Most home games end the same way. Someone says "OK, who's up?" and five people look at their phones.
The maths isn't hard. It's just easy to get wrong at midnight when everyone is tired and a little competitive. This is the method we'd use every time, with an example you can copy.
1. Add up each player's buy-ins
Count every buy-in, rebuys included. If Priya bought in for 100 and rebought for 100, her total in is 200.
2. Write down each player's cash-out
This is what their chips are worth at the end, at the same rate you started with.
3. Subtract to get each player's net
Cash-out minus total buy-ins. Positive means they won, negative means they lost.
Here's a five-player game:
- Dana: in 100, out 300, net +200
- Marcus: in 100, out 0, net -100
- Priya: in 200, out 120, net -80
- Tom: in 100, out 60, net -40
- Lee: in 100, out 120, net +20
4. Check that the nets add up to zero
Total buy-ins here are 600 and total cash-outs are 600, so the nets cancel out: +200 -100 -80 -40 +20 = 0.
If your totals don't match, stop. Settling on bad numbers just spreads the mistake around. What to do when the chips don't match the money covers how to find it.
5. Pay winners directly
Don't have everyone pay the host and the host pay everyone back. Match the people who owe with the people who are owed, starting with the biggest on each side.
- Marcus owes 100 and Dana is owed 200, so Marcus pays Dana 100.
- Priya owes 80 and Dana still needs 100, so Priya pays Dana 80.
- Tom owes 40. Dana needs 20 more, then Lee needs 20. So Tom pays Dana 20 and Tom pays Lee 20.
Four payments for five players, and everyone ends exactly where the maths says they should.
If you played with real cash
Much of this settles itself at the table. The person holding the bank pays winners out of the pot as they leave. The method above matters when buy-ins were on credit, when someone sent their buy-in by app, or when the bank doesn't have enough physical cash to cover everyone.
Doing it faster
You can put the numbers into our free calculator and it gives you the payments. If you'd rather not enter anything at the end of the night, Bink logs buy-ins as they happen and works out who pays who when the game ends.