Your bankroll doesn't vanish all at once — it bleeds out at a steady rate set by the house edge, your bet size, and how fast you play. This calculator turns those into a single answer: how many hours your money lasts, on average, before the edge grinds it down.
The math is simple. Every hour, you put a predictable amount of money "through" the table — your average bet times the number of decisions per hour. The house edge takes a fixed slice of that action, which is your expected loss per hour. Divide your bankroll by that hourly bleed and you get the average number of hours before it's gone.
The catch is the word average. The house edge describes the long-run trend, not any single night. Variance — luck — swings your real results far above or below the line, especially in short sessions. You might double your money or bust in the first hour. The calculator shows the center of the distribution, not a promise.
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On average, your bankroll lasts (bankroll ÷ expected loss per hour), where the hourly loss is your average bet × bets per hour × house edge. A $500 bankroll betting $25 a hand at 60 hands per hour on a 1.41% edge loses about $21 per hour and lasts roughly 24 hours on average — but a single session varies wildly.
Bet less per hand, play fewer hands per hour, and pick a lower-edge game. Blackjack basic strategy (0.5%) stretches a bankroll about ten times further than American roulette (5.26%).
No. A bigger bankroll lasts longer on average, but the house edge trends downward over time and short-run variance can bust any bankroll faster than the average. The only zero-edge bet is the craps Odds bet.