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Bankroll Management

The most important part of being a successful sports bettor may be the ability to find value on a consistent basis over the course of a season. Behind that though, is the ability to properly manage your bankroll (the amount of money you have set aside for sports betting). Bankroll management is all about ensuring that you’ll be a profitable sports bettor if you’re making good picks. If you do not have a system in place and tend to put an arbitrary amount on each and every bet, you could end up losing money despite a solid winning percentage. This happens when the bets you’re putting more money into end up losing more often than the bets you end up putting less money into.

Using Units

Before jumping into the various bankroll management systems, let’s talk about how we define a Unit. FantasyPros has an article that breaks down units in more detail, but let’s cover the basics here. A Unit is the baseline amount of money you’ll be wagering on a bet-to-bet basis. Beyond this, units are the best way to track your profitability, as it goes beyond just the amount of money you’ve won/lost and gives you an easy way to compare yourself to other sports bettors. Generally speaking, a Unit should be one, maybe two percent of your total bankroll. Any more than this and a losing streak can do some real damage to your total bankroll.

Tracking your Bets

There’s a lot you can do with tracking your bets, but at the very least you should use a spreadsheet to track the date, who you’re betting for and against, the spread/total/line, the number of units in play and the number of units won or lost. Of course, if you want to go full tilt with it (and have the time to do it) you can track everything from weather, time of the game, when you placed the bet compared to game start time, etc. The reason for tracking all of this is to build a database of picks that you can use to pinpoint where you’re winning and where you’re losing. Maybe you don’t do well betting against a specific team, maybe you’re doing better at specific O/U totals, maybe you’re hitting on favorites at a more profitable rate than underdogs. All of this data gives you an insight into your strengths and weaknesses. It gives you the chance to dig into why you’re missing more on those specific picks compared to others and in turn become a better sports bettor. Even if you don’t do all this, at the very least you can accurately track your profits/losses.

Bankroll Management Strategies

With some of the groundwork laid, let’s look into the various management strategies that you can use. Each of these has its own pros and cons. I’ve arranged them starting with the most basic strategies, then building up to the more complex. Ultimately, you should go with the option that works best for you and fits your own betting style. If you’re using a bankroll management system, and stick with it, then you should find yourself being a more profitable sports bettor, as long as you’re winning above the break-even rates.

Fixed Unit Model

If you’ve never done sports betting or you’ve only dabbled with it in the past, but have never used a bankroll management system, then the fixed unit model is the recommended approach to start off with. It doesn’t require any extreme math, it has little in terms of variables, and is the most consistent approach. Essentially, with this method, you’ll always wager 1 unit and 1 unit only on each and every pick regardless of the odds, your perceived confidence, your recent win/loss streak, etc.

Betting Parlays

Longtime Nevada oddsmaker Chris Andrews made a small killing – at least in terms of a 10-year-old’s finances – running his elementary school’s parlay card racket with two cousins.

Their lines on football games were always even numbers, and ties were losses. House rules. Odds were skewed against the bettor so that, for example, favorites were -7 but underdogs were +6. Pick ‘em games were -3 on both sides.

"We never got caught, but if we had, we should have gotten into trouble for larceny, not bookmaking,” Andrews admits in his recently published memoir, “Then One Day … 40 Years of Bookmaking in Nevada.”

Siren call of the longshot parlay payday

It’s a little bit better than that for modern-day adults across the U.S., gambling on sports legally for the first time. Considering the average fan tracks pro football more than other sports and figures he knows more about the various teams’ chances, some have waited for the new NFL season for a chance to make a parlay wager. But parlays are still a bad bet, even if not as bad as for youngsters in Andrews’ old suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood.

The figures tracked by the UNLV Center for Gaming Research show that historically, the Nevada sportsbooks win 31% on parlay bets, compared to 5% on all football wagers.

And yet, thousands upon thousands of bettors parlay away undeterred, lured by that old gambling maxim of “trying to turn a toothpick into a lumberyard.” As with all sports betting, more people are wagering more money on parlays than they were a decade ago, with $95.1 million put into play on them in Nevada in 2018 compared to $64.6 million in 2008.

Nice payoffs overcome concern about difficulty

“We get a lot of guys who play 10 teams – if you can’t win one game, how can you beat 10? – but the payoff’s going to be awfully attractive,” Andrews, currently on medical leave from running the South Point Hotel Casino sportsbook in Las Vegas, explained in a recent interview. “When you play the Powerball or lottery, you know yourself the odds aren’t 2-to-1, it’s some astronomical number, but guys still play it.”

Traditionally, Nevada sportsbooks pay 2.6/1 for a two-team parlay, 6/1 for three, 10/1 for four, 20/1 for five and on up to 150/1 for eight and 700/1 for 10. The variance with true odds gets wider as you move up (true odds of 7/1 for a three-teamer vs. a 6/1 payout, true odds of 255/1 vs. payout of 150/1 for eight teams).

Wise bettors might stick to the smaller parlays where they see some definitive edge in the lines in one or two games. They can also cut into the house advantage, Andrews says, by finding out-of-date lines on the parlay cards distributed within casino sportsbooks during the week. An injury or suspension might shift a line a couple points on the board by the time of Sunday’s games, but a card’s numbers stand as printed.

Rookie Mistakes

Sports betting is taking the United States by storm this summer. Since the Supreme Court’s May 14 strikedown of PASPA, which had prevented the spread of legal sports wagering, states have moved to license and regulate betting on sports. This football season could be the first time you step into a legal sportsbook. You might win or you might lose, but you definitely don’t want to make rookie mistakes that will leave sharps (experienced bettors) rolling their eyes. If the sports books want your money, make them work for it.So what should you not do when you show up at the sportsbook, ready to place some bets?

It might be intimidating. You’ve got lots of screens with lots of games, and other screens with a whole bunch of numbers, some of them with decimal points, some of them in dollars and cents. And then there’s the bewildering array of possible bets: teasers, pleasers, round robins, props, and more. And all you wanted to do was to bet some money on Sunday’s game.

The best option for novice bettors is to stick to a few easy-to-understand bets. A futures bet is a wager on whether something will or won’t happen in the future. Think the Eagles will repeat as NFL champions? You can bet on it, though you’ll get better odds the farther you get from the City of Brotherly Love.

For single games, bets are either on the money line—most common for baseball and hockey—or the point spread, most often seen for basketball and football. Since football probably got you through the door, we’ll stick to the latter. Let’s say the board reads “Philadelphia -7.5.” That means that if Philadelphia wins the game by more than 7.5 points, those who bet on Philadelphia win, and that if they win by less than 7.5 points, or tie, or lose, Philadelphia bettors lose. You can also bet the over/under, essentially whether the final combined score of the game will be more or less than what is on the board.

Betting Teasers

These days it seems every sport betting forum on the net is buzzing about “Wong Teasers” and “Teaser Betting Strategy”. I’ll be honest, as someone who’s made a steady profit each year since 1999 betting teasers, I wasn’t thrilled when “teaser strategy” became the betting forum topic. Rewinding to almost a decade ago, soon after Stanford Wong released the book Sharp Sports Betting, Las Vegas sportsbooks started losing money on teasers. Today its nearly impossible to find a +EV bet in Las Vegas as far as teasers are concerned. Thankfully, online there are still plenty of options, but how long might that last?

Even though I’m still reluctant, considering the cat is out of the bag so to speak, I’ve decided to write this comprehensive article about teaser betting to clear a few things up, and contribute. Here I’ll break everything down to as simple as possible, and not only show you which teaser bets are profitable, but help you understand why they are profitable. After reading this article, you’ll be well equipped to bet teasers with the odds in your favor. I believe strongly that you’ll benefit from the info on this page, so I ask a small favor: please consider supporting our site by either linking to it in a blog post or forum, or joining an online sportsbook using one of our links (such as 5Dimes.eu for example).

For those not familiar with teasers, I’ll start with intro material. I encourage experienced bettors to simply skim the first few sections.

What is a Teaser Bet?

In layman terms, a teaser is a parlay bet that uses modified point spreads. In football, the most common modification is six points. So let’s say this week there are three bets you like: Jets -7.5, Raiders +1.5, and Bills +5.5. Rather than betting these straight or in a parlay, you could make a three team six point teaser bet of Jets -1.5, Raiders +7.5, Bills +11.5. To win the bet, you’ll need all three teams to cover. At most online betting sites, a winning three teamer pays 1.8 to 1.

Standard Teaser Odds

Teaser odds vary from site to site. When betting six point football teasers, you want to find 2 teams -110 or better, 3 teams +180 or better, 4 teams +300 or better. You can find these odds at www.Bovada.lv.

5Dimes.eu is worth mentioning as well, as they have industry leading odds with 2 team six point teasers at +100. The catch however is 5Dimes often shades lines in such a way that it is hard to find good value teasing. What I mean by this is that if every site has Jets -8.5 / Redskins +8.5, 5Dimes might have the line listed as Jets -9.5 +105 / Redskins +9.5 -125. The pricing +105, -125 etc. has no relevance to teasers, because you can tease either side six points and get the same payout as when both sides are -110. The reason 5Dimes lists the line this way is teasing +8.5 to +15.5, doesn’t have as much value as teasing -8.5 to -2.5 for reasons we’ll cover later in this article. When you get deeper into advanced teaser strategy, 5Dimes is a great out to have; but as a beginner, just know that +100 on two team six point teasers can be deceiving.

Another way teaser odds can be deceiving: Take the example of BetMania who offers +100 on 2-team 6-points teasers. This is not a company I’m well familiar with but a quick scan of the web I found Sports Betting Sites gives them a C+ rating which is not very good. This brings me to my final point; many of the less than reputable bookmakers offer the largest payouts. You need to be wise to this scam as a sportsbook can publish any payout rate they wish with no risk if they have no intention of paying winners. Being well familiar with this topic I can tell you, the most reputable betting sites that also offer favourable teaser odds are www.Bovada.lv and 5Dimes.

Kelly Criterion Method

Bookmakers close, or severely limit, accounts and even the world's largest betting exchange has found it necessary to introduce a Premium Charge, implicitly acknowledging that a number of people have the ability to consistently identify favourable bets and the discipline to bet only, or perhaps mostly, when it is value for them to do so.

What Is The Kelly Staking Strategy?

If the goal of all punters is to grow their bankrolls as optimally as possible, what is the best staking strategy to help us achieve this goal?

It’s the subject of much debate, but the answer to this is that stakes should be calculated according to the Kelly Criterion. Why? Because the Kelly Criterion seeks to calculate the optimum stake for any value bet so as to maximise that value as well as maximise the growth of your betting bankroll. In other words, the Kelly Criterion takes into account both the size of your advantage (I.e the value available) and the size of your bankroll, so as to minimise risk and maximise your advantage.

When this solution is applied in the field of sports investing however, there are a number of challenges.

Issues With The Kelly Criterion & The Optimal Strategy

As John Larry Kelly Junior’s original 1956 paper makes clear (you can read it here), the criterion is only valid “when the investment or 'game' is played many times over, with the same probability of winning or losing each time, and the same payout ratio”.

This is unfortunate. In the world of sports, no two events are ever exactly the same. Bet on red on the roulette wheel and you know exactly what the probability is, but since the edge in casinos is in favour of the house, the Kelly Criterion isn’t going to help you here.

For Kelly to work, you must have a positive edge, a value opportunity. If the edge is precisely zero, the Kelly Criterion recommends no bet be placed, and of course if the edge is negative, again there is no bet.

So how can the Kelly Criterion help in the real world of sports, where precise probabilities are not known?

To help answer this, let’s take a simple example of a game where the true probability is 50%, but the payout exceeds this. You have a value bet, but it should be obvious that betting the full bank each time is not the best way to approach this. Your chances of going bust are extremely high.

At the other end of the risk spectrum is the ultra-cautious approach of staking a small fraction of the bank each time. While the chances of going bust are now very small, your bank isn’t going to grow very fast.

Kelly calculated that the fraction of the bank to be staked equals the size of your edge. For example, if the chance of a win is 51%, and the price available is evens, you should bet your edge of 2% (51% -49%), 49% being the probability of losing. If you have a bigger edge, for example your chance of a win is 53%, your stake should be 6% (53% - 47%).

Kelly Criterion Calculator

To see the formula in action, lets take an example of a football match where the odds available on the draw are 3.50 (or 5/2 with an implied probability of 28.6%) but your estimate of the true probability is 30%.

The formula for calculating the Kelly stake is:

[(Probability multiplied by odds) - 1] divided by (odds-1).

Thus Kelly stake:

[(0.3 * 3.50) - 1] / (3.50 - 1)
[(0.3 * 3.50) - 1] / 2.5
[1.05 - 1] / 2.5
0.05 / 2.5
0.02, i.e. the stake should be 2% of the bank.