THE BANKROLL CLOCK

How the Bankroll Clock Works

The Bankroll Clock estimates how long a bankroll is likely to last at a given stake, game speed and house edge. You set the money you are willing to lose, your average bet, how many bets you make per hour, and the edge of the game. The tool turns that into an expected loss per hour and an expected survival time, plus a comfort read on how aggressive the session is.

The Maths Behind It

The core figure is simple: expected loss per hour equals average bet, times bets per hour, times the house edge. Divide your bankroll by that hourly figure and you get the number of hours the roll should last on average. The tool also shows how many total bets your bankroll represents, because bet count, not clock time, is what really drives your exposure to variance.

How to Read Your Result

The survival time is an average, not a promise. Real sessions swing hard around it: on a high-variance game you can lose the roll in a fraction of the expected time or run well above it. Treat the number as a planning guide for how much to bring and how big to bet, not as a schedule you can count on.

A Worked Example

Picture a bankroll bet at a modest stake, a few hundred spins an hour, on a game with a low single-figure edge. The hourly expected loss is small relative to the roll, so the survival time runs long. Raise the stake or pick a higher-edge game and the same bankroll drains far faster. Changing one input at a time shows exactly which lever matters most.

Using It Responsibly

The point of the tool is to right-size a session before you start, not to chase a target. Set a loss limit you are genuinely comfortable with, treat any win as variance rather than skill, and use deposit and time limits at your operator. If you want to feel how wildly outcomes scatter around the average, run the Variance Storm, and read our responsible gambling page before you play for real.

Choosing the Right Inputs

The result is only as honest as your inputs, and the two people usually get wrong are bets per hour and house edge. Live tables run far slower than fast-forward slots, so a realistic bets-per-hour figure changes the answer dramatically. For the edge, use the game's published return-to-player: the house edge is one hundred percent minus the RTP, so a 96% game carries a 4% edge. Feed in real numbers, not optimistic ones.

If you are unsure of a game's speed, err on the faster side, because a faster game drains a bankroll quicker and it is safer to plan for the worse case. Small changes in either input move the survival time a long way, which is exactly the lesson the tool is built to teach.

What the Comfort Rating Means

The comfort rating is a plain read on how aggressive the session is relative to your bankroll. A short expected survival time means your stake is large for the money you brought, which is fine for a deliberate high-stakes session but risky as a default. A long survival time means you can absorb a normal bad run without busting. Neither is right or wrong; the point is to choose it on purpose.

Common Mistakes With Bankroll Planning

The most frequent error is treating the average as a floor. Variance means real sessions routinely finish well short of the expected survival time, so a bankroll planned to last exactly one evening often will not. Bring more margin than the average suggests, or bet smaller, if lasting the session matters to you.

The second mistake is topping up mid-session. The moment you add to the bankroll you set, the plan is gone and so is the discipline it was meant to protect. Decide the number before you start, and let the clock run out rather than resetting it.

Bankroll and Bet Sizing

The cleanest lever you control is bet size. Halving your stake roughly doubles your expected survival time on the same bankroll and game, and it narrows the swings you have to ride. If a session is ending faster than you want, the fix is a smaller bet, not a bigger bankroll or a hotter game. To see how far outcomes scatter around this average, run the Variance Storm.