Money Management
Written July 25, 2008 by Jack Jones
Money Management
Money management is just as important as picking winners. In fact, without both you are destined to fail. There are a lot of good handicappers out there. You might even consider yourself to be one. You might fall in the catagory of a number of bettors who can pick games with consistancy but also lose with just as much consistancy. The single biggest reason why sportsbettors fail is because of the lack of proper money management. Just like a good business plan you must have a plan for betting on sporting events.
The Plan
All plans must start with a Bankroll, defined as the amount of money that you have set aside to risk on sports wagering. Your bankroll does not have to be the amount of money that you have on hand, just the amount that you can comfortably lose without affecting your lifestyle. For the sake of this conversation we are going to use $5000. Next we will select a Unit Wager. Use 2% of the bankroll as a unit wager. $5000 X .02 = $100. $100 would be a 1 unit Play. Wagering on sports is very similar to a stock on Wall Street. Your bankroll is going to go up and down, so we must be able to weather the storms and a 2% wager allows us to do this. The final step is find a safe way to safely increase you wagers as your bankroll increases.
Increasing Wagers
As your bankroll increases, there is a need to increase the amounts of each unit wager. Use 20% increments or 10 units. 10 X .02 = 20%. Simply put using the $5000 starting figure, one would increase his unit play to $120 after he won 10 units. His bankroll would be $6000. Therefore $6000 X .02 = $120. Your wagers would then stay at $120 until you hit the next level or dipped back down to the $5000 mark. A dip down would result in a $100 bet, and an increase to the next level, ($120 X 10 units = $1200 + 6000 = $7200) would result in a $150 bet,($7200 X .02 = $144 or $150). It is important to note that you always round up to the nearest $10. Your bet size is increasing but your overall risk remains the same. Let’s look at the different level of results using this system.
Level of Results Based on +10 Unit Increments
By increasing your bet size at predetermined levels without increasing your risk you can safely build a nice bankroll. Let’s take a look at the results of a person who started with $5000, and used this system.
Units
Unit Bet
Bankroll
0
$100
$5000
+10
$120
$6000
+20
$150
$7200
+30
$180
$8700
+40
$210
$10500
+50
$260
$12600
+60
$310
$15100
+70
$370
$18200
+80
$440
$21900
+90
$530
$26300
+100
$640
$31600
+110
$720
$38000
+120
$900
$45000
+130
$1080
$54000
At +130 for the year you are still betting just 2% of your total bankroll. Your risk is the same as you started. You are simply taking advantage of an increasing bankroll. The key is the predetermined levels of increase.
Conclusion
You must be patient in the beginning and you must be ready for some rough rides along the way. Of course at some point you will reach a level on your unit bet that you feel comfortable with and you should stop increasing your wagers and start dragging money from your account. That, of course, is when the fun begins. This only works when you are getting sound advice on your wagers. Best of luck.
