Bankroll management: units, staking and staying in the game

Even a real edge loses for weeks at a time. Bankroll management is what keeps you in the game long enough for the edge to show. It is less exciting than picking bets, and it matters more.

Set a bankroll

Your bankroll is money set aside for betting only: money you can lose without it touching rent, bills or savings. Decide the amount once, and don't top it up after a bad week.

Bet in units

A unit is a fixed share of your bankroll, usually 1%. With a 500 euro bankroll, one unit is 5 euros. Most bets are one unit. Strong spots might be two. Nothing is ten.

Why so small? Because streaks are long. A bettor who wins 55% of even-money bets will still lose 6 or more in a row many times over a season. At 1% a bet, that is a bad week. At 10%, it is the end.

Don't chase

Raising stakes to win back losses is the fastest way to lose a bankroll. A loss is not a debt the next bet has to repay. Stick to the unit.

The Kelly criterion

Kelly is a formula for the stake that grows a bankroll fastest: (b × p − q) ÷ b, where b is the decimal odds minus 1, p your chance of winning and q = 1 − p.

Example: you think an over at 1.91 wins 55% of the time. Kelly says (0.91 × 0.55 − 0.45) ÷ 0.91 = about 5.5% of the bankroll. That assumes your 55% is exact, and it never is. That is why most people bet a quarter of Kelly or less: here about 1.4%, right back at the one-unit rule.

Track everything

You can't know whether you have an edge without a record. Log every bet: the stake, the odds, the result, and the line at the time. On NBA House the bankroll tracker does this, settles player props by itself, and shows your ROI, your record by bookmaker and by odds, and your closing line value.

When to stop

Set limits before you start: a daily stake, a weekly loss. If betting stops being fun, stop. See bet responsibly for help.