Introduction to Spin&Go tournaments(skip that if you know how they work)
When Spin&Go tournaments were introduced there was an enormous migration of recreational players from normal Sit&go tournaments to Spin&go format - it's a perfect format to attract that kind of players.
If you don't know how they work - each tournament is 3-max, winner-take-all, hyper turbo Sit&go with a random prize pool. Buy-ins range from $1 to $60, and each tournament has a randomly drawn prize pool that will award between two and 3,000 times your buy-in. The highest multiplies are obviously super rare (1 of 100,000 for the 3,000xbuy-in, even the 240x multiplier have a chance of just 5 out of 100,000).
The games are insanely fast, give a thrill of emotion through the random prize pool and that's what recreational players were looking for. Jackpot was hit by PokerStars.
The migration of fish
With the introduction of Spin&Go most of the recreational players moved to the format - nobody who plays for fun cares if the rake is a bit higher.
However, that had serious impact: killed some of the less popular formats (and made the most popular WAY less profitable) for regular players.
Of course, there was a ton of complaining due to two facts:
1. Spin&Go were considered unbeatable and unprofitable by almost every reg in the world
2. They were heavily marketed by PokerStars
Math behind Spin&Go'es
The rake is as following:7% exact at the 1$ Spin&Go
6% for $3 and $7 Spin&Go
5% for $15, $30 and $60 buy-in
However, this accounts for the overall numbers and an INSANELY long-term play. Yes, you will be paying 5% rake at $60 Sping&Go, but 70,518 of 100,000 tournamnets will have $120 prize pool, which is literally one buy-in gone in the space.
What does that mean in reality?
Top payout levels (which are obviously the best, no need for explanation) are going to happen around 1 in 1000 games (0.1%). But also, in that 0.1%, due to payout structures, the total of 4.2% of all the money in the structure is distributed here. The absolute highest level is as following: 0.005% chance to hit it, while 2.1% of the money is distributed here. See where the problem lies? The rake doesn't seem INSANELY high, but the variance is - you can go for YEARS without hitting (yet alone winning) the highest multiplier game and that effectively increases how much you have to win regularly to even make money.
So, if you think you can get at least 5% ROI, then I guess you could expect results. However, if you are a marginal winner you can go for a year or longer and not make money if you don't hit the highest rolls on the prize pools.
Bighusla and his prop-bet
While every reg though spins are not beatable, there was one that took a prop-bet and showed some new light on the facts.
Bighusla started the propbet with the intention to (1) play 5,000 $30 Spin and Go's in a month, and (2) maintain a chip expected value ("cEV") of 8.5%. In the end he played 5,054 spin&go'es and ended up with a cEV of 8.8% (profit of almost $11,000).
His graph:
That got regs interested in the format.
The transition to Spin&Go
Let's be clear here: the format has INSANE variance and if you would like to play it professionally - expect to put an enormous amount of volume into the game. However, with all the rake calculations, one thing wasn't accounted for: the fish in the sea.
Basically, the games are hilariously easy, to the point where professional Hyper HU sng players are comparing them to post-Moneymaker level of cash games.
There are also players who are showing quite good results:
Image 1 (click on the spoiler tag) :
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Image 2 (click on the spoiler tag) :
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Image 3(click on the spoiler tag) :
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Image 4(click on the spoiler tag) :
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So, are the games beatable or not? For the moment, I would say yes, as shown by multiple sources all over the web.
However, I would say it's still too early to make decisive calls - the format is so young and the professionals are switching to play it as we speak. Like I said, it was considered for the format to be not-profitable for regulars in long-term and that view changed just recently. It might turn out that in 6 months the level of the games will rise so drastically they will no longer be any good (or will be marginally profitable) for long-term grinders and will serve the main purpose they were designed for.
I'm curious to see your point of view - I'm pretty sure there are some players learning the format with the intentions of making bank.
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