Simple Money Management Strategies

The ability to manage your bankroll is “more” important than your ability to pick winners. Yes, you read that correctly. Money management is more important than picking winners. Yet every service talks about all the winners they pick and nothing about how to manage a bankroll. I’m going to give you 2 time proven management techniques that are the Gold Standard amongst many professional handicappers. And I’ll conclude with the reasoning why our service plays depart from these proven strategies. 

The first strategy is the 3, 4, and 5 Unit strategy. This is the one we use on almost all our free plays, and what I’ve personally been practicing for over 20 years. This is how it works. You begin by deciding what a unit means to you. Simple way to do it would be to decide what a “big” bet for you means. To keep it simple, if your big bets, which should mean your best bets, is $500. Then we’d say that your unit size is $100. With the 3-4-5 Strategy this means that your smallest bet would be $300. Keep in mind these aren’t bets you make because the game is televised. These are bets you’ve handicapped and concluded that one side has an advantage. If you like the play more than normal, then you up it to $400. And only if it’s the best play your system can produce do you go large with $500. The key to this strategy is always keeping in mind that “no single bet is worth twice as much as any other bet”. For true cappers this should always hold true; there just isn’t enough of an edge against the house nowadays for this rule to be ignored.

The second strategy is the Bankroll Percentage technique. This one says that you pick a percentage of your bankroll that you’re willing to risk on every game you see fit to play. Because your bankroll will decrease and increase with each play you make, staying loyal to this strategy takes a little effort on your side to figure out the correct wager amount per play. To keep it simple let’s say you decide 5% is a good number for you. This means that if your bankroll for the season is 1k, then your first bet will be $50. If your bankroll builds up to $1500 then you’re waging $75 a play. If it drops to $500 then you’re only wagering $25 per play. A few things happen with this technique. First, depending on how lowz the minimum bet is at your book, it’s extremely difficult to go to zero as you’re always just betting 5% of your bankroll. So even with only a $50 account balance you’re still betting, albeit only $2.50 a play, but you get the point, it’s virtually impossible to go to zero. Secondly, and what most people like about this technique, is that as you get hot your wager amounts increase. And when you’re on a cold streak, with each loss your wager amount decreases. This allows you to make the most of hot streaks while at the same time guarding your bankroll while on cold streaks! 

Lastly, let’s deal with how we release our action plays here at BookieBully.com. As you can see we have a 6-Filter system. With each filter a play passes we bet 1 unit. And should all things align on a game we might “step out” on a play and bet up to 10 units. Now the reason for 1 and 2 unit plays is quite simple.

First let’s speak frankly about what kind of advantage can be had against the book. We’re living in a time when the lines are as tight as they’ve ever been. This means that the margin of advantage we can expect to get against the house is fractional. But because it’s small, that doesn’t mean that there’s not a lot of them. For this reason, at any moment that we see even a slight advantage we grab it. This means there’s lots of action daily, but of the minimal wagering amount. For recreational players this is ideal. They get to bet a bunch of games and come out on top every month while doing it. Larger players have something else in mind though.

Big players aren’t looking for small profits all across the board, but prefer that they get a solid pick they can load up on. And while we don’t suggest “loading up” on any game for any reason, we do track down a handful of plays each week that we consider the best of the best. Of which we still usually only recommend between 5 to 7 units be wagered. And in complete honesty, even a big step-out play isn’t expected to hit much over 70% of the time. To put it blunt, “Fuck what they told you, locks don’t exist!” 

No matter how you decide to manage your bankroll, just remember, the most important thing is that you MANAGE YOUR BANKROLL!

Because if you’re betting less on your losses and more on your wins, you can end up with a losing record and a positive bankroll. 

Example for those not understanding: 

You lose Four 3-Unit plays = -13.2 (when considering the juice)

You win Three 5-Unit plays = +15

Record Total: 3 Wins and 4 Losses

Bankroll: +1.8 Units!

I hope this has made the point clear that you don’t have to have a winning record to have a winning bankroll.