Money Management

Welcome to the 3rd installment of our “Make a Living from Football Betting“. This week we are going to look at Money Management. In other words, how to avoid losing your entire betting bank and thus, keep yourself in the game. It is no good losing your whole bank due to a bad run and have no money available for when the good spell comes around.

Money Management is closely linked to discipline which we covered in the first installment, under “Gambler or Investor“. It is essential that you practice safe money management techniques in order to keep your betting bank healthy and clear of any undue stress. The main reason that most people fail when they start betting, is not because of the selections they make, although this is obviously a part of it, but because they stake at too high a level with regard to their total bankroll. This lack of discipline is the reason we lose our bank and don’t the books just love it. Say you have a bank of £1000, it would be totally irresponsible to place £200 on a single bet. In one fell swoop you could lose 20% of your bank. 3 losing bets on the trot and your bank is under intense pressure and without doubt you would be wiped out pretty quickly.

One big mistake that is constantly being made, is chasing losses by increasing your stake on the next bet——-in money management terms, this is a big no-no. It should never be done, because you are putting your betting bank under a bigger strain than is necessary. If you have a betting bank that is large enough in respect to the size of stake you use, then you should never fear a run of losses, they are to be expected, just as winning run is to be expected.

Whatever size bank you have, it must be used in the most beneficial way. For instance if you have a bank of £1000 but only place bets at £1 a time, this is a waste because you are not using the potential within your bank. One characteristic of successful money management is turning your bank over as quickly as possible, this is necessary in order to increase profits in a timely manner. What this means is that you should have enough correctly sized bets throughout the season to make use of your bank, so let’s have a look at how I do this.

Within the football sphere, I bet at odds of around 11/10 - 4/1, all my bets are above evens. For those who have seen my Bank and Staking Plan for BOSS you will know that at even money you could be expected to hit a losing run of 9 successive bets over 550 wagers. This is increased to a possible 20 consecutive losers when betting up to 4/1. Over the course of a season I would expect to have approximately 500 bets, so at 4/1 I could hit a losing run of 20 at any time. You have to bear in mind that if something can happen, in time it most definitely will happen. So to build in a safety factor that is capable of dealing with any losing runs, I multiply that 20 by a factor of 2 and then add a further 10 points, which will give me a bank of 50 points for the season. From experience, I know that a 50 point bank will see me through any rough times that are encountered during the season.

I will stake 2% of my bank on each of my bets. At the start of each season I have a bank of £10,000 (50 points) and for each bet I make I stake 2% of my bank (£200). I know that I will have approximately 500 bets in the season, so 500 x 200 = £100,000. I have staked 10x my initial bank over the course of the season and this is what I mean by turning your bank over. I have turned it over 10 times in the season, this means that the bank is working hard for you and you are making best use of it.

Once you are confident about the system you are using and the strike rate you are achieving, then you can start thinking about upping your stakes but I must stress that you have to have total confidence in your system. What I do is start off the season betting at 2% of my bank (£10,000) and so my initial bets are at £200 each time. I wil stick to the £200 limit until my bank reaches £12,500, at which point I will re-assess my stakes and start betting at 2% of £12,500, so my stakes will now be £250 and I will stick at £250 until my bank reaches £15,000, with my bets then going up to £300. I will continue in this manner throughout the season, re-calculating my stake each time the bank increases by £2,500.

Another way of making between 15 and 20% extra profits on your bets, is to make sure that you have as many Bookmaker accounts as possible, 10/12 would be a good starting point. If you don’t have at least this many at the start of each season, then you are letting extra profits that should be yours, slip through your fingers. When you have found the value bets, your next step is to find the best price you possibly can and place the wager with that bookmaker. They may seem insignificant amounts on any individual bet but believe me over the season they can amount to an extra 15-20% profit in your bank and not the bookmaker’s.

That is it for this week, next time we will look at Staking Methods, so bye for now.