Money Management Skills for Online Sports Bettors

You would think that simply picking lots of winners would make you a successful sports bettor. Of course, that is a big piece of the puzzle. However, there is more to being a successful sports bettor than meets the eye.

You can start by honing your handicapping skills. With all of the information that's available at your fingertips, there is no viable reason that you can't use said information to help you identify trends and isolate performance differences between players and teams. Doing this won't guarantee wins, but it will make winning a more regular thing over time.

However, we regret to tell you that becoming a good handicapper and picking more winners might not be enough to ensure you are a successful online sports bettor in terms of winning cash. There is one more piece of the puzzle. You have to have money management skills.

The Importance of Having Good Money or Bankroll Management Skills

There is no escaping the fact that betting on sports is a risky endeavor. You are putting your hard-earned cash on the line without having any real sense of how successful you are going to be. To be very clear, we deem success as an online sports bettor to be winning cash. That's net winnings above what has been risked.

What makes being a successful online sports bettor difficult is most bettors have limited bankrolls. Indeed, some bettors have small bankrolls that start in the hundreds of dollars while higher-risk bettors might have 10-figure bankrolls. It's relative to each bettor's personal finances and what they want to invest as sports bettors.

Note: As a responsible individual, you don't ever want to put yourself in a position where you are risking more than you can afford to lose. The #1 rule of good money management is never bet more than your discretionary cash resources, the amount you can afford to lose. We define discretionary cash resources as the money you have remaining after you have paid all of your necessary bills and put some aside as savings. Strict adherence to this rule is necessary to ensure your gambling activities don't interfere with the overall quality of your life. Many problem gamblers have fallen victim to violating this rule.

Having now covered the most important rule of sports betting money management, we would like to offer you the following five (5) money or bankroll management tips.

1. Set Reasonable Betting Limits

Winning streaks are lots of fun. Conversely, losing streaks can create stress and anxiety. A good way to limit your losses over a prescribed period is to set betting limits.

There are two types of betting limits on which you need to focus. The first type is limiting the amount you wager on a single bet. As a rule of thumb, professional online sports bettors will typically limit their wagers to no more than 3% of their overall bankrolls. They do this because they understand that it's a game of attrition. It's a matter of staying in action until a hot streak starts and the winnings will start rolling in.

The other type of betting limit is what we refer to as a "stop-loss/win" limit. This is a limit that you will set on losses or winnings over a given period, which ends up being your signal to stop betting and take a rest until better times come. It takes discipline, but it's necessary to keep yourself in control of your gambling activities.

We would like to point out that there are two ways to set stop-loss/win limits. The first one is based on losses per session. If you say you are willing to lose $100 on a particular day, you need to stop when that $100 is gone. Remember, there is always tomorrow for online sports bettors.

Believe it or not, setting winning limits per session is also a viable stop-loss/win strategy. If you hit a series of bets and win good money, there is nothing wrong with setting a limit on wins that will prompt you to walk away as a winning sports bettor for the session. Staying too long has the huge potential of turning a winner into a loser.

2. Keep Records

We learn a lot from history. If you are willing to keep meticulous records related to your online sports betting activities, you can create history from which you can learn.

What information should you gather? We would recommend that you get as detailed as possible about your betting data, recognizing that your available time might be limited.

You can use this historical information to do things like:

• Hone in on the proper betting limits to set per bet, day, week, or month


• Establish what types of sports bets seem to work best within your betting strategy


• Identify teams and players on which you have had successes and failures


• Identify the types of sports or sports leagues on which you have had successes and failures


• If necessary, the information will be ready when it comes time to report gambling winnings to your local and federal tax agencies
  

3. Strive for the Best

Your goal is always going to be winning net cash. If it weren't for the possibility of that happening, you might as well spend your discretionary cash on another hobby like traveling or playing golf at the best golf courses.

There is nothing wrong with striving to be a successful online sports bettor. If you do your handicapping and employ good money management skills, lightning might strike your bank account.

4. Prepare for the Worst

There is a reason why only 5% of experienced sports bettors consider themselves to be professional. It's difficult to win money from any form of gambling. We know that because if winning was easy, everyone would be doing it.

To ensure you don't get overly disappointed by losses, you should approach each sports betting session as a great form of adult entertainment. If you lose, think of your losses as the amount of money you might have spent on dinner and a movie. The losses will seem less significant if you feel you got some entertainment value from what was spent.

5. Look for Wagering Value

Wagering value is similar to the risk/reward concept. When you place online sports bets, you want the potential return to justify the type of bet you are making and the amount of your wager.

In sports betting circles, it's not hard to find agreement that straight bets are safer than parlays. However, that doesn't mean that straight bets always offer better value. It depends on how much you would need to risk to get the return you desire. Here's a betting tip worth considering as a money management tool.

Start your wagering with straight bets. Have faith in your handicapping abilities and stick with games or players that seem to have the most positives. As your bankroll builds, you can start throwing in the occasional parlay that offers bigger returns from the same wager amounts. Just be willing to accept the fact that the bigger returns are a reflection of the higher risk.

Bottom Line: Don't waste your bankroll on "hail Marys." Every wager you make should represent what you feel is solid wagering value versus the risk.

Conclusion: It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that sports betting is an easy way to make money. The reality is quite the opposite. First and foremost, having fun should be your primary goal as a sports bettor. If you happen to make money in the process, that would be good for you.

We hope the information above will help you lower your losses, increase your winnings, and or keep you in action for as long as you want. As long as you set reasonable expectations, there is an excellent chance you'll get what you want from your sports betting activities.