The one thing most punters have in common is limited financial resources. For novice punters, betting on sports is usually a form of entertainment. For serious punters, betting on sports is something they expect to receive financial benefit from each time they make a wager. In both cases, it’s important for the punter to know how to protect their bankroll.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 04: A bookmakers / betting shop in City Road, Liverpool showing odds for the Everton v Liverpool Merseyside derby match before the Barclays Premier League match between Everton and Liverpool at Goodison Park on October 04, 2015 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
Managing Your Bankroll
Once you make your deposit with the bookmaker, you have essentially established the amount you feel you can afford to lose. For your own personal financial protection, this is exactly how you should view every deposit and never make deposits that could cause you financial problems.
Once you have established your bankroll, you want to derive the most amount of benefit possible from those funds. That benefit can be defined as longevity or financial gain, depending on your own personal goals. In order to protect your bankroll, you should employ one very important rule of thumb: never wager more that 10% of your bankroll on a particular football match. Most successful punters will use three levels of wagers, depending on the strength of their opinion on a football match.
● 10% of the bankroll on wagers where the opinion is strong.
● 5% of the bankroll on wagers where the opinion is decent.
● 3% of the bankroll on wagers where the opinion involves some guessing.
Now that you have a general idea about how to manage your bankroll, there are a few other “rules of thumb” you can use to further advance your chances of making reasonable wagers and limiting your risk.
1. Avoid Punting on Your Favourite Teams and/or Favourite Players – When the heart takes over, the brain goes on vacation. We all tend to have our favorites and there is nothing wrong with rooting them on to victory. In order to keep your peace of mind, you should always avoid betting football matches where your favourite teams and/or players are participants.
2. Weather Conditions Any factor that might create a reasonable doubt about the potential outcome of a football match should be closely considered. In Europe, the weather conditions can vary between wet and dry on a daily basis. Before you bet on a match where the conditions figure to be wet, you want to make sure you have a good feel for how two opponents perform in such conditions before you go punting on a particular side. If you can’t get a good feel, pass the match.
3. Punting for the Sake of Punting – One of the biggest mistakes novice punters make is trying to bet the entire card or more matches than they can realistically handicap with reasonable accuracy. You don’t have to have action on every match. If you feel that way, you might want to stop punting because it’s a formula for disaster. A far better option would be to limit your punting to 2-3 matches on which you have the strongest opinion.
4. Chasing the Losses – All punters are subject to a losing streak from time to time. When things seem to always fall the wrong way on your wagers, you might use that as a good time to take a break from punting and let yourself regain some focus. If you start chasing your losses, you might soon find yourself getting in over your head.
5. Leveraging Multi-bet Wagers – On those occasions where you hit the first three matches on a multi ticket with four matches listed, don’t be afraid to lock in some profits by betting on the other side of the remaining match, time permitting. The name of the game is winning, not being greedy.
6. Choosing Your Bookmaker – In order to eliminate withdraw issues, always choose your bookmaker from a list of the top casinos and sportsbooks operating in your region. Don’t be fooled by hefty promos.
By following the suggestions listed above, you should be able enhance the enjoyment you get from punting as you find your bankroll lasting longer and the winners coming in more frequently.