Sports betting money management is such as important skill that most sports bettors don’t even think about. If you aren’t serious about making money then you don’t need to worry about going broke while betting. However, if you want to make money while betting on sports, you’re going to need to know how you should manage your bankroll. In this guide we’re going to assume you’ve saved up at least $1000 for your sports betting bankroll.
Most people that bet on sports are short-minded and can only see the immediate profits that they could potentially make off of their money. In order to make money betting on sports over the long-run though, you need to look at betting on sports as a long-term investment. If you just started buying stocks on the stock market would you spend your entire bankroll on a single stock right away or would you only spend a percentage of your money on a single stock?
In the sports betting industry you should only be betting about 1%-2% of your bankroll on each game on a daily basis, but there are times when it’s fine to wager 3%-5% of your betting bankroll on the odd game. What most people don’t realize is that you’ll be lucky to win 55%-60% of your wagers in sports, which means if you bet sporadically you’re not going to end up profiting over the long-run. Sports betting is also very streaky and you could go on a winning / losing streak of 5-10+ games, which could put your bankroll into jeopardy if you’re not being careful.
If you have a $1000 bankroll you should only be betting $10-$20 on a regular game and up to $50 on a game that you feel really confident in although you can’t wager 5% on very many games, as it’s just too much to risk on a single game/event. If you bet on sports such as the NHL, MLB, NBA or NFL there will be a lot of games on in a single day, which means you might have 5-10+ bets in a single day. If you bet 2% on each and had 10 bets going you’d have 20% of your bankroll on the line in a single day, which is why it’s so important to keep your bets under 2% most of the time.
Online sportsbooks rely on casual bettors to make a deposit of $100-$200 and start betting $40-$50 a game because it’s only a matter of time before that person loses their entire bankroll. Making money on sports betting takes a lot of time, as you can’t rely on betting 20%+ of your bankroll every game in hopes of winning big sums of money. You might win a few thousand, but it won’t be long before you give it all back to the sportsbook.
When you handicap games you should always rate your picks on a unit system. If you follow sports betting forums you’ll notice a lot of people keep track of their records using units. A unit is 1% of your bankroll and most of your bets should be 1 unit although you should use a rating system that goes up to 5 units. Don’t fall for all of that game of the year or 10,000 units bet hype, as its all advertising and noone in their right mind would bet 10,000 units on a single game.