Sports Betting Master Class Lesson Two: Money Management, A New Perspective
Last week we talked about looking for line value by learning to locate games where the public’s perception is off, usually when they overreact to what they saw the previous week. Becoming the best handicapper in the world is useless however if you don’t exercise proper money management.
When you risk $11 to win $10, you have to win 11 bets out of 21 to break even, which means that you must overcome a 5.238% disadvantage. This doesn't sound like a lot, yet most betters can't do it over the long run. Surprisingly, as of today the overall winning percentage in the 2024 Circa Friday Football Invitational is only 49.7%, and the contestants are mostly professional handicappers!
Set a total amount that you are comfortable losing and only play with that. Don't bet the rent or otherwise put you and your family at risk. A good rule of thumb is to establish a 2% betting unit by dividing your bankroll by 50 and bet that amount on each wager. Don’t vary your bet sizes until you either grow your bankroll by 50% or lose 50%.
Consider the following:
If you bet 3 games this weekend, you have to win 2 of them (67%) to make a profit. If you bet 4 games, you have to win 3 of them (75%) to make a profit because of the “juice.” These are percentages that professionals are unable to maintain over the long term. The following chart shows the percentage of winners needed to show a profit depending upon the total number of games bet:
It seems counterintuitive, but you can actually win more money with a lower winning percentage if you bet more games. One of the traps beginning sports bettors fall into is finding 5 or 6 games they feel that they have an advantage on, and trying to winnow that down to 1 or 2 “best bets”. You can see that rather than needing to hit 75% when betting on 4 games, by betting 7 games, you only need to hit 57%, a much more realistic long term winning rate.
In conclusion, don’t “handicap your handicapping” and throw out winners. You are generally better off betting more games at a lower dollar amount.
By Ricky Gentile
November 19, 2024