge sample to confirm.
• Smaller fields and sit-and-gos. ROI tends to compress, since the prize pool is split among fewer finishers, but results stabilise faster and feel steadier.
• Faster structures and turbos. Shorter stacks hand more of the outcome to chance, which usually pulls achievable ROI down and pushes variance up.

The lesson is that a ten percent ROI in a large field and a ten percent ROI in a small one are not the same achievement. The first carries far more variance around it, so the same headline number can describe very different levels of risk and reliability.

03The sample-size caveat that overrides everything

No ROI figure means much without the count of entries behind it. Tournament results are extraordinarily noisy, because most of the prize money sits in a few rare deep runs. A player can show a glittering ROI after a hundred tournaments purely because one of those runs landed early, and an equally skilled player can show a negative ROI over the same stretch through nothing but cold cards. Only after thousands of entries does the skill signal separate cleanly from the noise.

This is exactly why a number should never be read alone. Placing an ROI next to the variance that surrounds it turns a single figure into something honest, and the free calculators on the homepage are built to do that. To weigh whether any return is genuinely good rather than lucky, it helps to first be clear on what ROI actually measures and how it differs from a cash-game win rate.

The pattern is the point: a lower ROI over a big sample is worth far more than a glittering one over a tiny sample. The headline figure is almost meaningless until the entry count is large enough to mean something.

04So what number should you aim for?

The honest answer is that a good ROI is a positive one that survives a large sample. For most winning tournament players, that lands in the low double digits, and a steady few percent is already proof of a real edge over a raked field. Chasing a number far beyond that band usually means chasing variance rather than skill. The players who last are the ones who treat a modest, durable ROI as the success it is, rather than measuring themselves against the inflated figures that brief lucky runs put on display.

05What beginners usually get wrong about ROI

• Expecting double digits everywhere. A 10-20% ROI is a top result, not the baseline normal across all formats.
• Judging ROI before volume exists. A figure from 50 or 100 tournaments is a snapshot of luck, not skill.
• Comparing cash and tournament metrics. bb/100 and ROI are not interchangeable - mixing them blurs both.
• Ignoring rake and field size. Both quietly cap the achievable return long before skill does.
• Mistaking one heater for an edge. A single deep run can inflate a small-sample ROI to a figure no one sustains.

06What changes what counts as a good ROI

• Field size. Bigger fields can support a higher ROI but bury it under far more variance.
• Buy-in level. Edges and ROI compress as the stakes and the regulars climb.
• Tournament speed. Turbos and hypers hand more to chance, lowering the realistic band.
• Rake. Higher entry fees skim directly off the achievable return.
• Player-pool softness. Softer fields lift the ceiling; tough ones flatten it.
• Sample size. The single biggest factor in whether any ROI can be believed at all.
• Live vs online. Live can support higher ROI but builds a trustworthy sample far more slowly.