How To Manage Your Bankroll When Sports Betting?

Quick Answer:

To better manage your bankroll you can use the following methods:

You can set your budget at an affordable amount, to make sure you’re only betting what you’re comfortable doing so.
Research your chosen markets to make informed decisions, rather than placing blind bets.
Track your wins and losses, to see if you can find any correlations or patterns and improve your strategy.
Avoid betting when emotional, be that positive or negative.
Start betting in units as a strategy, rather than pursuing losses.

Applying these methods to sports betting should allow you to gain more control over your bankroll and start betting in a way that’s stable enough for you to manually control your budget.

How Can You Manage Your Bankroll?

Keep on reading to find out our top tips!

Setting Your Bankroll

The main thing to remember with any type of gambling is to make sure you choose an amount of money that you would be happy losing, and never bet more than you can afford to lose. A good way of doing this is by settling on an amount of money that you’re comfortable with losing in a period of time, such as a month, and then avoid deviating from this amount in that time. Doing this will prevent you from betting too much and let you know when to stop. If you would like support with this, it’s worth noting that you can also set up a deposit limit over certain time periods on your betting account.

Research

It should go without saying, but researching into the sport you’re betting on will serve you better in the long run than just betting randomly. Spending time reading into your chosen sport will be more likely to yield better results than going in blind, particularly as there are so many helpful resources in this day and age. This can be looking into how a team has been doing in the current or previous season, how a horse has done in the previous races or even pricing up a market yourself.

Tracking Wins and Losses

Making a log of every bet you place will allow you to see if there is any correlation between your wins and losses. Doing so will essentially give you an insight into whether your current strategy is working or not and potentially give you hints on where you can improve the method. It can also give you insight on what is working and what isn’t if you like to bet across certain sports or markets.

For example, you could be consistently underperforming with horse races in the summer but excelling on the jumps racing in the winter, and noticing that this happens every year could provide some insight into your betting habits. Either way, tracking your wagers will tell you something about your results.

Avoid Emotional Betting

A big thing to watch out for is recklessly betting due to the emotions that gambling can bring out, which can be out of excitement at a big win or out of desire to chase a loss. The best thing to do is to try to shut these emotions out and to instead bet rationally and to focus on your budget. It’s important that you never chase losses, as there is no guarantee that you will make your money back.

Unit Betting

Unit betting is a strategy that involves betting a specific amount in relation to your bankroll. Sticking to this strategy,removes the chance of emotional betting by wagering specific increments or units of funds. Whilst there are no rules for how much these units are, they are generally between 1-5% of your bankroll. There are three main types of unit betting; basic unit betting, variable unit betting and percentage unit betting.Basic unit betting involves betting the same amount each time. For example, if you’ve chosen that your unit is 1% of your bankroll of €1000, then each unit will be a wager of €10, an amount that you will stick to with every single wager. Variable unit betting is a little riskier, as this is where you’ll bet a varying amount of units depending on your research. For example, if you think the odds look good, you might bet three units instead of one.

Percentage unit bets are bets that increase and decrease depending on the size of your bankroll. For example, a 5% stake will look different if you start at €2,500 and then you win and your bankroll increases. All three of these methods give you a strategy on how to use your betting balance wisely, which eliminates the possibility of emotional betting if you stay disciplined. It is also a fantastic way to control your bets and your overall bankroll.

Our Experts Verdict

As an experienced gambler with a long history and interest in sports betting, I can’t stress enough that managing your bankroll is the key to gambling smart. By utilising all the methods detailed in this article, you’ll be able to manage your bankroll like a true pro. Three good habits to pick up are budgeting effectively, avoiding betting based on your emotions and doing your research. You won’t go far wrong with these principles under your belt, while tracking your wins and losses is another good tip to keep in mind.

Resources

FAQs

If you’ve read our article and you just want more and more, then fair play, you’ve got good taste. Here’s some frequently asked questions to help satiate your appetite.

How Often Should I Review My Sports Betting Bankroll?

A good way to keep making sure that you can afford your current gambling budget, is to check how things are going each payday if you are on a regular pay schedule with your employer. This can help you figure out if you’re comfortable with the amount you’re betting with or if you need to adjust your current spend.

How Should I Manage My Bankroll Across Multiple Sportsbooks or Platforms?

If you use multiple betting sites or sportsbooks, then your bankroll is the combined amount that goes to fund all these sites and needs to be treated as the same budget.

Is the Martingale System a Good Way of Managing Your Bankroll?

The Martingale system is a strategy where players double their wager on every loss, so that when they do win, they win all their money back. This method is very high risk and not a way to sensibly manage your bankroll.

Sportsbook Expert

Siobhan Aslett

Irish Sportsbook Specialist

Sports & sportsbook expert of 8 years. Specialising in a subject close to her heart, sports, Siobhan informs online sports betting fans about the latest news & best sports betting sites.

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Fact Checked By Rebecca Mackay