Betting on sports is a ton of fun, especially for the winners. In order to win long term, you need to learn to manage your bankroll. In this article, we will give you some advice on how to do that so you can maximize your opportunities to win. Having action on your favorite game is fun but winning is even better.
Bankroll Management Is Crucial
The concept of bankroll management is crucial in sports betting because it is the one thing that you have total control over. No matter how much you study the statistics, there is a certain level of randomness to the outcomes of these games. When it comes to how you spend your money, that is completely up to you and it is also crucial in terms of profitability. The first thing you want to do is give yourself as many chances to win as possible.
If there is a step one to managing your bankroll, picking the amount you will spend for the season or the year would be it. If you lose all of your bankroll, then you should spend the rest of the season learning from your mistakes and try again next year. The reason you want to do it this way is to stop yourself from losing more than you can afford to. It’s a learning experience to some degree because you either didn’t start with enough money or your unit size was too big. Or perhaps you just couldn’t pick any winners. Either way, you’ve got some work to do in order to make a profit.
Understanding Unit Sizes When Betting
Keeping track of your profits can get pretty complicated unless you are betting in units. It’s very easy to keep track of your bets this way because one unit equals one percent of your bankroll. Say it your starting bankroll for the season is $5000, then one percent, or one unit would be $50. Most professional bettors, known in the industry as “sharps”, bet somewhere between 1-5 units per game, depending on how much confidence they have on the game in question.
If you love the game then you’d bet 5 units, or in the case of someone with a starting bankroll of $5000, you’d bet $250. If you like it but don’t love it, perhaps you bet two units, or $100. The point here is, you are maximizing your chances of winning. By betting one percent or one unit per wager, you’re guaranteeing yourself 100 bets, in theory. If you’re very aggressive and you’re risking 5 units per bet, then you’re guaranteeing yourself at least 20 bets. Whatever the case, you have control over how your money gets spent. When you risk too much on one particular game, you’re putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to get that pick right.
Another advantage to betting in units is that at the end of the season, if you look at your final tally and see that you’re up 15 units, well you know exactly how much that is because you know that one unit has a value of $50. This simple change in strategy will guarantee that you practice self control which is what you need in order to have the money available when the next big game rolls around.
No Magic Formula to Winning
To be clear, just because you manage your money better doesn’t mean you’re going to win. It will certainly give you a better chance of making profit but the key is still picking winners. In order to do that, you will need to do a lot of data research. Not only current data but historic data as well, it all means something when you’re trying to make an educated guess on a game.
There is no magic shortcut to picking more winners. What we will tell you is that you should never look at any game as a lock. Since you now know how bankroll management works, you should keep track of how often you hit your 5 unit bets. You’ll quickly see that you don’t necessarily win those more often than you do your 1 unit plays even though in your mind those bets seemed like locks. That’s because there is no such thing as a lock. Manage your bankroll, do your homework and stick to the sports you know and you’ll be well on your way to turning a profit while betting on sports.
