Perhaps I should post this elsewhere, so feel free to move it.

My home casino offers a fair number of tournaments, everything from $30 buy-in to $150 buy-in.

I won't touch the $30 tourneys because there's a $10 "dealer appreciation" optional fee to get additional chips. While the $10 isn't "vig" in the purest definition, it's still "vig". I don't see how a 25% vig tournament (even before house fees) can be profitable. Of course, the size of the prize pool is so small, it's a good waste of a few hours for very little upside potential.

At what percentage do live tournaments become viable for making a profit?

It depends on your skill, the skill of the field, the structure, the entry fee, and the value of your time.

These variables are inter-related. The faster the structure, the less time it takes to get to the money, but that decreases the skill edge. However, it isn't reciprocal. One can design a "flip-em" tournament where everyone goes all in pf and the winner of the hand gets the money. There's zero skill involved. Compare that the WSOP ME when the structure is extremely long but that still doesn't prevent people from winning the ME who wouldn't be considered top tier players.

At the point you start cashing / winning.

Imagine a tourney in which people shove 72o and fold every other hand. Could you beat that tournament with a 25% vig? 50%? 75%?

Imagine another tourney in which people shove AA and fold every other hand. Could you beat that tournament with a 25% vig? 50%? 75%?

Your profit is the probability-weighted average of all possible cashes compared to the ratio of money you paid relative to the prize pool.

These numbers are difficult to calculate. If they weren't, people who suck would immediately recognize they suck.

Forget the "vig" - consider the structure and the field you will be facing.

There is a tourney where I play that has a $40 entry. $10 is the house fee, 3% of the remaining 30 goes to the house, and there's a $5 bonus chip and that 5 goes to the house. So for $45, the vig is over 33% (if you get the $30 add on, the vig is a mere 23%).

So? I final table this tourney several times a month, and cash much more often. Because of the size and softness of the field, the prize pool is large enough to make it well worth it (first place is 3 to 5k, and as much as 10k).

on what planet is there a 45 dollar touney with a 10k first prize take place on and how long does it take with a good structure? guess i reread and there is a 30 dollar addon but still..

you could be crushing this thing for 100 percent ROI which is not possible and your hourly would still be like 10 bucks an hr at most.

and even if actually exists and you are final tabling it a bunch now i doubt its sustainable. you can have great runs in big fields and than go months without final tabling even against horrible players.

My room has a weekday morning tournament. 25$ entry for 1500 chips, 5$ optional dealer appreciation for extra 500 chips. The house takes 5$ from each entry but they add 250$ to the tournament. Depending on the number of players they get (30-65 average), the average equity in the prize-pool is 24-28 dollars.

All of that still doesn't make it worthwile, but it is very much beatable.

yeah i mean you should be able to beat a rake free tournament. obviously, its impossible to have much of an hourly in it just cause the buy in is so small.

Never

Really never. Not for you, not for the casino.

The casino needs to pay staff and compensate for tables that aren't dropping rake. To do that they need to charge a vig. To make that vig a small percentage, they need to significantly increase the buy-in. But if the buy-in is bigger, then players will demand deeper stacks and longer levels, at which point the casino needs to pay more dealers for more hours. So they raise the vig...

Additionally, the bigger the buy-in, the better skilled player will be entering. So even as the vig percentage decreases a bit, the player pool skill level increases. After all, smart players aren't playing the cheap dailies with high vigs. They're after the best value per dollar, and they have more dollars to spend on poker than the average person, and are better skilled against a wider range of players than the average person.

Play live tournaments for fun and networking. Do not play them for a living.

This is all pretty spot on... but- there is an inbetween on your last 2 statements, which is where I think the thread title hits home for me... more than 'for fun', but certainly not in the 'make a living at it' category... far from it... just for some regular monthly profit...

Cmon everyone. The OP asked a simple question and you danced around it.

OP, the answer is 15% vig.

I have independently confirmed this by thinking about it.