BANKROLL MANAGEMENT

This is the single most important aspect when it comes to money management

yet it is often the most overlooked. When trading stocks or any other form of

capital management, Bankroll Management is the first thing that is taught and

is often drilled in at every possibility. Currently this is not the case within the

betting industry and this needs to change. A lot can be learned from adopting

new techniques and mind-sets as part of your gambling habits. Too much help

is never enough.

Your Current Status

It is important to be honest with yourself right now.

There are several ways to categorise yourself into a certain type of bettor by

using two rules:

How strict are you in terms of placing bets every day?

o Do you rigidly stick to a set number or bets or are you more ad-

hoc and impulsive with your decisions?

How strict are your stakes in relation to your Overall Bankroll?

o Do you have full control over the amount you stake on each bet or

do the amounts vary significantly?

Use this model to categorise yourself now:

What colour category do you fit into?

Green – you’re doing well if you’ve been totally honest with yourself. Keep being strict and ruthless.

Yellow – you’re doing well in one of two areas but there’s room for improvement.

Amber – the middle ground where you appear able to control some aspects ahead of others.

Red – you need to make changes to your habits.

I wrote a piece some time ago about my personal battle with gambling and I can easily assume that

most of the people reading this will be able to relate to my experiences in one way or another:

“Many folk know my background – or parts of it, at least but I felt like taking

an opportunity to open up a bit more about some of the problems I

encountered in the past and how I partially managed to deal with them.

I’ve no reason to do this other than to raise a little awareness and to show

people that there are so many other people in a very similar position to you

despite you feeling like the world could swallow you up.

I’m talking about my addiction to gambling, which started around six or

seven years ago.

That sentence above already comes with a negative stigma I think. I honestly

don’t give a hoot about what people’s perception of me is. I used to worry

about the things I said or did to appease peoples’ views or to ensure that I

“fit in” but that changed as I grew up.

Yes, I’ve got an addiction to gambling but the vast difference between how

I used to manage it to now is a completely different matter. I was utterly

reckless in days gone by, which I’ll elaborate on shortly compared to my

approach now, which I managed to the “Nth” degree.

I can’t remember how old I was when I placed my first bet. Perhaps around

mid-teens when I used to be an avid football fan and started popping a few

quid on Newcastle every week. Now, bear in mind Newcastle were a half

decent side around then so I was happy winning more often than not

although that abruptly changed! As my gaze started veering towards horse

racing, the bug soon took hold and when I had a then ludicrous £20 lump on

Dawn Approach to win the St James’s Palace Stakes in 2013 to beat

Toronado, I realised that this is how things would be from now on. The

excitement I experienced for around a minute was enough to grab me there

and then.

I thought that I could really invest time into doing proper research into the

game and hopefully pull out some of my own bets. I had a world of resource

available to me at the time… The free racing apps where I could see that

“trusted and knowledgeable” newspaper folk would tip horses in every race.

The more tips a horse had, the more chance the horse had, right? I’d scribble

down the “best bets” in a day from said tipsters and use a list of 10-15 horses

to create wild and wonderful multi’s as well as singles on the “most-fancied”

runners.

It’s worth mentioning that I had very little expense in my life at this time. I

had a full-time job, which paid quite well and I lived in a low-rent house with

a couple of mates. Other than a few bills, I had plenty of spare cash around

me, which I was happy to “lose” if needs be.

I literally felt like that too. I honestly used to tell myself that “if the bets lose,

that’s ok because it was only one day and winning days will come”. This

continued for a while.. months probably and whilst it may have only been

£10-£20 a day, you can imagine the costs over time. Even when winners

were landing I was hardly up on those days because of the sheer amounts

of bets that I was placing. I had no record of my bets, no record of how much

money I was losing and no clue about how to turn a corner. How could

people make money from this stupid game?

I’m a relatively intelligent chap and knew this method was unsustainable

long-term so I knew that something had to change. I then started to look

into Tipsters on Twitter to see who was doing well or not. I won’t name

names but there were some pretty large accounts who seemed to do well

with loads of “BOOOOOOMMMMS” every day. That must be good huh? I

then started following them and still compared those bets to the newspaper

tips. This particular cycle rolled on and whilst there was a more personal feel

to these sites and they would land some big old prices, the rut continued and

my craving for winners followed behind.

From the large accounts on Twitter, I noticed individuals who seemed to be

doing well on their own. These folk had “haters” but I wasn’t overly

concerned about that as they seemed decent enough. They appeared to

offer a team ethic in beating the bookies and I was all for that! Some guys

even offered “inside info” so this looked like the place to be!

I wish I could go back and work out how much money was lost up till this

point although I might end up topping myself!

I started to learn that less is best. Fewer bets in a day at slightly bigger prices

seemed to work for a lot of people. The problem I had was that I was

addicted and could barely let a race go by without wanting to bet something

on it! Even a few quid would seem ok as it was only a few quid. That trend

was a familiar one for a number of months and I’d been going for over a

year I presume.. it’s hard to tell as I had absolutely no record of what was

going on.

You get the idea by now. I was a right mug but I had no idea and I blissfully

went day-by-day like this and it started to get me down.

Money was becoming scarce in my life and I started closing myself away

from the real world.

I was pretty down in the dumps, in truth. I probably didn’t admit it to myself

– even at the time – but it was clear to see, looking back. I wanted to draw

a line under everything and start a fresh but in order to continue betting

(which I had no intention of stopping) I needed some money to be able to do

so and my regular wage was proving to be insufficient. I got a loan. I

borrowed money from a bank to fund my gambling addiction. True story. It

was gone in a week.

That was a low point. I then had to repay a loan whilst keeping enough back

to bet day-by-day and, in turn to live. I don’t want to understate the position

that I was in, here. It was pretty miserable. I didn’t want anyone to know as

I was wholly ashamed and embarrassed about the mess that I’d somehow

got myself into. I had two lives running in-sync.

Christmas of 2014 was a pretty rough patch as our first daughter was born

nearly three months early and was in special care for a month in the lead up

to Christmas. With barely any deposable income and a beautiful daughter

to care for, I knew I really had to sort my shit out.

I created a free blog on WordPress and would post my bets on Twitter –

purely as a way to record my bets with transparency. The Profit and Loss

records would be public should anyone wish to see. I knocked up a little Excel

sheet for the selections and could therefore see how things were going. A

few wins landed in the early days and I was in profit for a couple of months

before I hit a wall and now had to deal with my first “bad run”.

The problem I now had was that everything was public and I had to deal

with abuse when things weren’t going too well. That first bad month was a

very tough time. I had no idea how to deal with it and I really let it get to

me. I thought I’d cracked it but I didn’t expect a bad, losing run like that. I

forced myself to set deposit limits on my various betting accounts and to this

day, they’ve never been changed or breached. I had advised a bankroll of

sorted on my site but I hadn’t followed my own advice up to that point so,

with deposits now limited, I had to start lowering my stakes knowing that

money would soon run out otherwise.

I did this. It was very, very hard going from up to £100 a day down to a few

quid but I stuck it out and it steadied. As the winners started landing, I was

so happy to see my balance growing but then it posed the problem of having

some dreaded disposable income within my betting account! The

temptation was relentless so I withdrew most of my winnings although it

may have only equated to £30 – I took it and reset my original pot and that

pattern continued. After a few days of loss, I wasn’t overly concerned as the

winners were of a big enough price to soon wipe them out. After a few wins,

I cut and run again and I’d soon covered the cost of my initial £200 deposit.

That was a big moment and I knew this would work long-term. Even if I went

on a run bad enough to wipe out my whole bank, that loss would be

manageable as I would only ever deposit as much as I was willing to lose

within the limits I’d set up.

I became more thorough and disciplined with my work in time. Everything

was recorded, everything was visible for all to see and, to this day, that’s

carried through.

The last few months have been tougher still because now, I have people that

pay for a service that had seen a drop in results. Even on the back of such a

great time through the back end of last year, the last few months have hit

the P&L hard and I’m very aware of that.

Because my mentality is now solid and will never waver with my own

finances, I’ve managed to stay in a positive frame of mind in the main. There

have been obvious waves of discontent in the camp, which has seen folk

leave but the majority of members have stuck by, which I’m really

appreciative of.

It’s a tough old game that will stamp all over you should you allow it. It took

me years to work out my own way of doing things and that way has now

been THE WAY ever since. I have various bits and bobs on my site, such as

an Excel tracker (which is pretty neat!) and I have plenty of advice on how I

manage my bankroll should folk choose to listen.

If I could go back to the early days, I wish I’d been more open about the

situation with people around me but it’s been a good learning curve if

nothing else!

If my humble advice can help one person out, I’ll have done a good job.

I’m addicted to gambling but it’s thoroughly controlled.

Are YOU addicted? Could you easily go for a week without placing one bet?

Your next step should be to spend time pulling together the facts. You might think you are

winning but it’s a worthwhile exercise to go into each of your accounts and download your

betting history over the last year (even if you know how you’re getting on).

Do your net Withdrawals outweigh your net Deposits? If not, why not?

Are you still in the green category?

There is a vast amount of information available for you to get hold of and use to identify

where your money will be going for a bet. From using your own knowledge to that of others,

it’s important to understand what is available and what you will be using going forward. If

you follow tipsters, it is crucial to determine whether they are trustworthy as the levels of

transparency do vary significantly depending on whom you choose to follow.

Make sure that whoever you follow or how you select your own bets fits with how many

bets you want to make and, more importantly, how much you wish to gamble.

Realise that changes can be made at any time.

MAKING CHANGES

Admit that something needs to change. The single most important point.

SETTING LIMITS

List all the bookmakers that you have open accounts with and set Deposit Limits across

them. It will become apparent that you should never be in a position where these limits are

hit because you should never need to deposit anything on top of the initial investment.

Because of the methods that I encourage, you only ever stake small percentages of your

overall bankroll, which means you won’t need to top your accounts up going forward!

However much money you wish to invest at day one, make sure that you spread the amount

across all of your chosen accounts. For example, if you decide that you can afford to spend

£100 in total across three accounts, you should deposit £33 into each one. The more

bookies’ accounts that you have open and wish to use, the more complicated it may

become in terms of tracking. So personally, I recommend using no more than three if

possible. In this example, your stakes will be £1 per point, which is calculated at 1% of your

bankroll.

POINTS / STAKES

I am often asked how to adjust stakes during a bad spell or whether to increase them

following a big win. There is obviously no right answer. However, I always review my stakes

on a weekly basis – regardless of how I have done in the prior week. This does not mean

they are adjusted weekly.

My guidelines are as follows:

Balance on a Sunday evening with the Stakes that I will use for the week ahead:

£0 – £10 (10p point)

£10 – £20 (20p point)

£20 – £30 (30p point)

£30 – £40 (40p point)

£40 – £50 (50p point)

£50 – £100 (£1 point)

£101 – £200 (£2 point)

£201 – £300 (£3 point)

£301 – £400 (£4 point)

£401 – £500 (£5 point)

£501 – £750 (£7.50 point)

£751 – £1,000 (£10 point)

£1,001 – £1,500 (£15 point)

£1,501 – £2,000 (£20 point)

… and so on.

If you suffer several losses during the week, it should not be a significant hit to the overall

total (depending on how many points you are playing each day). Then upon review, you can

decrease your stakes on the Sunday if the balance has dropped into the next bracket. If you

have had a decent win, I often find it’s best to withdraw a chunk immediately to avoid any

temptation to increase stakes irrationally.

There’s nothing wrong with using lower stakes either. People have this pre-conception that

you need to bet big to win big. That’s a load of nonsense – if you bet big, you can lose big! I

started with a pot of £200 at £2 per point and yes, it took ages to build it up – and it was

severely boring but it works. Since then, I’ve built through £5 and £10 brackets up to £20

before I withdrew the majority and started again at £2.

INCORRECTLY ADJUSTING STAKES

I ran a poll on Twitter with the question:

How do you adjust stakes for betting on runners at bigger odds?

– 6% Increase Stakes

– 39% Decrease Stakes

– 55% Level Stakes

Surprisingly (or not as the case may be), 39% of people voted that they would decrease their

stakes when they bet on selections at higher odds. I used to do the same as you presume

those at higher odds have less chance of winning, therefore you are minimising your risk,

yes? No. Of course this is not the case – every horse in a race has an equal chance of

winning and a betting market is only compiled by opinion yet 4/10 people still drop their

stakes for a so-called outsider.

As a crude example, if you stake £10 on a 2/1 shot, your returns are £30 if it wins. You

might, therefore only stake £2.50 on a 10/1 shot to provide similar returns, thus avoiding

the potential of a whopping £110 if you had stuck to level stakes. It seems glaringly obvious

in this example what you should do, does it not? Then where does the opinion change? It’s

obviously a state of mind that the punter faces a conflict between risk and reward – they are

emotionally biased and therefore are unlikely to prosper over time. The returns for any

winning bet will be crudely similar (as in the example above) and any wins on bigger odds

are much less valuable.

TRACK YOUR BETS

All of them!

Once you have decided on a technique to identify what you want to bet on, you will have a

finite number of bets to place in a day. This must not change. Once you start doing the

occasional side bet, things will get harder to manage. Regardless of your methods, make

sure you track EVERY SINGLE BET and EVERY SINGLE DEPOSIT that you make from this point

forward.

It doesn’t need to be a fancy tracker, although the more information that you can record

from day one, the better as it will help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Even

if you use a pen and paper, record all of your bets. I can’t stress the importance of this. (The

tracker I use can be downloaded here or found at the bottom of this post).

You’ll soon notice a pattern. It shouldn’t be viewed as a daily pattern but one that can take

weeks or months to build. Start with an affordable amount and treat it all as money that

you’ll never see again. Keeping your head above water is nice but if it does dwindle away,

you shouldn’t be overly concerned. Remember it’s better to wish you’d staked more than

wish you’d staked less.

This chart shows a rolling points total over an 18-month period. There is an evident dip in

form 5 months in. But with (a lot of) patience and discipline, the balance has grown again to

a very profitable position.

It’s true that you don’t become rich overnight, but with time and a plan, you can make

money over a sustained period.

TEMPTATION

There is a world of temptation that surrounds the average punter from billboard advertising

during the game to TV adverts during sports events and it is very easy to be influenced into

placing a bet on a whim.

Imagine the scenario…

You have a nice chunk sitting in your betting account just waiting to be spent and you’re

watching the racing on a Saturday. There’s seven flat meetings in the UK and you’ve already

scanned some of the bigger meetings and have formed some vague opinions on a number

of runners but already decided on some good bets for the day. Your phone is at hand as you

scroll through your Twitter timeline and many people are giving their opinions on the racing

with some making very compelling claims. You’ve already got your bets on but there’s a race

up in five minutes that someone has suggested that the favourite is a sure thing. You open

the Racing Post app to glance over the race; the live commentator has picked out two or

three horses and noted some interesting stats. One of the stats ties in to what the person

on Twitter mentioned so you decide to have a small bet. Five pounds on the favourite. It

gets beat. It's only five pound but you’ve done this a few times whilst watching the racing

and you’re down twenty pound on top of what you’ve already bet on. Hopefully one of your

own bets land. Time ticks and yours also lose. You’re now down forty pounds on the day and

a big chunk of your balance has gone so do you call it quits or try to recoup your losses and

face a worse scenario?

It is a certainty that many people reading this will have encountered a similar situation on

any given day of the week. Bookmakers make half-hearted attempts at ensuring you gamble

responsibly. Those yellow and black banners are commonplace in a bulging marketplace and

they easily go unnoticed at the foot of some pages so you need to be the one who makes

sure things are under control.

Be ruthless with your actions and don’t be tempted to sway away from what you know is

best. I’m obviously not suggesting that you can’t have fun with ad-hoc bets but, if you do

play that way, make sure each one is added to your tracker! The fact that it’s a bit of a chore

doing so might help you to avoid doing it unnecessarily.

WHAT NEXT?

Work out where you are – do you need to make changes?

Set limits

Stick to a solid Points / Stakes system

Track all of your bets

Avoid temptation

In some extreme cases, you may not be able to control your urges and gambling may not be

for you. That being the case, you can hopefully admit and understand where you are at and

either stop betting altogether or get some help in doing so.

It’s better to wish you’d staked more than wish you’d staked less.