Within football betting circles, bankroll management is the most important aspect of all. Without the ability to manage your money across a long-term basis, your battles against the bookmakers will be both short and swift.
Because if you are to be someone who considered themselves a profitable bettor, knowing when to be bold and when to minimise the risk involved is fundamental to any success that you are looking to carve out for yourself.
While a fundamental flaw can be going for broke on one single bet and wiping yourself out with a losing outcome. Should you bet in this manner, then you are simply undertaking the most cardinal sin of all.
Managing Your Funds
If there is one piece of advice that should resonate more than any other, it is never place 100% of your bankroll on a single wager. Yes, it may get over the line and maximise your profits rather quickly, but the risk is arguably never worth the reward in the end. Which begs the question, what is bankroll management?
The answer to this is by applying a unit-based strategy to the wagers that you are looking to place. In doing so, it allows you to bet with a far greater level of security than with bigger stakes and the all or nothing scenario that we have just mentioned above and this poses another question, how do units work exactly?
The units work as a percentage of your bankroll and therefore, one single unit is the equivalent of 1%, To simplify this further, If your bankroll was £1000 at the start of your betting journey, each unit would be worth £10
A Unit-Based Strategy Is The Best Way To Bet
Therefore, if you are going to manage your bankroll in a smart fashion, you should only ever bet with low unit stakes. You do not necessarily have to stick at 1% but the lower the stakes, the longer you find yourself in the game.
For example, you may look at a Premier League fixture between Crystal Palace and Liverpool and believe there is some value in the Eagles picking up a point at Selhurst Park, especially if the odds look like this in the double chance market:
Crystal Palace Or Draw – 2.05
Liverpool or Draw – 1.18
Crystal Palace or Liverpool – 1.25
Finding The Value
As we can see the option for Crystal Palace to avoid defeat at home is priced at just a touch over Evens. If you were to apply a one-unit strategy on this bet, you could soon double your stake and a little more for minimal risk.
Of course, Jurgen Klopp’s men could bounce back from their recent Champions League thrashing at the hands of Real Madrid and earn maximum points. If they manage to do so, you have only lost an incredibly small portion of your bankroll.
Admittedly, this method can be more of a grind and will not offer a quick fix. However, this is exactly the kind of fix you should be looking to avoid and if you place low stakes on value bets, you will stop your bankroll from being eaten into.
Should you always place bets that are odds of Evens (2.00) then you only need to win 51% of them to turn a profit. If you placed your whole bankroll on the bets of the same value, you would need to win 100% of them.
Increase Your Risk
Thankfully, you do not always have to bet with simple 1 unit measures, the more confident you are of an outcome, the more you can place before the game gets underway and this is also a way to get your profits going without putting all your eggs in one basket.
For example, if Bournemouth are playing host to Manchester City, Pep Guardiola’s men are going to be considerable favourites to come out on top and this is reflected by the pre-match odds on offer:
Bournemouth – 10.00
Draw – 5.75
Manchester City – 1.28
With the odds being as they are, you could place five units on an away win and if your bankroll starting at £1000, this would mean placing £50 on the Etihad outfit to earn maximum points, than opposed to one unit which is worth £10.
The More Confident You Are, The Higher The Number Of Units You Can Then Wager
Should your wager be a winner, it means that the 95% of the bankroll that you left untouched is still nestling in your account but it also means the 5% that you initially risked has now seen another 1.42% added to it.
Your starting bankroll of £1000 is now worth £1,014.28 and you are ready to place another bet with a small unit strategy. While there is one important thing to remember, if your bankroll builds up over time, the scale of your bets will also increase.
Let’s assume that smart betting with small unit amounts has eventually turned that £1000 starting bankroll to one that is now worth £1500. Suddenly a single unit which was £100 in the past, now equates to £150 instead.
All In Proportion
Which means a bet of one single unit has increased by 50% of its original value but the proportion of the bets being placed is still line with the original outlay. No additional risk is being applied by the larger value of the unit.
At the same time, you may find yourself going through something of a rough patch when it comes to backing winners and that same starting bankroll may soon drop from £1000 to £800. Should this be the case, the key is to hold your nerve.
Keep Your Unit Sizes In Proportion With Your Bankroll
Whereas the temptation lies in heavily increasing the number of units placed per bet in a bid to return to a state of break-even – for example, backing Manchester City to win but with 15 units, instead you should reduce the value of each unit.
Here a unit of 1% would be worth £8 and once you get back in the winning groove, your bankroll and unit size will increase with it. As long as you take your time and display patience, you will always be rewarded in the end.
