A poker tournament payout calculator stops the end-of-night argument about who gets what. Thirty players, $20 buy-in, no rake: a $600 prize pool. Pay four places and the split comes out at $275, $160, $100 and $65, rounded to the nearest $5 with the odd dollars going to the winner. Change the number of places, add rebuys, take a fee off the top, and every prize updates. It’s free and works for any home game or club event.
How the poker tournament payout calculator splits the pool
Each place gets a fixed percentage from a standard table, the sort of flat-topped structure most home games and small live events use. Four paid is 45%, 27%, 17% and 11%. Ten paid starts at 28% for the winner and goes down to 4% for 10th. The prize pool is:
(players + rebuys and add-ons) × buy-in × (1 − rake)
Prizes below first are rounded to the nearest 1, 5 or 10, and first place takes whatever is left, so the payouts always add up to the pool exactly. No awkward $3.40 left on the table.
How many places should you pay?
Most tournaments pay 10% to 15% of the field, and the calculator suggests a number from that range. For a small home game that usually means:
| Players | Places paid |
|---|---|
| 2 to 6 | 1 or 2 |
| 7 to 12 | 2 or 3 |
| 13 to 24 | 3 or 4 |
| 25 to 40 | 4 to 6 |
| 41 to 70 | 6 to 10 |
Pay too few and the bubble’s brutal. Pay too many and min-cashes barely cover the buy-in. Some groups like to give the bubble their money back; just set the last place to roughly one buy-in when you choose the number of places.
Planning the whole night? The blind structure calculator builds the levels, the poker chip calculator sorts out starting stacks, and the ICM calculator handles a chop at the final table.
Play with money you can afford to lose. If poker stops being fun, BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential.