KEY MONEY MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES If you have paid attention to anything in sports betting you know the importance of money management to be successful over the long run.  I have read several articles on money management over the years, but have gained little from those articles.  Why? Because most of what I’ve read is an compilation of nonsensical tidbits that are difficult to make sense of, difficult to use and ill conceived to begin with. This is not about criticizing other systems;  rather, to formulate and explain a money management system that is simple, works in the long term, and can have a real impact on creating and retaining profit from your online sports betting investment. Here is the money management system that I have used and highly recommend to all our members. It starts with two simple betting words: Straight bet and flat bet. Straight betting means void the parlays, teasers, props etc that most books promote – it is designed only to increase their profit margins.  For example, if you like the Bears to cover the spread on a particular day, and you like the Jets and Seahawks as well, instead of putting them in a parlay, bet them individually. If you win all three, you have done very well and have a nice profit.  But the odds of winning two of three are much higher than sweeping the entire card. If you bet them individually, two out of three still produces a profit. Winning only one game is not a disastrous result – it is not a winning day, but at least you got a return on one of them. When you get into the habit of parlays and teasers, there’s no result possible except winning all three bets that will allow you to get any return on your investment at all.  Trust me, I have been down that path. Flat betting means to wager the same or similar amount on every game.  We’ll talk about wager size as a percentage of bankroll in a moment, but first let’s look at the concept in general.  When you vary your bet size for the “10 Star play of the Day” or the “Sure 10 unit lock of the year” it’s easy to pick more winners than losers without creating any profit.  Let’s look at the example above.  If you feel like the Bears are the best bet on the board, and you decide to bet $330 to win $300 on them. Then you like the Jets and the Eagles a bit less and only bet 165 to win 150 on both of them.  At the end of the day you win two out of three – the Jets and the Eagles.  Your total risk for the day was $660.  You won $150 on the Jets and $150 on the Eagles.  BUT you lost $330 on the Bears.  All in all, you lost $30 for the day.  Had you flat bet all of them at $150, you would have risked $495, won $300 and lost $165 – for a total profit on the day of $135 AND you risked only $495 instead of $660.  Which would you rather have?  This is the key: When you vary your bet size, picking more winners than losers does not guarantee a profit. Same thing with parlays and teasers. But when you flat bet, keeping your bet size constant, regardless of how much you supposedly ''like'' the plays the results are extremely predictable. Win more games than you lose and you WILL make a profit.    Determining the appropriate bet size takes much more patience and discipline.  The goal is to bet enough to maximize winnings while keeping plenty in reserve to withstand a losing streak – and you WILL have losing streaks.  You could be the best handicapper in the world, but if you lose all your money on a couple of games because you wanted to win big and you KNEW they would win, you’re done - it’s that simple. You have to be conservative enough to keep yourself in action, during good times and bad. And the amount of your bankroll will determine your standard bet size. Few folks recommend this, but I think your percentage of bankroll that you should be willing to risk on each and every play does vary depending on the size of your bankroll. Here''s why. Most bettors begin with a short bankroll, perhaps a few hundred dollars or a grand - somewhere in that range. For bettors with larger ''rolls a standard play involves around 2%-3% of their bankroll. For example, with 10k to invest in sports betting, the standard wager size should be between $220 to win $200 or $330 to win $300. But if you only have $200 to begin with, betting 2% of your bankroll equals a $4 bet. Not much fun or excitement to win four bucks, nor much profit when you do win. That’s why, with lesser bankrolls, I’d advocate a more aggressive betting strategy for the short term; somewhere in the range of 5% - 7.5%. You have to be able to win something, and beginning bettors with this type of bankroll generally aren’t as concerned from the get-go about riding out a losing period. I would never recommend beginning to get involved with sports betting without a minimum of $500 in your bankroll, making a standard wager size in the $25 - $30 dollar range perfectly normal and acceptable for beginning bettors. It’s high enough to make some kind of profit and enjoy the fruits of your labors when you win, but you can ride out a bad week or two and still be in action. Bettors with larger bankrolls must bet a lower percentage on each wager. Firstly, you have more to lose, so protecting your investment becomes critical.  It’s one thing to lose a couple hundred dollars; it’s quite another to lose a five figure bankroll. And you must think about what will happen if you do lose, because losing, while extremely undesirable, is a possible outcome.  It goes back to a rule that applies to any gambling – do not put up what you cannot afford to lose.  See our article on The Scamdicappers for a real life example.   A rational bettor accepts the risk, and makes decisions accordingly. When you’ve got 5k in various accounts offshore, you can afford to take lesser risks to achieve your desired goal of making a profit. Again, the range of 2%-3% makes sense. You still make a nice profit when you win, and you limit your risk of losing your hard earned investment. Straight bet and flat bet a specific and pre-determined percentage of your bankroll. That’s the key. The hard part is having the discipline to do it, every single time. NO exceptions, no wild betting sprees off a big winning weekend or chasing to win back all the losses from a bad week in a single day. There isn’t anyone reading this essay who hasn’t seen a game that they absolutely loved, a sure winner – and lost. The temptation is there to load up on these games, the ''it’s a lock to win'' mentality. The reality is that when a $50 bettor places a $500 wager on a game, it’s no more likely to win than any other game that the same bettor puts $50 on. The goal is always the same: If you can pick more winners than losers, you should show a profit. The term for this kind of betting pattern is ''grinding''. We’re not looking for the big score. Sure, there'’s someone somewhere who hits a seven team parlay every week, and there's someone else who risks his or her entire bankroll on a single play and wins that bet. But there are many more who don’t have that kind of success, and those that do have it rarely maintain that kind of ''luck'' over the long term. Eventually, they return everything that they’ve won back into the bookies hands. The “Grinders” method is much less volatile and much more likely to achieve positive results over the course of a single season, or many, many years. The bottom line is don’t look for the quick score, because that’s when the odds are highly against you of staying in the game very long. Professional sports betting does not look for the 6-0 weekend. Rather, the goal is a 12-8 week.  A $110 bettor who goes 12-8 for a week will return $320 on a total risk of $2200 for the week, about a 15% return. Ask any stock investor if they’d be happy with a 15% return for a week and the answer is universally ''YES''. If you can average that kind of return over the long term - and it is quite possible to do so - you’ll be in the sports betting game for years to come.  Small, steady, regular profit over the long term can only be achieved with a solid money management system such as this one. Use it, be disciplined and watch your investment grow.  Between this money management system and our system of picking the teams to play, you too can be successful over the long term.