Risk of Ruin Calculator

One of the most frequent questions I get privately is on the risk of ruin for various situations. Unless there is an enormous bankroll, such questions are best answered by random simulation or a Markov chain. However, both these are rather time consuming and go beyond what I care to do as a free friendly favor. Keep in mind I have the whole world asking me gambling questions, so my bandwidth is only so wide.

That said, I threw together a basic Risk of Ruin Calculator. It uses a formula that estimates said value, that can be found at Wikipedia. I want to strongly emphasize that this calculator produces an estimate only! So, if it produces a value of 7%, and the truly value is 5%, for a typical bankroll size, please don't bite my head off.

All those caveats out of the way, what do you think? As always, I welcome all comments, good and bad.

The question for the poll is which statements do you agree with? (multiple votes allowed)

Where do I find the information to plug in the variables for any given game?

For example, if I wanted the ROR for Tiles, how do I figure out the player advantage and standard deviation?

Quote: TigerWu

For example, if I wanted the ROR for Tiles, how do I figure out the player advantage and standard deviation?

That information is on Wizard of Odds.

Quote: Wizard

That information is on Wizard of Odds.

Okay, I looked on the site and found the standard deviation of 0.75 for Pai Gow, and a player return of -0.000844 using basic strategy.

But when I plug those numbers in, I get "infinity" for the ROR. When I take away the negative sign for the player return, I get "0.00000."

Am I using the right numbers?

This calculator is great for a quick estimate. However, maybe it's just me but searching google/WOO sometimes it's tough to find the Variance/SD of different games.

Is there any place on WOO or that anyone else knows about that lists all of the major casino table games/VP/etc and their associated Variance/SD's? I know the Wiz has a page on VP with their variances, which is GREAT, but it would be SUPER helpful to have table games on a list as well =P. Am I bad with searching? I hope =D.

Seems like a calculator appendix would be useful there. List those figures for all well-known table games.

Quote: Romes

This calculator is great for a quick estimate. However, maybe it's just me but searching google/WOO sometimes it's tough to find the Variance/SD of different games.

Is there any place on WOO or that anyone else knows about that lists all of the major casino table games/VP/etc and their associated Variance/SD's? I know the Wiz has a page on VP with their variances, which is GREAT, but it would be SUPER helpful to have table games on a list as well =P. Am I bad with searching? I hope =D.

https://wizardofodds.com/gambling/house-edge/ .

Quote: TigerWu

Okay, I looked on the site and found the standard deviation of 0.75 for Pai Gow, and a player return of -0.000844 using basic strategy.

But when I plug those numbers in, I get "infinity" for the ROR. When I take away the negative sign for the player return, I get "0.00000."

Am I using the right numbers?

Any negative EV game has a 100% risk of ruin.

Quote: unJon

Any negative EV game has a 100% risk of ruin.

Not enough precision in the last answer. Make it 36.7879% and I'm voting.

You should make a thing to explain how to do a markov chain.

I wish I understood variance and RoR more. I have no idea what any of those numbers actually mean

Quote: unJon

Any negative EV game has a 100% risk of ruin.

LOL then what's the point of this calculator if every game in the casino has a 100% ROR except card counting and video poker with perfect strategy on limited games?

I thought the REAL reason for determining ROR is to know how long your bankroll will last at any given wager amount... I.e., if you sit down at a $5 blackjack table with $5, your ROR is like 99.9% over a certain amount of time. But if you sit down at that same table with $1000, your ROR would be like 0.001% over that same length of time. (Just making up numbers to illustrate my point.)