Having a budget for your online betting is very important for two reasons: responsible gaming and maximization of potential profits.
A personal gambling budget can be as simple as capping your spending with sportsbooks to a monthly or weekly limit, or more complex such as a limit of net losses. If you win more than expected, you can alter your budget according to that, if you don’t use those winnings for other purposes than gambling. Anyway, the most important thing is having some form of organization and control.
The other reason to have a gambling budget is to make the most of promotions. These days the competition between gaming operators is big, and there’s always a new bonus out there, either in the form of a welcome bonus for new players, or a reload bonus if you have an existing account.
You can certainly enhance your gaming budget by checking out low deposit betting sites and the current bonus offers. Most sites have a special page called ‘promotions’ where you can find them all, some of them will be related to big events like the Champions League Final, for example, while others will be a typical deposit match bonus offer.
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Making the Most of Betting Offers: How to Use a Gaming Budget for That
The biggest advantage of sites that allow small amounts as deposits is to check out numerous sportsbooks simultaneously, which will allow you to find your favorite bookie, as well as receive constant reload bonuses, which are more plentiful these days than in the past: about 5 years ago, most houses would focus on welcome bonuses and after that, it was almost impossible to earn some kind of perk. By having multiple accounts, you can enjoy the best of both worlds: a lot of promotions of both kinds.
But to make the most of those promotions, it’s important to spread your cash across these operators, which can only be done if you have some control over your gaming spending, like a budget. Common spreadsheets can be a good ally to keep track of how much money you have in each bookie, as well as remembering to check the latest promotions of the houses available in your region.
Risk Management Strategies for Sports Betting: Flat Stakes and Flexible Stakes
Most strategies with stakes derive from what professional bettors do, even if they’re adopted by recreational gamblers.
There are basically two types of stake strategies for any sport that you decide to bet on: flat stakes and flexible or variable stakes.
Flat Stakes: How to use this risk management strategy
Flat stakes means that you’ll always bet the same fraction of your bankroll. A bankroll is the entirety of funds available for a bettor at any given time. If you only bet using one bookie, let’s suppose you have $100, a typical stake plan in a flat system would mean that you would bet 5% or 10% of your bankroll per bet.
Depending on the size of the bankroll, the most typical fractions used are 1%, 5% or 10% of the bankroll. Even if you’re betting just for fun, you probably won’t want to waste time depositing funds all the time, and you’ll likely divide your action into different bets.
The advantages of the flat system are the simple calculation of stakes, and the fact that bigger bettors don’t waste valuable time when placing let’s say a live bet by calculating stake sizes.
Flexible or Variable Stakes
This betting system is based on the premise that not all bets are the same. In other words, some bets are better than others and contain more value, which means the ‘mistake’ of the market is potentially bigger and the edge of the bettor is more relevant.
There are ‘schools of thought’ that defend both systems. There’s some logic behind not wasting time calculating much and seizing the opportunity with flat stakes, and there’s some logic behind the fact that not all bets are equal.
The Best Money Management Style for You: Stakes, Budgets, Bonuses and More
The most important question is always this: what do you want to achieve by betting on sports? If you want to have fun, do whatever you like and just bet responsibly, which budgeting can help you with.
If you’re after long term profits, compare your results if you would apply a flat or flexible stake system, and review your results periodically.
There’s no right answer when it comes to betting, and as many seasoned bettors use to say, ‘results ultimately speak louder’.
