A Fundamental Strategy to Grind Out Long Term Profits
Lets face it: the number one goal of anyone who bets on sports is to win money.
No one likes the feeling of wagering on a sporting event and then losing their hard earned money because their team didn’t win the game or cover the point spread. It has been well discussed in the past that most people who bet on sports lose money in the long run. After analyzing this trend, one of the biggest problems that most amateur bettors have is a poor, or nonexistent, money management strategy. While nothing in sports betting is ever for certain, there are some very important skills that you can learn, and implement today that will set you apart from a majority of the people that lose money betting on sports. You can become one of the few who shows a nice profit.
This article is by no means all that there is to know or consider with a money management program, but it will give you a SOLID foundation from which to build your bankroll month after month, and year after year.
Establishing Sports Betting Goals
As I said earlier, people bet because they are trying to show a profit. One of the main questions that you need to consider when developing a winning plan for success is:
1. How much money do I want to make monthly or yearly from betting on sports, and do I have enough money to start with to accomplish this goal?
Its ok if you dont have a clear understanding of what the answers to the above two questions should be. Very shortly it will be perfectly clear.
Lets use an example of an unrealistic goal: I would like to make $500 per month betting on sports. I have $500 to start with at the beginning of the football season.
This is a very unrealistic goal because betting is a long term investment.
Now lets use an example of a realistic goal: I would like to make and extra $100 – $300 per month betting on sports. I have $3000 to start with at the beginning of the football season.
Now this is much more realistic, and this article will show you how to do just this and more by following some basic money management skills.
Just as with any business, if you treat sports betting as a serious business, money can be made, if you understand what is involved. Most people have unrealistic expectations that they can bet $50 a game with a $500 bankroll and be doubling their money in no time. It just does not and will not work this way. We will now look at how to establish a proper bankroll for your betting habits, set realistic goals, and run your sports betting just as you would do with any other business.
Bankroll Size
The first thing you need to do is establish a starting bankroll for your sports betting, and then decide how much you will be betting on each particular game. Your bankroll should always determine your betting size, and the size of your bets should correlate with the size of your current bankroll.
Lets define bankroll size as the amount of money available to place your bets with, and the investment vehicle to build your profits. The main betting technique that we use, and that we recommend you use for long term success with a majority of your bets is a basic 2% flat rate of bankroll. What this means is that if you start with a bankroll of $1000 your first bet would be for $20, or 2% of your bankroll. Why 2% you may ask? By betting 2% you will have nearly no chance of losing your entire bankroll during a losing streak, because as your bankroll decreases, a 2% bet will also get smaller as well. When things turn around and you go on a hot streak, and your bankroll grows to more than your initial $1000, you get to increase your bet size, simply by being disciplined and sticking with the 2% flat rate of bankroll system. Below you can see what 2% of different bankrolls looks like.
% of bankroll – Initial Bankroll – Bet Size
2 – 100 – 2
2 – 500 – 10
2 – 750 – 15
2 – 1000 – 20
2 – 1500 – 30
2 – 2000 – 40
2 – 5000 – 100
2 – 7500 – 150
2 – 10000 – 200
2 – 20000 – 400
2 – 50000 – 1000
Now you can see that if you are the type of person who feels comfortable betting $20 a game, you should start with a bankroll of $1000. You need to use this type of system to minimize your losses during cold streak and maximize your profits during a hot streak.
Always remember to protect your bank because it’s very frustrating if you lose your hard earned cash with one or two bad bets.
