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We’ll break down the structure of Spin & Go tournaments, focusing on how jackpots are distributed and how the rake works, to assess the potential profitability of the format.
To do this, we’ll examine €1 Expressos (Winamax) and €1 Spin & Rush games (Betclic). You can apply this same method to any Spin format.
First, let’s take a closer look at how jackpots are distributed.
Every time you launch a Spin, you have a fixed probability of landing a certain multiplier:
For example, on Winamax, you have 5,938,688 chances out of 10 million to get a 2x multiplier. In other words, you’ll hit a 2x multiplier about 3 times out of 5.
Another example: on Betclic, you have a 1 in 200 chance of hitting a 10x multiplier.
But here’s the key question: if each player pays €1 to enter and there are 3 players, does the winner receive €3 on average?
Well, no — because the site takes a portion of the buy-in and redistributes the rest. As you might have guessed, this deducted portion is called the rake.
Let’s calculate the rake for Expressos and Spins on Betclic. To do this, we’ll measure how much of the collected buy-ins is actually paid back to players in the form of prize pools.
As shown in the Excel table, Winamax returns just over €27 million in prize pools across 10 million games.(€11,877,376 from 2x multipliers, €8,022,624 from 3x, €3,300,000 from 4x, etc.)
In each game, 3 players each pay €1. Across 10 million games, that’s a total of €30 million collected.
Out of this €30 million, Winamax pays back €27.9 million — which means €2.1 million is kept by the site.
This equals 7% of the total collected (€2,100,000 / €30,000,000 = 0.07 or 7%).
When we perform the same calculation for Betclic, we also arrive at a 7% rake.
The rake is crucial to understand it, as it reduces your potential winnings. On most platforms, the rake in Spin games is 7%.
→ By comparison, rake in MTTs is often closer to 10%.
When playing Spins, around 93% of your buy-in is redistributed via jackpots, and 7% is taken as rake by the site.
This rake must be factored in to determine what’s realistically possible in terms of long-term profit. You may have an edge over your opponents, but it’s also vital to understand that rake eats into your winnings.
That’s exactly what we’ll cover in the next chapter: what ITM (in-the-money percentage) do you need to beat the rake?
