A few years ago one of my clients sent me an email telling me he was quitting my service and quitting betting on sports….Ok, so this happens all the time, but what made this so surprising was that we were in the middle of one of our best seasons in 12 years. Our members were up nearly 100 units and still going strong. I happened to have this guy’s phone number and my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to give him a call, something I rarely ever do.
As it turns out, he went broke. “How”? I asked him, “we are up nearly 100 units and being a $100.00 bettor you have got to be in your glory”. Well (we’ll call him Sam) Sam was on such a winning streak he decided to double and triple his plays for the upcoming week and as luck would have it, he had a losing week thus wiping out 3 weeks of profits. Having lost 1/3 of his bankroll, he decided to triple up again so he could get his money back that he lost the previous week. He also added 5 games of his own to his wagers. Sam is not a handicapper that is why he uses a professional service, yep you guessed it, we had a winning week, but he lost all 5 of his own selections. Sam was broke in just two weeks after 10 winning weeks in a row.
This story is not unusual in sports betting or any form of gambling for that matter. People have a tendency to panic when on a losing streak and get greedy when on a winning streak and thus fall prey to the “losers lament”. I have seen many instances where sport bettors have a winning percentage and yet still losing money. Vince Lombardi once said about NFL football “on any given Sunday” referring to how even the best playing the worse could end up a loser on any given Sunday.
Picking winners is obviously a must in winning at sport betting, but betting strategy and bankroll management could be even more important and have a greater impact on your bottom line profits.
The best bankroll management system I have ever seen is called the “25 / 5”. The key to any form of gambling is to “minimize losses” while “maximizing wins” and nobody, but nobody does any form of gambling without suffering occasional losses. The “25 /5” bankroll management system has a built in automatic formula for knowing exactly how much of your bankroll you should wager on any event or on any day to minimize losses and maximize winnings, taking the guess work out of how much you should wager and thus providing the discipline of doubling or tripling your bets to “get even”.
Here is how it works….it is really quite simple….The name of the system provides the first rule.
Never wager more than 25% of your overall bankroll in any given day or any more than 5% on any individual game. So if you have a starting bankroll of say $1000.00, (this is monies set aside solely for betting, not your rent or food money) by the rule, you would never risk more than $250.00 (25% of $1000.00) on any given day of football action. So if you had 5 plays that day, you would wager $50.00 (5 divided into your $250.00) on each play. If you had say 8 plays that day, you would divide 8 into your available betting bankroll for that day of $250.00, giving you a per wager bet of $31.25 or a $30.00 (5% rule) wager if you want to round it off. Any number of plays less than 5 would fall to the 5% rule, so if you only had one play, your max wager for the day would be $50.00. If you had one play that was stronger than the others and you wanted to say put 3 times more on that play than on the others, then you would count it as actually 3 plays. For example if you had 5 plays for the day, 4 were one unit plays and 1 was a 3 unit play, you would actually figure the formula as if you were making 7 plays. Dividing 7 into your $250.00 would give you a per wager amount of $35.00. So you would make a $35.00 wager on each of your 4 one unit plays and a $105.00 wager on your 3 unit play. You would be staying within the 25% rule because your total wagers would be $245.00, thus staying under your $250.00 maximum.Following these rules will take the guesswork out of how much to wager on any given day and help you avoid the “double up” temptation.
Minimize Losses…Maximize winnings…. Each day you readjust your overall bankroll. Let’s say you won all of your games in the above example and you won $250.00. Your new “overall” bankroll would now be $1250.00 and your “available bankroll” would now be $312.50. Here is where the maximize winnings come in. While on a winning streak, your bankroll will continue to increase and thus you’re per wager amount will continue to increase. In the above example of betting 5 games, you’re per wager bet would now be $62.50 instead of the original $50.00…. Of course the same hold true if you would have lost your $250.00 or a portion of it. If you happened to have lost all 5 games, your new “overall” bankroll would now be $750.00 and your “available” betting bankroll for the next day would be $187.50, making your maximum per wager bet $37.50. As you can readily see, the system will keep you disciplined, allow you to maximize winnings and minimize your losses. Utilizing this system, you would have to lose every single wager you make, assuming you are making 5 per day, four consecutive days. I have seen bettors start this system with a $50.00 bankroll and a $5.00 bet and by the end of the season they were making $200.00 bets per game and their bankroll was in the thousands….This explanation may seem a little confusing at first, but when you put it on paper, it is very very simple to follow. If you have any questions on this system, you can email me at [email protected]
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