Sports Betting Bankroll Management
It is often said that sports betting bankroll management is easy to explain and impossible to adhere to. This statement cannot be true if you want to become a successful sports bettor.
After all the hours of research and the work it takes to know the right spots in exploiting Australian sports betting sites, we still believe bankroll management is the most important aspect of punting. You may be a sharp punter who know all the stats and knows how to pick winners, but at the end of the day if you don’t’ adhere to bankroll management you will be a losing sports bettor.
Betting sports can be exactly the same as playing the stock market or investing long term… If you want it to be! Long term investing is the strategy that will pay off every time. But you must understand that ‘everyday’ is not going to be a winning day. You have to think in the long term, not the short term and you MUST follow correct sports betting bank roll management.
An important attribute of correct sports betting bankroll management is to have a plan of action or a betting plan. Most unsuccessful punters bet random varying amounts of money per game. This might be based on how they “feel” about that bet, or a stupid superstition like “I always win when I bet this team, regardless of who they are playing,” or even worse, based on how much they have won or lost betting that particular week or even day.
This strategy does not work and these punters will always lose and eventually end up blaming someone else for their problems, or some outside factor for their losing ways. However, they only have themselves to blame for not adhering to correct sports betting bankroll management.
So, instead of just betting random amounts based on how you feel, or even worse, random amounts because you are chasing losses, you instead need a betting plan or a betting system. This isn’t some magical thing that will make you pick winners, but it is absolutely essential if you want to bet a professional manner and want to ensure you don’t bust your bankroll. It’s important to remember that even if you are one of the best sports bettors in the world, picking an absurd amount of winners, you will lose money if you don’t follow bankroll management.
A popular form of bankroll management is to have a “star” system or a “unit” system.
This is when punters allocate a sort of rating for their bet. A simple way to do this would to have three confidence levels – i.e 1 star/unit, 2 stars/units, 3 stars/units. Then, each star or unit has a value allocated to it. A very general way to do this, might be to say you a comfortable doing $10 units, which would mean a 1 unit bet would be $10 and a more confident 3 unit bet would be $30.
How you allocate this confidence to your bets is up to you. Maybe you think the bookies have got it wrong and the odds are value or “overs”, or maybe you have looked at the stats of the game and think the edge swings heavily to one side. Regardless of how you come up with this, you never deviate from betting within these parameters.
There are many theories for bankroll management but the most popular consensus and rule is to never bet more than 2-3 % of your allocated sportsbetting bankroll per bet. So, in the case of the unit/star system, you would bet either 1%, 2% or 3% of your bankroll on any given bet. Then, your betting amounts increase and decrease with your bankroll.
Let’s say week one of the AFL season starts with you deciding to allocate $1,000 as your sports betting bankroll. So:
Bankroll = $1,000
1% = $10 | 2% = $20 | 3% = $30
Now, you pick plenty of winners in round one, including some three unit and two unit plays.
Bankroll = $1,150
1% = $11.5 | 2% = $23 | 3% = $34.5
See, how your betting size increases when you are winning? This means you can really capitalise and grow your bankroll when you are doing well. On the flipside, when you lose, you can ensure you don’t bust your bankroll.
Let’s say you go on a ‘downswing’ (which will happen) and have three losing weeks in a row.
Bankroll = $800
1% = $8 | 2% = $16 | 3% = $24
Now you continue betting within these parametres no matter how you are doing. You don’t increase your bet to absurd amounts just because you are on a ‘heater’ feeling lucky, and you don’t increase your bets to chase your losses when you are doing poorly. You take the emotion out of the betting.
Following this sort of sports betting bankroll management will ensure maximum growth and minimum chance of busting your bankroll.
If you want to take more emotion out of and lessen your variance, we would suggest a ‘flat betting’ strategy. This means placing identical bets on every game, not varying the bet amount depending how strongly you feel about it. We would recommend this style to new sports bettors, or those that don’t have the time and/or patience to put in the research work required to really understand when a bet is worthy of say 3 units.
However, if you are willing to put in the research, the aforementioned star or unit system is a great way to build your bankroll. More advance sports bettors might even adjust their strategy to include 4 or 5 units/stars. Just remember to never deviate from your bankroll strategy and always follow strict sports betting bankroll management.
Adhering to sports betting bankroll management is the first step in taking the gamble out of sports betting and putting the odds in your favour. If you can’t follow sports betting bankroll management, then betting needs to just be for recreation or fun. Never bet more than you can afford, always remember to gamble responsibly and if your punting gets out of hand, be sure to contact an organisation like ‘Gambler’s Help’.
Make sure to read full terms and conditions of any betting promotion before placing any bets - bonuses may not be available to residents of all states.
ALWAYS GAMBLE RESPONSIBLY!
