Firstly an important note; the minimum bank recommendations that EVCalc provides are just that and with the sheer amount of variation in offers it may occasionally produce an odd sounding recommendation. Although every effort has been taken during testing and use to make these recommendations sensible, please let us know if you find a case where it doesn't!

There are 2 different bank size recommendations EVCalc provides:

Standard

This is a traditional formula based approach. There are a few steps to this:

1. We take the combined bust and drain rate of the simulation to estimate the overall risk level of the offer

2. We then get the 'worst case ev' which is the worst possible EV calculated from the simulation. If this is an offer where it is possible to bust out then it will be the bust EV (which will be negative the deposit amount). If there is no risk of busting then we use a figure which represents the bottom 30% of drain outcomes encountered. For example, if during simulating an offer, we record drain outcomes ranging from -£0.01 to -£10.00 EVCalc will use a figure of -£7.00

3. Using the risk percentage and worst case EV figures calculated above we then use a table as follows to make sure that the worst case EV is never more than a percentage of your bank:

• Greater than 0% but less than 50% - No more than 3% of bank
• Greater than 50% but less than 70% - No more than 2% of bank
• Greater than 70% but less than 90% - No more than 1% of bank
• Greater than 90% - No more than 0.5% of bank

The logic behind this method is that we are able to 'risk' more of our bank depending on the chance of losing money on an offer. If there is a 95% chance of losing money on an offer we need to be more conservative with the maximum amount of our bank we can use to ride out any losing runs.

Also note that if there is no risk of losing money in an offer (a 0% bust and drain rate) as would be the case with a no deposit cashable bonus or free spins then EVCalc will not provide a recommended bank as it is not needed.

Simulated

Enable advanced mode in the calculator and you will then have the option to enable Bank Calc. Please note this can be quite an intensive thing to calculate along with needing a large amount of runs so if your device struggles with this then either try on a more powerful machine or leave turned off.

As the name suggests instead of relying on a formula to guess a recommended bank size, this approach will actually simulate completing this offer with different bank sizes.

To do this we pick a starting bank size and simply keep track of this virtual bank as we repeat the offer over and over watching for the following conditions:

• If this balance is depleted/bankrupt then we restart with a slightly bigger bank
• If an offer is repeated a number of times without the balance being depleted then it is considered safe
• If a bank size is considered safe then we reduce bank size and test a slightly lower bank size with the same criteria

This yoyo-ing between bank sizes means we eventually reach a bank size that we have never gone bankrupt from but has been marked as 'safe' by the simulation enough times to be the recommended bank size.

It is important to keep in mind that because we are simulating these bank sizes rather than applying a generic formula, the accuracy of the recommendation will increase as you perform more runs. It is also possible for us to not reach a 'safe' bank size during the simulation, if this happens you will be prompted to re-run the calculation with more runs. Generally 1,000,000 runs will be enough to reach a figure but in some cases such as offers with higher deposits and wagering you may have to increase this to as much as 3,000,000

Which one should I use?

In the vast majority of cases the standard estimation will be fine and if anything tends to over-estimate required bank sizes compared to the simulated recommendation, this is partly by design to make sure there is plenty of scope for losing runs but also because creating a one size fits all offers formula would be impossible.

The accuracy of the simulated approach will usually give a number lower than the formula approach but its accuracy is absolutely unmatched. There is no other tool out there that will predict to this level.

Use a combination of the 2 figures as well as your own judgement. You may be more risk adverse than other people and as such make your own call as to whether or not an offer is too risky for your current bank size. Also keep in mind that when entering the world of high risk offers, you don't have to deposit the full amount! Yes you will reduce EV but there is nothing wrong with only depositing £50 in a 100% buyin offer vs the maximum.