Experiencing success as a sports punter goes beyond simply making accurate bets. It also translates to leveraging stellar money management techniques to ensure your wins never transform into losses.
Imagine a situation where you’re watching an English Premier League game, and you’ve made a wager using one of the best betting sites on the team with a lower chance of winning. The game is 70 minutes in, and the team you bet on is still a goal down. You’re sorely wishing and hoping that the unpredictability of the Premier League rears its head and brings you a win.
Close to 90 minutes, the underdog hits one goal and is awarded a penalty at extra time. Your heart begins to pump as the penalty taker takes the run-up to the goal – and scores! Your gamble pays off, and you land a big win on your bet ticket.
You’ve won against all the odds, but how do you ensure that you remain in profit? That’s where money management techniques come into play. They’re designed to enhance your chances of winning bets while reducing your risk of losing those rewards.
Money management strategies are some of the most potent tools in a punter’s arsenal and are crucial for betting success. This article will reveal everything you need to learn about risk management for sports betting.
Why risk management in sports betting is crucial
The online sports betting industry is growing in different regions worldwide, especially in North America. This is particularly because of the gambling laws that have been amended to relax the tight grip around betting.
When you make wagers on a sports game, it adds to the overall excitement and gives you a chance to earn rewards while at it. Punters cherish the feeling that comes with making high-risk, high-reward bets. Engaging in big and risky bets could be good for a punter who prioritizes having fun.
Nevertheless, if you make several high-risk bets with substantial amounts without a proper risk management strategy, the probability of losing all your funds becomes higher. That’s why financial management techniques are crucial.
Understanding proper bankroll management tips are one of the best things you can do for your sports betting engagements. It depends on the number of funds you can place into your sports betting account at a specific time and how you decide to spread those funds.
In your everyday life, you most likely have a monthly budget for different areas of your expenses. For utilities, rent, and savings, you set restrictions that you wouldn’t want to exceed. Money management strategies in sports betting are very similar.
For instance, if you have $1,000 in your betting account to wager on for the weekend, placing all that money into one wager would be a disaster. You’d practically be putting your eggs in one basket, and losing that wager would lead you to a zero account balance.
Expert sports punters have betting bankrolls that help them manage their account balances. A betting bankroll is an amount you never go past on a specific day. It differs from your total bankroll or account balance which must never be used up on a single bet.
When you get started with money management techniques, you’ll want to avoid punting with funds you can’t afford to lose. Even though this might seem like common knowledge, some bettors prefer to use their wages for gambling rather than paying bills. When you master stellar money management strategies, you’ll never possess that mentality.
How to implement great money management techniques
Here are some ways to implement money management techniques:
Use an amount you can afford to lose
If you engage in sports betting because you want to heighten the excitement that comes with watching games, you need to avoid betting high amounts. Once you feel that the amount you’re wagering will make a big hole in your pocket, you need to significantly cut it down.
That way, your betting remains fun, and you don’t get mentally stressed over a small factor that caused your bet ticket to go bust. The idea is to add some fun to the games you watch. The moment you begin risking money that you can’t afford to lose, the fun goes out of the game.
Have a distinct betting balance
Many sports punters fail to realize the importance of having a distinct betting balance. Many of them learn this concept but never practice it.
You need to set aside a specific amount from your personal finances that will be used for sports betting. You also need to be determined about making that amount the entirety of your gambling bankroll.
That’s because some sports punters have the bad habit of taking some cash from their bank balance whenever they want to make a wager. If this happens, you will lose track of your aggregate wins and losses. Dipping from your personal account balance also makes it easier for you to overspend your finances.
Avoid taking funds from your betting balance
One thing that separates the experts from the amateurs in sports betting is that the professionals boost their betting balances over time. One way they do this is by avoiding withdrawals once they get rewards from a particular wager.
This rule is slightly different for those who engage in sports betting for increased excitement. When you bet for fun, it would be understandable to use your rewards to do something fun. If you’re an occasional sports bettor, taking some funds from your betting balance doesn’t mean much.
Nevertheless, if you’re focused on becoming more successful as a sports punter and make a name for yourself, you have to leave your rewards in your betting balance. The fact remains that money is the biggest weapon in a punter’s arsenal. The more of it you have, the bigger the rewards you can potentially get.
Track your betting results
It wouldn’t make much sense to practice money management techniques if you can’t keep track of your betting balance or the aggregate amount you’ve lost or won in a specific period. Although keeping track of your bets seems simple, many punters fail to keep records.
Recording your betting balance and wagers is a great way of tracking your gambling history. This way, you can check your previous bets to know whether you’ve performed great on some specific wagers historically. One way to track your wagers is to create an Excel spreadsheet with the proper columns.
Some sports punters like to use a notebook. However, that prevents instant analysis of your betting data since you wouldn’t be able to draw up pivot tables, make aggregate calculations, and visualize data using various charts.
When you keep track of your bets, you need to go further and make an analysis of your bets. For one, you can try to determine the sports, leagues, teams, and bet markets that get you the most rewards. You also need to analyze where your losses are coming from, so you can decide to cut them off and try new bet markets.
Analyzing your bets this way is referred to as descriptive analysis. If you have substantial data, you can leverage exploratory data analysis and machine learning skills to draw up models to improve your betting performance.
Understanding stop loss limits
Many new sports bettors feel that the most challenging part of gambling is winning rewards. However, this is a misconception because understanding when to stop making bets is considered a difficult task by several bettors.
A stop-loss limit is a predetermined amount you’re willing to lose on wagers in a specific period if luck doesn’t go your way. The instant you hit that loss, you pause all forms of betting and take a break.
For instance, if you’re willing to lose no more than $50 in a day, you can make them your stop-loss limit, and if you lose up to that amount, you can stop betting for that day. Self-control is needed to ensure that your bankroll remains substantial. A stop-loss limit is a great money management strategy to help you achieve that goal.
Why you need to set a stop loss limit
A lot of sports gamblers fail to utilize stop-loss limits when making wagers. That’s why several of them lose a lot of their funds. It’s quite simple to fix credit card details when you’re down a particular amount to increase your betting balance. That’s why it is highly crucial to employ methods like stop-loss limits to be prudent with money.
That’s why one of the money management tips mentioned earlier discussed keeping a distinct betting balance. If you go into betting shops to make wagers, you need to go with an amount that equals your stop-loss limit.
Your entire betting balance will have to be kept in a special envelope that doesn’t include your finances. If you use a debit card, you need to send the cash to a specific account that you dedicate for sports betting purposes only.
Variations of stop loss limits
Here are some variations of stop loss limits:
Session stop loss
When you practice session stop loss, you have to divide your betting into particular sessions. The sessions will define how much you can spend in a specific period. For instance, a betting session can be a day or week for you.
If you decide to spend $200 each day, you will do well to split it between 20 different games. One vital thing to note about session stop loss is that your session ends when your money is used up. If you want to bet on different sports throughout the day, it’d be best to divide your sessions so that your funds don’t get used up at once if things don’t go your way.
You must ensure you avoid taking a dime from your entire betting bankroll for the weekend.
Stop win limit
As weird as it sounds, stop-win limits are highly crucial to a sports punter. Although stopping betting when you’re losing is difficult, preventing yourself from taking more bets when you’re winning is harder to practice.
No matter how much luck you have at winning bets, it’ll eventually run out. That’s why you need to set a stop-win limit once you’ve reached a particular threshold. If you can follow your stop-win limit, self-discipline while betting wouldn’t be a problem for you.
Money management advice for sports punters
You might be tempted to use a significant percentage of your funds on a small number of wagers so that you can hit it big all at once. The truth is that even if you place your eggs in three or four baskets to expand on the adage, it wouldn’t be a smart money decision.
Sports bettors that use big funds on a small number of bet tickets are generally lazy and avoid researching the teams they’re betting on. Nevertheless, they hardly enjoy long-term betting success since they typically aggregate losses.
You need to grow your betting account balance by using a smaller number of funds with many wagers. If you’re betting on an increased number of bet tickets, you have to avoid betting on every game you lay your hands on.
That’s why doing research and tracking your bets help you to become a better sports punter. The odds are sometimes based on what oddsmakers believe people will bet on.
To become a successful bettor, you need to go beyond making accurate bets. Mastering key money management techniques help you to stand out among your peers and record more success in sports betting.
Risk management in sports betting is vital because it ensures that your aggregate betting balance experiences minimal downsizing if you experience losses. It also helps to maintain your rewards and ensure they don’t transform into a loss.
You can implement money management techniques by betting amounts you can afford to lose, having a distinct betting balance, tracking your betting results, and avoiding taking funds from your betting balance.
You can also utilize session stop losses and stop-win limits to ensure that your sessions never place deep holes in your pocket.