The cards are put away, the last pot is pushed, and now comes the part that ends friendships: working out who owes whom. Settling a home cash game takes three steps. Work out each player’s result, check that the results add up, then turn them into as few payments as possible.
This guide walks through all three with a real example: a seven-player $1/$2 game with $100 buy-ins and two rebuys.
Work out each player’s result
A player’s result is what they cashed out minus everything they put in. “Everything they put in” means the first buy-in plus every rebuy and add-on, which is why it pays to write each one down as it happens.
| Player | Bought in | Cashed out | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ana | $100.00 | $220.00 | +$120.00 |
| Ben | $200.00 | $120.00 | −$80.00 |
| Chloe | $100.00 | $145.00 | +$45.00 |
| Dan | $100.00 | $55.00 | −$45.00 |
| Eli | $200.00 | $100.00 | −$100.00 |
| Fay | $100.00 | $160.00 | +$60.00 |
| Gus | $100.00 | $100.00 | $0.00 |
| Total | $900.00 | $900.00 | $0.00 |
Ben and Eli each rebought once, so they each put in $200. Gus cashed out exactly what he bought in for and broke even, so he takes no part in the settle-up.
Check that the results add up
Chips don’t appear from nowhere, so in a game where nothing went missing, the total of all cash-outs equals the total of all buy-ins, and the results add up to zero. Here $900 went in and $900 came out. Winners are owed $225 between them and losers owe exactly $225.
If your totals don’t match, stop here. Paying out a plan that doesn’t add up leaves someone short, and it will be the last person to get paid. Recount first, then decide what to do with any difference. There’s a full guide to what to do when the chip count doesn’t match.
Find the fewest payments
The obvious plan is for every loser to pay every winner a share. With three losers and three winners that’s up to nine transfers, each one an odd amount, and nine chances for someone to send the wrong figure.
The better plan uses as few payments as possible. For this table it takes four:
- Ben pays Ana $80.00
- Dan pays Chloe $45.00
- Eli pays Ana $40.00
- Eli pays Fay $60.00
Dan’s −$45 and Chloe’s +$45 cancel exactly, so they settle with each other and nobody else is involved. Ana, Ben, Eli and Fay need three payments between them. Spotting groups that cancel out is the whole trick: any group whose results add up to zero can settle on its own, saving a payment.
With six or seven players you can often see these groups by eye. With more players, the number of possible groupings grows quickly, and a computer search is faster and doesn’t miss any. The settle-up calculator runs that search for you, in any currency.
Doing it by hand
No phone handy? This method gets you close to the fewest payments every time:
- Write two lists: everyone who is down, and everyone who is up, each with their amount.
- Cross off any loser and winner whose amounts match exactly, and pair them.
- Look for one loser whose amount equals two winners added together, or the other way round, and settle those three with two payments.
- For whatever is left, have the biggest loser pay the biggest winner as much as one of them needs, cross off whoever reaches zero, and repeat.
- Add up the payments on each side to check every player ends at zero.
Step 4 on its own is the classic shortcut. It always balances, but it can use one or two more payments than necessary, which is why steps 2 and 3 come first.
Paying and recording it
Once the plan is agreed, everyone sends or hands over their payments. Cash at the table, a bank transfer or a payment app all work. What matters is that the plan is written down somewhere everyone can see, so that a week later nobody has to remember whether Eli paid Fay.
Many groups paste the summary into the group chat. Tally Poker can also send a finished settlement to a Splitwise group. Remember that a Splitwise entry, like any written plan, records a debt; it isn’t proof that the money has moved.
Mistakes that cause arguments
- Forgotten rebuys. A rebuy that never got written down makes the counts look short and one player look better than they did.
- Counting chips at the wrong value. Agree the chip values before the game and write them down where everyone can see.
- Mixing in side deals. Loans between players and money paid outside the game are separate from poker results. Record them separately so they don’t get counted twice.
- Settling before the count is checked. Once money has moved, a mistake is much harder to fix.
Settle your own tableEnter buy-ins and cash-outs and get the fewest payments, in any currency.
Open the calculatorQuestions
- Who should pay first when settling a poker game?
- It doesn’t matter as long as every payment in the plan gets made. Agree the full list before anyone sends money, so nobody pays twice or pays the wrong person.
- What if a player leaves before the game ends?
- Count their chips when they leave and record that as their cash-out. Their result is final from then on, and they settle along with everyone else at the end of the night, or straight away if they prefer.
- Should the host just pay everyone out of the cash box?
- If everyone bought in with cash and the host held it, paying out cash at the table is the simplest settle-up there is. The fewest-payments method matters when buy-ins were on credit, paid by transfer, or mixed.
- How do I handle cents when splitting a difference?
- Work in cents, not dollars, and give the leftover cents to specific players so the total is exact. A $5 difference across six players is two shares of $0.84 and four of $0.83.
Hosting soon? Start a game in Tally Poker and let each player approve their own buy-ins.
