How to Make a Profit Playing Spin&Go: A Statistical Deep Dive

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Arved Klöhn Pokerlistings Author
  • Fact Checked by: PokerListings
  • Last updated on: February 17, 2025

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For years online poker sites have searched for a “New Big Thing” to get people hooked again after the poker boom began to wane.

Full Tilt developed Rush Poker. PokerStars debuted Zoom Poker. They all went mobile and invented Multi-Entry Tournaments or Multi-Day Re-Entry Tournaments. None have had an impact like Spin & Go. Spin & Go went live on PokerStars first, with many more real money operators following suit but their impact on the poker economy has been industry-changing. Hundreds of thousands of players have tried them, multiple people have become millionaires and an estimated 20% of PokerStars’ revenue comes from them.

PokerStars weren’t even the first to offer Spin & Go. iPoker actually ran Jackpot Sit and Go well before PokerStars did, but as has happened so often in the online poker business PokerStars stole the show and cemented its leading position with its version. Yep, Spin & Go in fact ARE the New Big Thing. Let’s take a closer look.

How Do Spin & Go Work?

In case you’re in the minority and have yet to try a Spin & Go out, here’s a quick rundown. They are 3 players per tournament with a buy-in between $1 and $100. The structure is a hyper-turbo (on average 7 minutes per tourney) and the winner takes all. The kicker: Before the actual tourney starts the prize pool is chosen randomly – it can be anywhere between double the buy-in and 3,600 times the buy-in.

For example: If you play a $15 Spin & Go you can “spin” a prize pool of up to $54,000. Sweet, huh? One tiny problem though: it’s very unlikely to hit one of those insanely high multipliers. The 3,600-multiplier will only hit with a probability of one in 100,000. Here’s a breakdown of all multipliers, prize pools and probabilities for the $15 Spin & Go:

Multiplier Prize PoolProbability
3,600 $45,000 ($4,500 for 2nd/3rd) 0.001%
240 $3,000 ($300 for 2nd/3rd) 0.005%
120 $1,500 ($150 for 2nd/3rd) 0.010%
25 $375 0.100%
10 $150 0.500%
6 $90 7.500%
4 $60 21.366%
2 $30 70.518%

It’s easy to see that hitting any of the big multipliers (120x or more) is rather unlikely. On average you’ll hit one of them once every 6,250 tourneys. Most of the time you’ll just play for twice the buy-in. Every now and then you’ll hit the 4x or 6x multipliers. But everything else is a long shot. So are they even profitable? Is it worthwhile to play those tourneys or are they just a big lottery?

Example: You register for a $15 Spin & Go. The wheel lands on a 6x multiplier, making the prize pool $90. One opponent is a conservative regular, while the other is extremely loose, calling any raise. Several hands in, you move all-in with A-K suited on the button. The loose player calls with A-5 offsuit, and after a safe board, you scoop the entire $90.

Spin & Go Strategy

What’s the Rake?

Before looking at the profitability of Spin & Go let’s look at the rake. Because ultimately the profitability of every multi-player game is tied to the amount the house keeps for itself – high rake, low profitability; low rake, (potentially) high profitability.

With the help of the payout and probability tables it’s easy to calculate how much money goes to PokerStars on average. Here’s the effective rake for all Spin & Go buy-ins:

Buy-InPrize Pool ContributionRakePercent
$1.00 $0.93 $0.07 7.53%
$3.00 $2.82 $0.18 6.38%
$7.00 $6.58 $0.42 6.38%
$15.00 $14.25 $0.75 5.26%
$30.00 $28.50 $1.50 5.26%
$60.00 $57.00 $3.00 5.26%
$100.00 $95.00 $5.00 5.26%

For the cheapest tourney PokerStars keeps on average 7.5%. It’s still 5.3% for the more expensive Spin & Go.

Considering we’re talking about hyper-turbo tourneys that last on average seven minutes, those are some expensive rates!

Are Spin & Go a Valid Option to Make Money?

So far we have lottery-like prize pools and substantial rake – it doesn’t look like Spin & Go can be profitable.

When these tourneys were introduced it was generally accepted that it’s virtually impossible to “beat” them long-term. They’re just for recreational players that want to hit jackpots.

In the beginning of this year a player called Bighusla stepped forward and offered an online poker challenge: He proposed to play 5,000 $30 Spin & Go while making a substantial profit.

He got plenty of takers because it was thought it couldn’t be done. He played 5,054 Spin & Go, never hit any of the big multipliers, yet still managed to show a return on investment (ROI) of more than 8% per tourney.

That’s before any rakeback or cashback through the PokerStars VIP program. This is what his run looked like:

spin & go strategy

Other professional online poker tournament players also tried their luck and many of them had moderate-to-substantial success over a large sample size.

By now Spin & Go are considered a valid option to make money on PokerStars and a way to pass time while still playing with an edge.

Incredible Rec-to-Regular Ratio

Spin & Go are incredibly fish friendly: they’re quick, they have lots of action, can easily be played on mobile and they offer the possibility to score huge for a rather moderate buy-in.

Recreational players don’t care too much about rake and the lottery factor doesn’t repel them at all. As a matter of fact, the big flashy 3,600x multipliers are what gets them to play in the first place.

At every time of the day there are literally thousands of people that play poker online that single table a Spin & Go while having a break from work, riding on the train or while watching TV.

Currently Spin & Go have an incredible rec-to-regular ratio. More often than not you’ll have two weak players at your table and that’s why the Spin & Go are profitable.

As long as you’re not the fish, of course.

Example: You open-raise to 2.5 big blinds with 9-8 suited from the button. The small blind, who rarely folds, calls, and the big blind shoves all-in with a range that seems wide. You isolate by calling off, watch the small blind fold, and face J-7 suited. Your hand holds up, and suddenly you’re heads-up with a dominating chip lead against a weaker player.

What Kind of ROI Can You Expect in Spin & Go?

Since Spin & Go are three-person tournaments, the average player will win 33.3% of the time. Obviously you’ll have to do better than that to beat the rake and make money.

But how much better?

For the $1 Spin & Go, for example, you’ll have to win at least 35.9% of the time to break even in the long run. Those numbers can be calculated by using the payout and probability tables for the Spin&Go and some math.

The following table shows the win-rate you’ll have to average to achieve a certain ROI:

ROI$1$3 and $7 $15 and more
-2%35.1%34.8%34.4%
-1%35.5%35.1%34.7%
0%35.9%35.5%35.1%
1%36.2%35.8%35.4%
2%36.6%36.2%35.8%
3%36.9%36.5%36.2%
4%37.3%36.9%36.5%
5%37.7%37.3%36.9%
6%38.0%37.6%37.2%
7%38.4%38.0%37.6%
8%38.7%38.3%37.9%

So to achieve a 5% ROI when playing the $7 Spin & Go you’ll have to win 37.3% of the time.

The differences seem surprisingly tiny. You win 35% of your tourneys? You’ll break even at best.

You win 38%? Congrats, you’re a world class Spin & Go player. But the difference between a 35% and a 38% player actually is huge. Since Spin & Go are so extremely fast paced you have very few opportunities to outplay your opponents.

There’s very little room for your opponents to make substantial mistakes. Thus you’ll have to work very hard to achieve a win-rate above 35%.

What About Variance?

Regular Sit & Go have very low variance. Usually it’ll only take you a couple of hundred tourneys to know your win-rate and smooth out the variance. That isn’t the case with Spin&Go. Not at all.

Let’s take 10 Spin & Go players who beat the $15 Spin & Go with an ROI of 5%. Those are top-notch players. Now we simulate 10,000 tourneys and plot their cumulative winnings:

spin & go strategy tips

Well, those are some wild graphs! All samples are above zero but the winnings are between $760 and $9,400. Player H was in the red for well over 6,000 tourneys and at one point he was down more than $1,000.

Over 10,000 tourneys, variance is a dominating factor in Spin & Go. And 10,000 tourneys is already a huge amount.

You’ll need to play 250 hours and you’ll need to 5-table as well to achieve that. Only the most dedicated players will manage to play that many tourneys in one month.

Now let’s look at a sample over 100,000 tourneys – an amount a professional Spin & Go player might amass over one or two years:

how to beat spin & go pokerstars

Over 100,000 tourneys the samples look much smoother. The big jumps in samples A, C and G are where the simulated players hit and won the 3,600 multiplier.

Even without hitting the big multipliers all players show a profit of at least $40,000. But remember: We’re looking at 100,000 tourneys – or 2,500 hours five-tabling them.

That’s a year’s work at least.

Where Does the Variance Come From?

The reason for the comparatively high variance in Spin & Go is the big multipliers. Take the $15 Spin & Gos for example.

On average you’ll hit the 3,600x multiplier only once every 100,000 tourneys and will win only every third one. But statistically the highest multiplier is responsible for 18 cents of your total expectation.

If for some reason you’d always faint when hitting a 3,600x multiplier and never won one, but played completely normal otherwise, your ROI would drop by 1%.

That’s how much the highest multiplier influences the expectation and the variance.

What about the other big multipliers? The probability of hitting one of the big multipliers (120, 240 and 3,600) is tiny: 0.016% – once every 6,250 tourneys.

Let’s just pretend the three highest multipliers (120, 240 and 3,600) aren’t even in the game. In this case your total expectation would drop by 30 cents. Meaning: Your ROI would go down roughly 2%.

Yep, that’s right: Those multipliers that you hit once every couple thousand spins are responsible for 2% of your ROI. That’s a huge chunk of your (statistically expected) Spin & Go winnings.

While 2% ROI might not sound like a lot, it actually is. Most decent Spin & Go players don’t exceed 4-5% ROI and only the very best exceed 6%.

Related Reading:

What Bankroll Do You Need?

Should you want play Spin & Go professionally you want to reduce your risk of ruin as much as possible. Thus you’ll need to play with a rather big bankroll. We calculated the bankroll requirements for $15 Spin & Gos and a risk of ruin of 5% depending on your win-rate:

Winrate Buy-InsBankroll
36.9% (5% ROI)120$1,800
36.5% (4% ROI)150$2,250
36.2% (3% ROI)200$3,000
35.8% (2% ROI)300$4,500
35.5% (1% ROI)600$9,000

Yes, those are some steep bankroll requirements. But if you’re just playing for fun you don’t have to follow them religiously.

How to Treat Spin & Go?

So far we know Spin & Go have a high rake, pay out like a lottery, their variance is through the roof, and yet they’re still beatable because so many fish play them.

So, how should you approach them?

Simple: Don’t expect to hit any of the big multipliers. Ever. Basically, treat Spin & Go like hyper-turbo tourneys with an incredibly high rake and with plenty of weak players.

You need to be able to beat the Spin & Go without hitting the big multipliers. Otherwise the variance will eat you up eventually.

Meaning: You’ll need a win-rate of at least 37% (for the $1 Spin & Go) or at least 36% (for the other ones). With those win-rates you’ll show a long-term profit even if you never hit one of the big multipliers.

Should you happen to hit one of the big multipliers, well that’s a nice bonus – but don’t rely on it.

Related Reading:

So: How Good are Spin & Go?

High rake, lottery-like variance and hyper-turbo structures. On the surface Spin & Go certainly don’t sound too good for the dedicated poker player. But currently they are. Because so many weak players flock to the Spin & Go the fish-to-reg ratio is incredibly favorable.

This might change when more regs frequent the Spin & Go and recreational players lose interest, but currently neither seems to loom on the horizon. All in all it turns out Spin & Go are currently pretty good. That is unless you are the fish, of course. But that’s true for every form of poker.

FAQ

What are Spin & Go?

Spin & Go are three-handed hyper-turbo sit & go tournaments with a randomly determined prize pool that can range from double to thousands of times the buy-in.

re Spin & Go purely based on luck?

While luck plays a big role in short-term results, skillful players who maintain win-rates above 35% can overcome variance and show long-term profits, especially by exploiting weaker opponents.

How does variance affect my bankroll in these games?

Variance is high due to the hyper-turbo structure and the possibility of randomly hitting large multipliers. This means you need a larger bankroll to handle potential downswings, often hundreds of buy-ins, even for skilled players.

Can GTO concepts really help in such fast tournaments?

Adopting GTO-based guidelines for shoving and calling, as well as carefully balancing post-flop ranges, can offer a solid baseline. Small deviations from those guidelines, when exploited correctly, can yield significant edges in high-volume play.

What ROI should I aim for to be profitable?

Winning at least 37% of the time in low-stakes Spin & Gos often translates into breaking even or a slight profit, depending on rake. Many professionals target 5% or more ROI through disciplined strategies and volume.

How do Future Game Simulations fit into Spin & Go strategy?

Future Game Simulations let you analyze expected value in various scenarios, including different stack sizes, positions, and opponent ranges. They can guide your adjustments for shoves and calls, giving you an edge in both small and large multipliers.

How large should my bankroll be if I play Spin & Go regularly?

Depending on your win-rate and risk tolerance, you may need anywhere from 100 to 600 buy-ins or more for the stakes you play. If your ROI is lower, your bankroll requirements increase significantly to avoid busting during inevitable downswings.

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