Dave and Busters breakeven tickets per chip under different chip cost and ticket value scenarios

Today we’ll continue with the theme from our last post on a Google Sheet Dave and Busters profitability tracker. One frequent question that arises in the Dave and Busters Reddit forum is: How many tickets does one need to be winning to be “profitable”?

The answer is usually some combination of “it depends”; it is based on chip cost and ticket value (and perhaps some mentions of finger traps, etc.).

To solve this problem, first we enter a formula for the breakeven tickets given a value/ticket and cost/chip. With some simple algebra, we find that:

breakeven ticket/chip = (cost per chip) / (value per ticket)

Here’s that depicted in spreadsheet form:

Next, we’ll make a data table which inputs various different costs per chip (based on the different price points of the tickets that are offered), and various different values per ticket. The output is this nice table below:

We can confirm we’re only an “advantage player” when it comes to redeeming for burgers and churros for ourselves at 10 tickets per chip breakeven.

Download the Excel spreadsheet here: Dave and Busters ticket breakeven calculator

You can also enter your own values in the Cost per chip (cells B26: B35) and Value per ticket (cells C25: J25).