[bane]

(sigh) The sheer volume of what I don't know about betting, is overwhelming.

I'm starting with college football. Following a capper that picks 8 games a week. Of those, I place straight bets on 3-4 games I feel most confident about. Risk a third of my bankroll weekly. Week two I'm 5-2. Concerned this is beginner's luck and by week six I'll be 10-13.

Should I only risk 1-5% of my roll on each game? I get the impression it's common to bet a slew of games throughout the week, often across a number of sports. Since I'm betting so few games, seems growing my bankroll with 1% on each game will be slower than most.

I'm just not comfortable wagering on & researching more than a few games each week. I'd like my bankroll to last through the season.

So, do I get a pass on the popular money mgt strategy? Or not so much?

[easyliving]

Theirs so much you need to learn before you start risking your money. I like the idea that your betting very few games and I suggest continuing this for a while until you get a better understanding.
I wouldn't suggest risking more than 5% of your bankroll on any bet and even 5% is too much. 2%-3% is perhaps the right #. I personally bet 2.5 %. Stay away from parlays. Your gonna have bad runs their inevitable. You should be willing to accept losing 7-8 in a row as this will eventually happen. Also lose with your own bets don't blindly tail anyone especially the people here. You will go broke very fast. If you keep betting 1/3 of your bankroll its almost guaranteed that eventually you will have a bad run and go broke so of course no pass.

[bane]

Got it, easyliving. Less Go Big or Go Home, more Self Control. Thanks for the advice.

It's already useful because this week, I dabbled in a bit of soccer and tennis for giggles. Also bet on two ugly college games. Broke even on all plays combined.

Selected a few games for my college football roster this weekend, but I'm betting *much* less than a 3rd of my bankroll. Surprisingly it wasn't easy to scale back the size of my bets. Starting to see why developing this habit upfront is important.

Working on it, that 1 - 3% range.

[ODDmaster]

good luck

[bane]

Thanks Oddmaster. I've been playing all of 2 weeks and so far I'm at a 21% ROI. My good luck is what makes me want to bet the farm. Pacing myself.

[Bill Dozer]

One thing that should be posted every time a new bettor jumps in is suggesting line shopping. The score lands on the spread often enough that playing the best line at a few choice books can be the difference between winning and losing. Check out our www.SBRodds.com. Get an idea of what line options you should expect.

[probettor1]

(sigh) The sheer volume of what I don't know about betting, is overwhelming.

I'm starting with college football. Following a capper that picks 8 games a week. Of those, I place straight bets on 3-4 games I feel most confident about. Risk a third of my bankroll weekly. Week two I'm 5-2. Concerned this is beginner's luck and by week six I'll be 10-13.

Should I only risk 1-5% of my roll on each game? I get the impression it's common to bet a slew of games throughout the week, often across a number of sports. Since I'm betting so few games, seems growing my bankroll with 1% on each game will be slower than most.

I'm just not comfortable wagering on & researching more than a few games each week. I'd like my bankroll to last through the season.

So, do I get a pass on the popular money mgt strategy? Or not so much?

paying capper? best capper in the world will give you a 5% ROI(return of investment) if you get lucky. if you pay 20 dollars average per pick you have already a ROI 20% negative. so you would need to bet at least 500 dollars to make 5 dollars per bet. unless you bet 2000 dollars bet there is no point paying touts. and if you bet online cappers pick you will never have 2000 dollars.

[bane]

Nah, he's free of charge. He's my crutch while I learn to cap on my own. I'm not very good at it yet. That's why I only select a few of his picks I've researched myself.

[probettor1]

Nah, he's free of charge. He's my crutch while I learn to cap on my own. I'm not very good at it yet. That's why I only select a few of his picks I've researched myself.

I have been in this bussiness for a while, this is my advise for your money management, bet about 10% of your income. And roll over it. If you want to bet more make sure your income grow so the 10% is higher. It might look like nothing but lets say your 10% is 30 dollars in a 10 day winning streak you will be betting 300 per day at the end. But pay attention it is a ride not a parlay.
ride 30-30-30-30. Each 30 are treated independently.
parley 30-60-120-240.
lets say you lose all the bets the first 10 days then you will bet only 30 on the eleven day.

it is good if you separate certain amount of money for each sports. lets say 300 for mlb and 300 for nfl. if you lose your mlb money you dont use your nfl money for mlb.
You might start with a 7% of your income and go up 1% every month if you lose up to 13%. if you are up stay in 7%. If you lose for 5 month and you have a good streak in the last month betting 13% of your income you might get all your money back easily. If you lose 6 month in a row start betting betpoints till you learn. Chances are you will never learn enough to beat the oddsmakers. The best you will probably get out of this system is trying to get a higher income.

[bane]

Thanks probetter. Solid advice & appreciate the explanation (esp the $30/day example). Very good tip about separating funds for different sports. Never even considered that.

Whoa, I'm no where near using 10% of my income as bankroll. Only 2%. Feels like a lot to me as I've never gambled before.

What bothers me is how slowly I'm growing my bankroll. I read too many posts about people depositing $100 and turning it into $15,000. I do mostly straight up bets & only started reading about teasers and parlays. I seriously don't understand all the different offerings(?) for gambling. So, keeping it simple atm.

[sickler]

Are you really a girl or do you figure posters will be more helpful towards you if you pretend to be one?

[bane]

Actually, I think people are more open (candid) around here if you're a dude. I post in the sub forums a bit & when people call me "buddy" or "pal" or whatever I don't correct them. B/c it doesn't matter. When I have a question in those forums I just preface with "Noob question" & people are really helpful. I try to search the answer first though.

I kinda hoped by specifying gender in this one post that other women on the forum might turn up as well. Aside from the admin Blondie... But, it's no big deal. As long as I'm up, I'm happy!

[bane]

Are you really a girl or do you figure posters will be more helpful towards you if you pretend to be one?

Incidentally, is this a common occurrence? Would be nice if even some of the men *pretending* to be women were up for some girl talk... (kidding). Only my dad knows I wager. Not something that comes up in convo w/ my girlfriends. People seem to think a woman is a fun "guy's girl" if she enjoys college football, but a total weirdo if she wagers.

[Nova99]

What bothers me is how slowly I'm growing my bankroll. I read too many posts about people depositing $100 and turning it into $15,000. I do mostly straight up bets & only started reading about teasers and parlays. I seriously don't understand all the different offerings(?) for gambling. So, keeping it simple atm.

You shouldnt be bothered by this, for every one of these successful turn 100 to 10k threads there are 10-15 where the punter fails on the 2nd or 3rd pick. if you are growing your bankroll thats already success, many punters are in it for the action and most do not win money over a long run.

[sickler]

[QUOTE=bane;16302106]Incidentally, is this a common occurrence? Would be nice if even some of the men *pretending* to be women were up for some girl talk... (kidding). Only my dad knows I wager. Not something that comes up in convo w/ my girlfriends. People seem to think a woman is a fun "guy's girl" if she enjoys college football, but a total weirdo if she wagers.[/QUO


Men pretending to be women is very common on the internet, for a variety of reasons. It would make sense at SBR, a forum comprised of 99.99999999% men, fora guy to do it here. We don't have many female visitors at this place, I do believe posters would be more inclined to help a newbie female.

Not accusing you of anything or asking you to prove your gender, just saying.....

[bane]

Yup, sickler, I'm aware of men purporting to be women online for predatory reasons. Hadn't considered it on SBR but, point taken. I didn't get the impression you were being accusatory. No worries.

Thanks for the encouragement Nova99. Those big hits are likely unrealistic for most, especially a novice. I'm getting better at capping my own games I think. For college football anyway. I look at the schedule b4 the lines come out. Pick 4-5 games, set a line & over/under. I've been w/n 3 points on the line. Sometimes spot on. Over/under is ....not as good. I'll be within 10ish. Maybe everybody does this but it's new to me and I'm really excited about it. Plus I can get early lines rather than wait on my capper.

I should add I only do this little exercise w/ really lopsided teams (e.g. Georgia v Tulane). I'm not nearly savvy enough to cap close games on my own.

[drc6491]

good luck with your bets and i wouldnt doubt gender with your willingness to learn good $ management. You are already ahead of many bettors here since u arnt blindly betting with 50% of your BR. Cheers

[pongo7890]

I am very new to gambling and lately I have been getting a bit carried away with how much money I have been betting,Money management sounds like a good idea I could benefit from, Every time I lose I bet more because im too stubborn to accept losing.Overall im still positive but I have had to take big risks to get where I am.

I should really start to plan how I bet smarter,I can see how addictive gambling can be!

[bane]

Thanks for the encouragement drc6491. Last weekend my capper was unavailable. I didn't complain since he's free. Capped my own games and had a clean sweep of 10 picks. Won an 11th over/under that I tailed from the forum. I teased quite a bit of those b/c I wasn't terribly confident at the time. Feeling verrrrrry good about myself though.
pongo7890, after my first really bad losing weekend (there have been two) I could not *wait* to throw more cash at the books to win my money back. Just try to restrain myself. Be patient. Wait for plays that make sense.
In other news,
- Experimenting with parlays a little this weekend. Trying to suss out if there is more value in an open parlay.
- Asked my book to turn off the casino type functions. Read about account hacking at Heritage and I don't use those things anyways.

[Pdubulous]

People seem to think a woman is a fun "guy's girl" if she enjoys college football, but a total weirdo if she wagers.

not true! Id love to meet a girl who I could share my betting with.

Its already been stated but ill state it again- money management is a very key aspect of being a successful gambler. I used to play poker online. I started with my friend sending me $200. He taught me not to risk it all, or even really a majority of it at any one time. So I would buy into cash tables for as little as $5 or 10$. I sent him back that $200 (+ some profit) when I got to an amount I felt comfortable with for all my own. I continued this grinditup style. Next I sat with $25 at the tables and so on. Point of this story is I had many other friends who COULDNT just sit with $25. It didnt appeal to them. I guess they were not satisfied with making only $25 or 50$ ? I was real happy with making $50 even if it took me 2 or 3 hours. That was more than any job I could find around here. Well....all my friends ended up always going broke, multiple times. Some would run up their bankrolls to big figures, just to keep playing higher and higher and lose it all. Ive seen some real sick stuff. I was content to stick with it though and I turned that original $200 into over $10,000, never even risking anything out of my pocket.

I tend to keep going on and on when I talk about poker so ill just stop haha. I got really screwed when the major sites got shut down because I was about to start actually making big money. The point of my story is ( I dont know what your betting) but say its $10 a game or whatever, who cares if thats not that sexy? Way I see it, winning is the motive. I cant play poker online anymore so this is my new obsession. I am taking it very slow this NFL season, learning from my mistakes. I am not betting a lot per game. I am looking at the end game. I am looking to survive the whole season and make a profit. I went 7-7 last month with a profit of less than 1 unit. My other friends are betting wildly on games. Random amounts. $50 here. $75 there. I dont even think they have any reason to their bet amounts.

So to a fellow newbie bettor I just wanted to say good luck, you seem like you have a good grasp of what to do. Like I said- discipline is key. Usually your biggest competitor is yourself. Get comfortable, dont go crazy.

ps good luck with your parlays, I have yet to win one this season and its pissing me off!

[bane]

Wow P-Dub. $200 to 10k is impressive. Thanks for the advice & well wishes!

[SimonTwigg]

I am new here too!!

However, I have been betting for years... I do okay. Not great, but okay. Enough to stay in the game.

For me, a challenge is to always watch out for chasing. After a big loss on what looked good, it's so hard to let it lie and rebound at a later date. Chasing is what keeps a lot of guys out of the black, IMO

[shovde]

Not sure how interesting this is to you guys, but its important to understand how slow the actual growth is compared to the ups and downs we deal with every day. With 3% flat stake at 10/11 lines and 55% hitrate your bankroll grows 0.11% per game. If a 3% bet equals $100, you'll be making $3.67 per game, and it will take 1000 bets to triple your bankroll (from lets say $3333 to $9999) That is if you got your whole roll intact when placing each bet. Usually not. The formula to calculate growth rate is (1+kd)^w*(1-k)^(1-w), where w is win(0.55), k is stake (0.03 for instance) and d is net odds. Take a look at http://www.winnergambling.com/sports-betting-bingo/bankroll-growth-calculator/. High turnover is gold, and you get that by placing single bets. Variance is a bitch, and multiples just brings frustration.

[bane]

Welcome Simon Twigg! Was *this* close to following a chase system and decided that's a bad idea, for me anyway. I agree with you, chasing is best avoided.

shovde, good illustration of the slooow growth rate. The only two ways I've found to increase the rate, yet adhere to money mgt is 1) increase my bankroll 2) small parlay for better payouts. I've done both.

[2Cold2Hold]

Hi all, I'm new to the site and liked the effort and info in this post. I have been a pro poker player for 10 years, and loved to bet on sports even before that. This year was my first winning season in NFL and the first year I actually put any time into learning things about betting and it has helped. I am still a big time amateur, but I am enjoying winning and betting controlled instead of just "gambling" on games as I did in the past. My biggest tips others have mentioned, but DO NOT CHASE!. The books love everyone betting a bad Monday night football favorite after a losing Sunday. You mentioned you only bet a select few games almost in a negative way, but that's the best way. Pick your best game, or 2, or however many you feel are the strongest plays that day/week and that's it. The biggest reason I won this year, was never chasing, only playing my strongest plays, and I stopped betting parlays for the most part. Parlays are the sucker bet of the sports world. There are times I REALLY love the games and I'll bet a 2-4 team parlay, but it's not often and my profit has went up a lot because of it. If I do bet a parlay, I am usually betting my strongest play bigger, example $300 on my strongest play, $1-200 on the others, and then a $50-100 parlay. Therefore, I'm still single betting all the games. And then I also try and read and study any info I can get anywhere on the games. I might look up 15 different peoples opinions, and get 15 different answers on each side as to why to pick the team, but a lot of times there is something that jumps out that reminds me or makes me really believe to bet a team that makes sense that I over-looked myself initially. A lot of the videos this sites posts on picks from "pros" are amazing. Even if I don't agree with their pick, I love to hear the info and reasoning as to why they feel this is a strong pick, because most likely I'll be able to use this info on a future pick of mine. BOL!

[bane]

Money mgt can't save you from a book that decides to steal.

All that time I spent capping games was worthless. I only requested one payout so that I could grow my bankroll and continue to increase my wager size.

Now I fear it's all gone.

Thanks to a "highly rated" SBR sponsored book that I *thought* I researched.

I'm sick.

[king_danilo92]

which sportsbook bro? did you report it?

[bane]

No point. Betislands. There are several threads on it.

I wanna cry. Vomit.

I'm really embarrassed that the first book I chose folded. I thought I was doing so well and knew more about college football than most guys I know. Thought I was learning how to build my bankroll over time.

Just feelin' pathetic right now. I know it's happening to a lot of other people with even larger balances. But, I *just* started and don't see how I can dig myself out of this hole.

[bane]

So... if any noobs stumble across this thread in the future. Here are my takeaways:

1) SBR ratings have zero credibility. Apparently, Betislands was downgraded to a "no-play" & D rated at other sportsbetting sites more than 4 weeks ago.
2) Ask several more experienced players via PM for recommendations on books. ('course, I did this & still got hosed)
3) Play w/ a local, if you can.
4) Never keep more than 25% of your bankroll with one source.

Chivalry is dead. Nobody's saving the women & children. I'm taking it up the arse just like the big boys. Bernie Madoff'd. My bankroll is GONE.

Just in time for Christmas.

Happy Holidays.

[bane]

Worth repeating:

The bar is a bit low if "knowing" sportsbook operators puts us in cahotes with them. I wish we would known these guys better.

They admit to or feign ignorance after the fact.

So the top dogs of SBR who are supposed to be a watchdog are not in communication with book operators?

The reason why so many SBR members deposited in BI is because SBR said they ARE a trustworthy book. SBR should be in close contact asking for financial info every week. I guess SBR doesn't really care about the individual members here and are just happy running their own business and not giving a shit about book status.

Waiting until after the fact to drop them to an F rating shows how useless SBR really is.

Welcome to SBR where the ratings are made up and the members don't matter.

SBR is maybe a place to discuss picks. Despite the name, Sports Book Review, DO NOT trust the ratings here.

[bill2266]

sorry to here hope you get your cash