[Broke Homey]

Bank roll management is the #1 rule in poker. It will keep you from going broke without question as long as you really and truly follow and stick to it. A poker pro Chris Ferguson said years ago "never sit down with more than 10% of your entire bank roll per session". Nowadays the school of thought is to have 20-50 buy ins for what ever level you play, meaning if you play 1/2 no limit holdem, a buy in is generally 100 big blinds or $200. That being said your bank roll should be $4000-$10000 for that level and if you stick to BRM you will not feel the sting of losses and that bitch called variance.
Now in sports betting (which i am green at) you wager in units. I want to know what is proper BRM. Should a unit be between 1%-2% of my bank roll or higher? Example $1000 Bank roll each unit would be $10-$20 if my math is correct. I am going to try a serious shot with Baseball to see what happens if i truly stick with proper BRM. It took me a long time to learn this lesson in poker but it works. Thanks for any help.

Broke Homey

[Snoman]

I think generally accepted safe unit size is 1% of BR.

[Broke Homey]

I think generally accepted safe unit size is 1% of BR.

What i was thinking, Thank you!

[Bill Dozer]

Bankroll mgt is very much like managing your chips at the table. You decide your level of risk by 2 factors. A) Your perceived chance of winning and B) your need to stay in the game. Example: Your bookie still offers Patriots -3 but the real Vegas line moved all the way up to -12. You may be tempted to go all-in on -3 but then you are out of the game if you lose. No one would fault you for taking the opportunity to quickly increase your bank roll. Its your choice. You go big and risk losing and having to come back months later after putting in overtime at the job... or maybe you increase the bet only 5x the normal play.

Poker players tend to make better sports bettors. They understand its a law of averages and that they need to have a certain win rate to overcome the rake.

With sports betting there tends to be this idea, especially with new bettors, that you can "pick a lock" or if you lose 4 games in a row you are getting buried or games are fixed. Unlike the rake which poker players see as the cost of playing, sports bettors see the vigorish (10 in the -110) as something only losers pay. New sports bettors don't have the benefit of getting practice and to see a lot of performance data at once. A good sports bettor needs a good memory (a spreadsheet).

You can find a guy in the sports betting forums taking verbal swings at another guy who shared a losing +800 underdog play he loved. The guy with the 8-1 pick was calculating that if the game played 24 times the dog would hit more than three times. The guy who was upset that he followed the pick, expected it to hit right then. If one of those two gents played poker before, you can guess which one.

[Broke Homey]

Bankroll mgt is very much like managing your chips at the table. You decide your level of risk by 2 factors. A) Your perceived chance of winning and B) your need to stay in the game. Example: Your bookie still offers Patriots -3 but the real Vegas line moved all the way up to -12. You may be tempted to go all-in on -3 but then you are out of the game if you lose. No one would fault you for taking the opportunity to quickly increase your bank roll. Its your choice. You go big and risk losing and having to come back months later after putting in overtime at the job... or maybe you increase the bet only 5x the normal play.



Poker players tend to make better sports bettors. They understand its a law of averages and that they need to have a certain win rate to overcome the rake.

With sports betting there tends to be this idea, especially with new bettors, that you can "pick a lock" or if you lose 4 games in a row you are getting buried or games are fixed. Unlike the rake which poker players see as the cost of playing, sports bettors see the vigorish (10 in the -110) as something only losers pay. New sports bettors don't have the benefit of getting practice and to see a lot of performance data at once. A good sports bettor needs a good memory (a spreadsheet).

You can find a guy in the sports betting forums taking verbal swings at another guy who shared a losing +800 underdog play he loved. The guy with the 8-1 pick was calculating that if the game played 24 times the dog would hit more than three times. The guy who was upset that he followed the pick, expected it to hit right then. If one of those two gents played poker before, you can guess which one.

Hey Bill!

Thank you for the great analysis and explanation. I especially liked how you pointed out "law of averages", which i tend to use often. Also i find, In MLB anyway that "picking a lock" is never easy. Mets vs Phillies last series for example on paper was a no brainer imo, being that the Phillies were -2 to over 2 1/2 dogs i think the whole series. The Mets, Needless to say cost me a few units.

Like others i have my own "system" , Consisting of small dogs on ML, RL Big Favs, with trends and gut feeling. Someday's i am a hero others a zero, and sometimes flipping a coin gets better results than anything. I started a serious spreadsheet this week for tracking purposes and may start posting my plays for critique soon.

I looked for thread about the +800 dog, but cant seem to find it. I would love to read the thread to see the thought process on both sides. I for one never bash anybody's picks whether i agree or not with them, since many times i will wind up with my tail between my legs. If you could post or PM the thread i would appreciate it.

Again, Thank you for the great insight and Good luck on all your plays!

Broke Homey

[Puffdog]

great post

[Ghenghis Kahn]

lol chris ferguson... can he even show his face in public anymore?

[MoneyLineDawg]

Strict BRM is overrated depending on why you gamble....It's only used for Pros who are risk averse by nature or people with low cash flow that just want action to stay in the game

Me personally....I just love taking shots and don't need to bet every day. I have a job other than sports betting so I can afford to risk it all if the stars align. I rarely do this, but I gamble to make a big payoff and have fun with the winnings

All depends on what your goals are

[packerd_00]

This question gets asked so much,and its always the same answers. The longer you play the more you learn along the way ive found,diving right into it youll make mistakes with your money,its the nature of the beast.

[Darkside Magick]

Strict BRM is overrated depending on why you gamble....It's only used for Pros who are risk averse by nature or people with low cash flow that just want action to stay in the game

Me personally....I just love taking shots and don't need to bet every day. I have a job other than sports betting so I can afford to risk it all if the stars align. I rarely do this, but I gamble to make a big payoff and have fun with the winnings

All depends on what your goals are

This.

Too many people advocate 1%/2% matrix of betting but you really underbetting(risk aversion)

I feel if your bankroll is under 10k.... you should get 5%--7.5% a play....you have to make your bankroll work!!!

[Bill Dozer]

Nothing wrong with betting big relative to your bankroll if you have a bigger perceived edge. For example, if your bookie has a point better than everywhere else on half of the NBA spreads (off 1 point so half the time it benefits the team you like) then you can bet a bit bigger and be safe. If you are betting vanilla #s and not price shopping you have to be more conservative with the bet amounts.

[Division]

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to bankroll management.

2 guys who each make $5,000 a month at their job. Guy A has a bankroll of $1,000 and Guy B has a bankroll of $40,000.

Guy B should be betting a very small percentage of his bankroll as it would be very difficult for him to replace his bankroll relative to Guy A.

That would be the first step is determining your risk appetite.

Then you need to know if you actually have an edge so you need to have a record of your betting history, either real or paper betting.

Then you need to decide on a plan for your bankroll. Guy B would be happy to grow his bankroll by 50% per year but Guy A might see the effort of researching all his bets properly as not being worth his time if he only grew his bankroll by 50% and might be willing to take on extra risk.

Those would just be the starting points to get an idea of where you are.

By the way... how is your discipline? Will you lose patience after 3 months of small gains and go for glory? Do you want to withdraw some of your profit from time to time or reinvest everything?

[Reload]

Would be a good thread for everyone at the WSOP to read this week while waiting on the registration lines

[Sam Odom]

Sammy makes plenty of 0.5 , 0.75% sports wagers

[pringles]

Yes, dont go over 1% , find a variance simulator to get some clue.

[BuckyOne]

Bankroll management is all well and good if you can define value! Unless you have an edge or positive expectation you shouldn't play at all. Good bankroll management will not help you get lucky but you may grind yourself to death at a slower rate.

[statnerds]

This.

Too many people advocate 1%/2% matrix of betting but you really underbetting(risk aversion)

I feel if your bankroll is under 10k.... you should get 5%--7.5% a play....you have to make your bankroll work!!!

claude shannon would be 100 if he were alive, just sayin.

it is impossible to ignore gambler's ruin while having these discussions. even with a considerable edge you will go broke betting 5%+ of BR.

[pilebuck13]

2 percent is good number laying juice over -120 will ruin u fast....most important is to set goals and have patience....would you be happy if u cleared 10k in a year? Set goals I'll be the first to tell you it feels good running on a heater and turning 50 dollars into 2-3 thousand....9 out of ten will loose all that back once there streak ends full tilt and betting large.......before they know it your on your last bet which is a wild 50 dollar parlay because you have been buried....try and develop a system that works for you and ignore all the noise......it's easy to walk away from a poker table and go home much harder to stop for the day when there is 100's of other wagers u can make Bol patience man patience this is the best advice ever

[Stammertime91]

I have a question to ask here. Say you're starting out with a really small bankroll at 1st we'll go with 50-100 dollars in this scenario.

Do you play it really small betting $1-2 a game or do you look for that one or two lines that you find that edge in and look to double up once or twice to give you a little more of a BR?

[gochiefs913]

BR is like a budget, very important, yet most overlook it, me thinks.

[jjgold]

I never knew a daily poker player that had money

It is a junkie type sport and they keep coming back for more punishment