Let’s face it: the number one goal of anyone who bets on sports is to win money. No one likes the feeling of wagering on a sporting event and then losing their hard earned money because their team didn’t win the game or cover the point spread. It has been well discussed in the past that most people who bet on sports lose money in the long run. After analyzing this trend, one of the biggest problems that most amateur bettors have is a poor, or nonexistent, money management strategy. While nothing in sports betting is ever for certain, there are some very important skills that you can learn, and implement today that will set you apart from a majority of the people that lose money betting on sports. You can become one of the few who shows a nice profit. This article is by no means all that there is to know or consider with a money management program, but it will give you a SOLID foundation from which to build your bankroll month after month, and year after year.
Establishing Sports Betting Goals
As I said earlier, people bet because they are trying to show a profit. One of the main questions that you need to consider when developing a winning plan for success is:
1. How much money do I want to make monthly or yearly from
betting on sports, and do I have enough money to start
with to accomplish this goal?
It’s ok if you don’t have a clear understanding of what the answers to the above two questions should be. Very shortly it will be perfectly clear.
Let’s use an example of an unrealistic goal: “I would like to make $500 per month betting on sports. I have $500 to start with at the beginning of the football season.”
FORGET IT, GO FIND A NEW HOBBY, OR GO PLAY THE LOTTERY!
Now let’s use an example of a realistic goal: “I would like to make and extra $100 – $300 per month betting on sports. I have $3000 to start with at the beginning of the football season.”
NOW THIS IS MUCH MORE REALISTIC, AND THIS ARTICLE WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO DO JUST THIS AND MORE BY FOLLOWING SOME BASIC MONEY MANAGEMENT SKILLS.
Just as with any business, if you treat sports betting as a serious business, money can be made, if you understand what is involved. Most people have unrealistic expectations that they can bet $50 a game with a $500 bankroll and be doubling their money in no time. It just DOES NOT AND WILL NOT work this way. We will now look at how to establish a proper bankroll for your betting habits, set realistic goals, and run your sports betting just as you would do with any other business.
Bankroll Size
The first thing you need to do is establish a starting bankroll for your sports betting, and then decide how much you will be betting on each particular game. Your bankroll should always determine your betting size, and the size of your bets should correlate with the size of your current bankroll.
Let’s define bankroll size as the amount of money available to place your bets with, and the investment vehicle to build your profits. The main betting technique that we use, and that we recommend you use for long term success with a majority of your bets is a basic 2% flat rate of bankroll. What this means is that if you start with a bankroll of $1000 your first bet would be for $20, or 2% of your bankroll. Why 2% you may ask? By betting 2% you will have nearly no chance of losing your entire bankroll during a losing streak, because as your bankroll decreases, a 2% bet will also get smaller as well. When things turn around and you go on a hot streak, and your bankroll grows to more than your initial $1000, you get to increase your bet size, simply by being disciplined and sticking with the 2% flat rate of bankroll system. Below you can see what 2% of different bankrolls looks like.
% of bankroll Initial Bankroll Bet Size
2 100 2
2 500 10
2 750 15
2 1000 20
2 1500 30
2 2000 40
2 5000 100
2 7500 150
2 10000 200
2 20000 400
2 50000 1000
Now you can see that if you are the type of person who feels comfortable betting $20 a game, you should start with a bankroll of $1000. You need to use this type of system to minimize your losses during cold streak and maximize your profits during a hot streak.
How much can I expect to profit?
To look at this we will use a scenerio of someone who has a starting bankroll of $1000 and we will examine how much money they can make using the 2% flat rate of bankroll system with different winning percentages for picking winners. We will track 100 bets.
Scenerio #1
Starting bankroll: $1000
Winning percentage: 55%
Initial bet size: $22
Number of bets: 100
Results:
55 winners = $1100
45 losers = $990
Rough estimate using 11-10 point spread odds
$1100 – $990 = $110 profit
Scenerio #2
Starting bankroll: $1000
Winning percentage: 57%
Initial bet size: $22
Number of bets: 100
Results:
57 winners = $1140
43 losers = $946
Rough estimate using 11-10 point spread odds
$1140 – $946 = $194 profit
Scenerio #3
Starting bankroll: $1000
Winning percentage: 59%
Initial bet size: $22
Number of bets: 100
Results:
59 winners = $1180
41 losers = $902
Rough estimate using 11-10 point spread odds
$1180 – $902 = $278 profit
If you are getting thoughts that you are interested in making more per 100 bets there are two ways to make this happen with this system. The first is to pick a higher percentage of winners, if you pick higher that 60% winners you will make more money than if you only pick 55% winners. The second way is to increase your bankroll, which will allow you to increase the size of your bets. As a 2% bet of $1000 was $20, (we used $22 to simplify the math), 2% of $2000 would be $40. This situation would now allow you to increase your profits quite nicely over a 100 bet stretch.
The above is a basic fundamental strategy involved in long term sports wagering success. It is a way to grind out long term profits month after month, and year after year. This system does not have the excitement factor of hitting a 6 team parlay, but it is a very safe way to build a bankroll little by little and make you one of the few you can proudly show a profit at the end of the year. Good luck!