Effective Bankroll Management Tips for Successful Football Betting

Would you like to know how to manage your money when placing wagers? This article by MatchPlug covers Effective Bankroll Management Tips for Successful Football Betting.

Bankroll management is one of the most important pillars of football betting, especially in an age where numerous sports betting markets are available to choose from. Online bookmakers are committed to spoiling customers with offers that promise lucrative opportunities, making it easier for you to part with your money.

By prioritizing money management in football betting, you can simultaneously reduce losses while increasing potential returns. But what does bankroll management mean, and how do you successfully implement this practice? We’ll share everything in this article.

Read also: The Importance of Match Analysis in Football Betting.

Table Of Contents:

1. What is bankroll management?
2. Is bankroll management important?
3. How does bankroll management work in football betting?
4. How to manage a football betting bankroll
5. 5 bankroll management tips for successful football betting
6. Bankroll management strategies
7. Risks associated with Bankroll management
8. Frequently asked questions about bankroll management

What Is Bankroll Management?

Bankroll Management is the amount of money you set aside for football betting. You deposit it into your desired sportsbook account, creating a fixed sum to bet with during a stipulated timeframe.

Managing your “bankroll” means, organizing and releasing that money bit by bit to every wager, to make sure you have enough to fund your chosen bets without ever exceeding your original budget.

This strategy reduces the risks of betting on unpredictable football matches so that you back games with verified SURE WINS ONLY. It also comes in handy when calculating stake amounts using the odds and implied probability of a particular result occurring.

Is Bankroll Management Important?

Bankroll management is integral in successful football betting, it is a strategy that professional bettors widely adopt. Therefore, rookie punters must follow this principle as well.

Learning to manage your money while betting on football is more important if you are a new bettor, as you may constantly disadvantaged in the marketplace. Below are some reasons why managing your bankroll is important.

1. Reduces The Risks Caused By Emotional Betting 

Emotional betting is one common mistake new punters often make, as they usually start by backing their favourite football club. While experts advise against this, practising bankroll management during emotional betting, can help you reduce your losses to an amount you can easily part with. 

2. Bankroll Management Protects You From Bookmakers

Bettors, no matter their level of experience are constantly disadvantaged when betting at an online sportsbook, no thanks to how bets are structured and outcomes are priced, plus the commission these sites apply for their profit. 

But, by using a bankroll management strategy, you can reduce long-term losses while developing unit bets and stake amounts. 

3. Helps You Avoid Irresponsible Gambling

Bankroll management gives you some control over your money and gambling activity. By setting aside a sum you can lose comfortably, you can wager freely while avoiding the dangers of irresponsible gambling.

Read: Maximizing Your Returns With Today’s Sure Win Predictions: Dos And Don’ts.

How Does Bankroll Management Work In Football Betting?

Bankroll Management in football betting is straightforward. Succeeding at this strategy largely depends on following a predetermined set of rules and being disciplined with your bets.

Below is a list of rules on how bankroll management works in successful football betting. 

• Make your bankroll an amount you can lose comfortably.
• Ensure that it covers a set period or season duration.
• Sum up your average unit wager to create a basic single-stake amount.
• Refine your wagers for every selection based on how you analyze the odds and implied probability. 
• Track your bets and how they perform to get insights about future wagers.

How To Manage A Football Betting Bankroll

In this section, we discuss in depth the key to bankroll management for successful football betting.

1. Determine The Size Of Your Bankroll

The bankroll size for each bettor depends on factors like their incomings and outgoings. However, as a general rule, you should choose a bankroll that won’t jeopardize your financial security. 

Similarly, you can take other steps to increase the size of your bankroll, without putting your pocket at risk. Some of these steps include utilising the welcome bonuses and free bets offered by a Football Prediction Site when opening an account with them. 

2. Understand A ROI In Football Betting

In football betting, ROI is used to measure how much your bankroll has increased during a specified timeframe, and can also describe your level of return on a single bet.

This practice is a great way to measure whether you’re placing good or bad bets, while also pinpointing problems with your stake amounts and the odds at which you wager. Experts recommend measuring ROI during the period your bankroll covers, which could be monthly or throughout a football season.

3. Bet In Units

A unit bet is a measure used to standardize football betting performance and it can be represented as a dollar or percentage value. You can calculate your unit bet by dividing your total bankroll by the number of bets that you’d like to place during a specific season or event while using that information for your betting strategy.

For example, if you have a bankroll of $1000 for the English Premier League football season, you would divide that amount by the number of game weeks to create a weekly budget, which you can then divide further by the exact number of matches you want to bet on.

Doing this creates an average unit bet you can adjust based on the markets you choose and the odds associated with them.

In percentage terms, you should create individual betting units that fall between 1% and 5% of your bankroll. But, it is rare to see professional punters bet more than 1% of their bankroll on one football event, so ensure you cap units at no more than 3%.

4. Evaluate Your Bankroll Regularly

Always review and analyze your football betting bankroll with other factors, like the disbursement of bonus offers, your financial situation and any profits you’ve made. 

In some instances, you can gradually increase your bankroll, as long as it remains within your financial means. But, there are times when you’ll need to reduce your bankroll, like if your income reduces or rises in your cost of living.

5 Bankroll Management Tips For Successful Football Betting

While various other strategies help you curb losses and negate the risks associated with gambling, Bankroll management is key to long-term success as a bettor. In this part, we have shared some effective bankroll management tips for successful football betting.

1. Don’t Bet On Bad Lines

Maximizing your bankroll partly depends on your ability to identify good and bad betting lines. Not all betting lines are equal, because while some are inherently valuable, others may be erroneously priced in a way that makes betting restrictive. 

To evaluate betting lines, use the odds to calculate the implied probability of one or more events occurring. 

This is the calculation sportsbooks use to set odds; apply a combination of detailed form analysis, head-to-head data and similar metrics. So, you too can use the calculation to estimate probability and see how it measures against your game insights.

In time, you can measure your wagers against the ‘closing line value’ (CLV) metric. This metric lets you know if you’ve wagered at odds bigger than the closing prices (beaten the market), or got a negative CLV by failing to bet at optimal odds.

2. Don’t Chase Losses

Chasing losses is harmful and irresponsible because it jeopardizes your bankroll and encourages you to bet outside your financial means. This mistake is built on the wrong belief that there is some order in winning and losing streaks. 

But, every football betting event and game is an individual entity, with its variable probabilities, odds, and deterministic factors in play. So, if you suffer a series of losses, there is no promise that your luck will turn.

It is better to accept loss as an inevitable part of football betting while sticking to your unit bet size and a bigger bankroll management strategy as closely as possible.

3. Stick To Your Budget, Stake What You Can Lose

The main problem with chasing losses is that it misleads you to wager more frequently or increase your stake amounts. In the long run, this behaviour will cause you to wager outside your financial means, breaking the most important rule of bankroll management.

Your bankroll should only include an amount you can lose comfortably without panicking, set for a specific period. Whether you keep this amount for a week,  month or season, the amount you stake should be based on your incoming, outgoings, (and financial circumstances).

4. Track Bets

Tracking your bets is an important part of being a sports bettor. By doing this, you gain knowledge that’ll help you audit your performance. It also helps you know which events are destroying your bankroll and which ones boost it. All this data can only be acquired when you track your results.

5. Use Data

Once you’ve allotted money for football betting, you’ll want to know how much profit that money can make. To have a long-term betting strategy means finding out information about a team’s past performances. This gives you helpful insight into the best club to wager on. 

See: How to Increase Your Chances of Winning: Expert Tips and Advice.

Bankroll Management Strategies

Good bankroll management in football betting involves several various strategies. Some are complex and widely adopted by professional punters, while others are better for beginners.

1. Confidence Models

Confidence models encourage you to increase your unit bet in matches where you feel more confident about the outcome, whether this is a result of your analysis or the sportsbook odds.

For example, Arsenal is priced at 5/9 to beat the Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League. But, your analysis of the Gunners’ current form and Wolverhampton’s poor performance on the road (plus the absence of key players) may make you believe the Gunners should have a shorter price. So, you might raise your stake amount or introduce spread betting to pursue much higher returns.

In this scenario, your initial betting will not change. But, you could multiply it by two, three, or five units because of the confidence model, which experienced bettors often prefer.

2. Kelly Criterion

Kelly Criterion decides the optimal amount of money you should stake for a single bet. There is a formula to help you calculate this model for football betting:

F=(BP-Q)/B.

‘F’ is the bet size based on a percentage of your total bankroll. ‘B’ is the bet’s decimal odds -1, while ‘P’ represents the implied probability of your wager succeeding. Finally, ‘Q’ is the probability of your bet losing, which is usually shown as 1-P.

For example, if you liked Manchester City to beat Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final at odds of 1.82. This shows a 55% probability of a victory for the Citizens, although the chances of your bet losing are 45% as the draw is not considered here. The formula will be this:

0.0012 = (0.82*0.55-0.45) / 0.82

You can multiply 0.0012 by 100 to create a unit bet worth only 0.12% of your bankroll. In this case, you could gradually reduce your average stake or bet no more than a single unit bet. If your analysis shows that the probability of City’s win is higher, you can raise the stakes as required.

3. Flat Betting

In Flat Betting, you set an initial betting unit and stick to it. This means you’ll wager only the same amount on every match or result, regardless of the confidence levels, odds, and your form analysis. 

So, you stake the same amount whether you are backing a 1.50 favourite or a 7.00 underdog. For example, if your single betting unit was $5 and you successfully backed a 1.50 outcome, you’d bank a total return of $7.50 (including your stake). But, before placing a $5 bet on a 7.00 underdog, you’ll earn $35.00.

You may wish to include the sportsbook’s vigorish into your flat betting strategy. This is true when supporting heavy-betting favourites with American odds of -110, as you’ll need to gradually increase your unit bet to 1.1 if you want to win 1.0.

4. Percentage Betting

The percentage betting model is the same as the flat wagering strategy. The only difference is that you set betting units based on the size of your bankroll, which can change over time. But you won’t factor in any alternative considerations.

For example, if you have $1000 in your bankroll and are halfway through the football season. Your unit bet is 2.5% of this sum ($25), and your next wager wins at odds of 2.00. This boosts your bankroll to $1050, and 2.5% of this sum will be $26.50. 

The main advantage of percentage betting is that it enables you to build on wins and raise your unit bets responsibly. But, it also requires you to regularly readjust and calculate your bankroll, while a series of losses significantly reduces the amount you have to wager over time.

Risks Associated With Bankroll Management

In bankroll management, you will lose money if you bet a percentage that’s too large. On the other hand, if you wager a small percentage for a longer period, you might make too many losses. 

The best thing to do is split punters into three risk windows. The wall you enter depends on the risk you are willing to accept and the bet sizes. The more risk you get, the higher the percentage of your bankroll will be placed correctly.

We laid out each risk window below:

• The low-risk percentage of bankroll is 0% – 2%, and it is the safest of the three options. Your chances of running out of money are lower, but you will only fall on small profits.
• A neutral risk percentage bankroll of 0% – 4% is for serious punters.
• The high-risk percentage of bankroll is  0% – 5% for people who take betting seriously. If you need extra risk, this is the best window for you.

Frequently Asked Questions About Bankroll Management 

Here, we have answered some frequently asked questions about bankroll management:

1. How Much Of My Bankroll Should I Bet With?

It is recommended that beginners stick with the 1% – 2% unit size. Experienced bettors can try 1% – 3% of their bankroll

2. How Much Should I Set Aside For A Bankroll?

The amount you set aside for football betting should be based on your current financial situation, and how much money you can afford to lose to bets.

3. Should I Keep Track Of Football Bets In Bankroll Management?

Yes, tracking football bets is important. So monitor the games you choose, the ones you win and lose. 

4. Does Bet Type Affect The Size Of The Bankroll?

Yes, the type of bet affects the size of your bankroll. Riskier bets may cause losses that quickly deplete your bankroll, so place smart and informed wagers according to the size of your bankroll. This way, you elongate the life of your bankroll.

5. What Is A Good ROI In Football Betting?

In football betting, the ROI measures how much your bankroll has increased within a particular period. It may also show the returns on a single bet or stake.

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