Betting is an exercise that is becoming more popular with each passing day. What’s more, the level of accessibility that you can now get to this exercise is massive. Thanks to this, many bettors find themselves spending a lot of time developing sure betting strategies to win. But one thing a lot of bettors don’t give enough priority is bankroll management. Bankroll management is just as important as finding a winning strategy. The reason for this is that you can only bet when you have something on your bankroll. Even the surest winning strategy won’t amount to anything if you don’t have something to fund your wager.
Effective Bankroll Management
Optimal money management, when betting, depends on a lot of factors. The two most important ones are the type of market you want to bet in and your ability to recognize the value. However, for any bankroll management tactic to work, you need to determine how much you wish to spend betting. Once you have established this, here are some things you can do to manage your bankroll a little better.
Strategy One – Use a Fixed Percentage Of Your Entire Bankroll
It is perhaps one of the most straightforward management strategies that you can employ. Here, you have to choose to use a constant percentage of your bankroll without fail. For example, if you have a bankroll of $1,000, you can set your wagering percentage to 5%. It ensures you never lose your entire bankroll too suddenly or quickly. However, even if you follow this strategy strictly, you may still encounter a few problems. With the example above, 33 straight losses will leave you with less than $200 in your bankroll. So, while it is excellent for helping you manage your money, you still need to tweak it a bit to ensure that you make the most of it.
Strategy Two – Using The Odds To Control Your Bankroll
You are using the odds of a game to influence how your bankroll moves is another excellent strategy. It is an improvement on the fixed percentage bankroll management strategy. The benefit of this strategy is that it actively considers the circumstances of the wager. As a result, it helps you increase your wins and limit what you lose. Keep in mind that this strategy has its limitations as well. When used blindly, it can recommend that bettors wager an unhealthy portion of their bankroll. Since it doesn’t fully account for value, you will need to make certain improvisations to use it right.
Strategy Three – The Kelly Criterion
Developed by the brilliant mathematician John Kelly, this bankroll management strategy helps you cover many loopholes. It factors in the value of the odds and probability into controlling your bankroll. It translates to that you get to make better use of your money because this strategy considers the consistency of an outcome. To use the basic Kelly Criterion, you calculate:
(Percentage Probability x Decimal Odds) – 100% = Value
Takeaway
No management strategy is 100% perfect. So, you have to go with the one that agrees with you most and build on that as necessary. Doing this helps reduce the risk to your bankroll and ensures your future as a sports bettor.
