Home Poker Tournament - Payout Structure

Introduction

The payout structure of a poker tournament can vary from conservative (where many of the players receive some kind of payout) to top-heavy (where most of the money goes to a few of the players). Most poker players prefer top-heavy payout structures because they can win a larger amount. If you are playing a game with inexperienced players it might be better to have a more flat payout structure to reward marginal players - if most players keep losing then they may stop playing to your games. You can also explore various poker sites to see how they structure their tournament payouts and gather ideas for your own home games.

Types of Payout Structures

  • Conservative - A conservative (i.e. flatter) payout structure will usually pay out money to about 20-25% of players. Usually, the first few players who finish in-the-money will simply get their buy-in back, and only people who finish higher than that will actually turn a profit. The winner of the tourney may only get about 20% of the total money.

  • Top-heavy - A top-heavy payout structure will only pay out money to about 10% of the players. Usually, the winner of the tourney will get about 30-50% of the total money and the rest of the payouts will decline quickly.

Whether or not the tournament has a flat or steep payout structure, the winner of the tournament will typically get about double of the 2nd place finisher.

Most single-table tournaments have standard payout structures. For a full single-table tourney (8-10 people), the most common payout structure is to pay the top 3 players with 50% / 30% / 20%. For a short-handed (6 people) tourney, the most common payout is 60% / 40% to the top 2 people. You can check out my home poker game spreadsheet if you want a tournament payout calculator to see how much each player will get paid.

Sample Payout Structure

Here are two sample payout structures for a single and multi-table tournament.

6 player tournament - 2 players paid

Place % Payout
1 70%
2 30%
3 -
4 -
5 -
6 -

20 player tournament - 5 players paid

Place % Payout
1 45%
2 25%
3 15%
4 10%
5 5%
6 -
7 -
8 -
9 -
10 -
11 -
12 -
13 -
14 -
15 -
16 -
17 -
18 -
19 -
20 -

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Game Structure - Payout Structure

HPG ADMIN on March 1, 2013