Sports Betting and Money Management

Sports betting, like other types of gambling, is all about money management. Always remember that successful sports bettors, which means those who are in the game for the long run, are experts at three things—sports rules and strategies, understanding odds, and money management.

The Bankroll

How big of a bankroll you hold will determine how much you should wager and your potential to make cash. You can’t expect to make $100 in one day of betting with a bankroll of $100. You can’t expect to do that holding $200, $300 or even $400.

If you want to make money on sports betting, then you’ll need a stake of at least $500 and $750 to $1,000 is preferred. Why that much? It costs $11 to place a basic point spread bet. That $11 represents about 3% of your bank. It’s advisable to wager no more than between 2% and 6% of your roll on anyone bet.

With a bankroll of $500, you’ll be able to do that, allowing you to make some mistakes and make adjustments in order to win. You’ll have 45 bets at $11 each. That’s a decent number of wagers. Also, you’re trying to win 60% to 65% of your bets. Why that percentage? On average that’s the winning percentage over time of successful professional sports bettors.

If 45 point spread bets are placed and the bettor manages to win 65%, here’s the way it works. They will win 29 bets and lose 16. After all is said and done, they’ll have $609 in the bank. Also, they will have $5.00 left in the bank that they have not risked, giving them $614.

You may be thinking that’s not very good. You may have thought by making 45 bets, you could have turned that $500 into $2,000! Consider this, you started with $500 and have increased that original amount by almost 23%. What other investment pays like that? Additionally, even if you ran off a string of 45 wins, the most you’d make on a basic point spread wager of $11 would be $10, giving you a total bankroll of $945.

How Much to Bet?

There are various theories regarding how to manage your bankroll. The best of these is to oversee your grubstake by being conservative. Wager between 2% and 6% of your cash. Stay away from parlays and other exotics as these really favor the sportsbook and not the sports bettor. Don’t get greedy. Make your first 45 to 50 wagers single wagers.

Once you’ve increased you stake by 25%, start taking some calculated risks. But don’t go crazy. Again, you want to intelligently manage your bankroll and that means keeping emotion, outlandish hunches and desperation betting out of the picture.

Keeping Track

Make sure that you write down every bet that you make, the type of bet and how much you wagered. Record all wins and loses and keep a ledger tally on how much you’ve lost or made. Sports betting is about being smart in every aspect of the game—who you wager on, the types of bets you make and the way in which you oversee your cash.

The Long Run

Professional sports betting is not about a quick-hit win on a 500-1 shot. That’s for amateurs. It is about what every other business is about—knowledge, knowledge and more knowledge honed through experience and transformed into skills that will make you successful. Money management is one of the most important aspects of this endeavor.