Hey! I was thinking about buying shares of a friend who frequents MTTs. If I agree to buy 50% of him in a tournament, does that mean (for a standard deal, assuming no markup) I would be in for 50% of his winnings?

I don't know what's standard so just asking what is typical for an average deal! Thanks!!

If he is a professional / winning player then he should charge a premium. I think a 65/35 split would be more fair. If he isn't a pro / winning player then you should not invest in him.

Well it's really up to you to decide on the deal you want. Ensure that everything is spoken through and understood by both parties that way no one gets butthurt about anything.

If you have 50% of someone in a £100 tournament and they win £400 you get £200 which is a profit of 150 of an overall profit of £300.

This post makes no sense and should be ignored.

If you know your friends long term roi, you can figure out the breakeven markup:

10% roi on 50% investment = 45% payout

20% roi on 50% investment = 40% payout

Unknown roi = get even money deal.

Negative roi = no stake.

I never have as of yet, but take a peek at Youstake.com (?) and you will see what Players are posting. There is also a staking area on this site (Marketplace?) to look at as well.

1) Your agreement is whatever you agree to, just make sure that it's in writing/text before the event begins. Does it cover only the original buy-in, or re-buys as well if available?

2) Some Pros charge a 'mark-up' when they look for staking. I think a very high mark-up would be 1.2 where you pay a 20% up front premium on the percentage you want to cover. So if you want 50% of a 100 buy-in you would give the player 60 (50x1.2) for your 50% of the prize won.

I think there was one Pro that wanted to charge a 1.5 mark-up for the WSOP ME and caught some flak for it. But he sold everything he wanted to sell in short order because he had such a good track record in the ME. (He didn't cash.) A 2.0 markup would give the Player a 'free roll' if he sold 50% of his action.

I've never heard of a stake not getting the exact percentage they paid for, just variance in what they might pay for that amount of stake. I think there's room for that in a staking arrangement, but not necessary for what you are talking about.

IMO there could to be a point in the pay scale where the Player gets a higher percentage of the winnings, but you can also argue that the Player would never have been in that position without the stake in the first place.

So it really comes down to just being comfortable with whatever you decide to do. If you aren't really good at poker but want a bit of a sweat, then go ahead and toss in some cash and turn your horse loose.

And as others have suggested ... Are you looking to get in on 'a good thing' or is the Player approaching you? I can't imagine even the best MTT PLayers cashing in more than 15-20% of the events and a lot of them are firing multiple bullets (and still losing money) when they do so. GL

is staking even a good investment even if the player is a winner? 15%-20% itm is pretty low. unless i was going to stake that player in a huge number of tournaments its just another form of lotto.

15-20% ITM is actually more or less perfect assuming standard payout tables, you don't want much higher than that

Only a fool or a losing player would play for someone else for free. Look at the question another way, if you put up the entire buy in for a tournament for someone, what is an equitable distribution of profits? And the answer you come up with is a 70/30 or 80/20 split. So if you put up 50% of the money then the investor should get 35% to 40% of returned profits. No winning player is going to give up half their action for half the buy in; why let the investor capture all of the ROI for their 50% investment? Why not split that ROI between horse and investor?

Thanks for all your answers! To clarify though, aren't there still top level pros that sell shares of their seats at even money or even close to even money? We saw Bonomo sell half of his One drop seat at 1.05, with .05 markup going to charity, so it was essentially even money.

I understand your question of why a winning player would play for you for free. But aren't there still plenty of players who just simply don't want to put down and risk the full buy in and don't mind selling shares at even or close to even money?