Bankroll is the most critical aspect of sports betting, so any tips on maintaining and growing should be treated with utmost seriousness. Bankroll strategies are relevant in all types of sports betting, especially in college football.
We all know that the margins in sports betting are extremely thin and that the break-even point is just a little above 50%. What makes it worse is that it’s pretty much unheard of for people to win at least 60% of their bets. With that in mind, one can say that the difference between winning and losing your bets can be just a few percentage points in any direction, making it highly unpredictable.
These numbers might sound disheartening, and you might think, “What’s even the point? Well, it doesn’t have to be this way all the time. With proper bankroll handling, you can turn these numbers in your favor. While handicapping college football has a lot of significance in college football betting, learning how to manage your bankroll is more critical if you want it to be profitable.
What is Bankroll Management?
Your sports betting bankroll is different from your bankroll in real life. Your bankroll will only grow in the real world if you work and save a lot of money over time. You can grow your real-life bankroll by working extra hard or investing in some stocks. However, sports betting it’s a bit more complicated than that. Sports betting requires you to gamble a part of your bankroll to gain more money.
It’s a lot like investing, but investing could also technically be called gambling, but sports betting results are a lot more immediate, which means you could run your bankroll out much faster. That’s said, it should be in your best interest to only make bets worth it and look for value in every bet you make.
Flat Betting Model
This is perhaps one of the most popular and common bankroll betting strategies out there. This is especially true for beginners since this strategy is easy to understand. In this strategy, you would only have to set your unit size and bet exactly one unit for each bet. Your confidence level, the college football odds, and betting form don’t matter in this form.
Also, in this strategy, you could go for either the “to win” method or the “to risk” method. You’ll need to consider the juice to win one unit in the former. For example, if the odds are -110, you’ll need to risk 1.1 units to win 1.0. You don’t need to risk additional units to cover the bet for the latter. For example, if the odds are -110, you would only be risking 1.0 units to win 0.91.
Percentage Model
This strategy is quite similar to the flat betting model. However, the only difference is that each of your best isn’t set with an exact value but instead through percentage. As your bankroll grows larger, make your bets, but the risks are still the same.
For example, let’s say that you have $1000 in your bankroll, and you’ve decided to have 2.5% for your unit size. So your first bet would amount to $25 in this model. If you win, your bankroll will be $1025, and your unit size will be $25.63.
The most significant advantage of this model is that it optimizes your wins when you’re on a winning streak. This is because you’re increasing the amount of your unit size but still fall into the category of responsible betting. However, it’s pretty brutal to dig yourself out of a hole when you’re in a losing streak since your unit size would also continue to decrease further.
Confidence Model
This strategy allows you to increase your unit size in bets or games in which you feel more confident. The standard unit would still be 1.0, but you can increase your bet size occasionally. Of course, increasing your unit size is generally not recommended until you have proven that you can consistently win your most sure bets.
If you’ve been tracking down your bets, you should start tracking how confident you feel on each wager. You can scale them from 1-3. Of course, the higher the scale is, the more confident you are in that specific bet. And if you are confident in a particular bet, you can allow yourself to increase the unit size of that one for a larger payout.
Final Words
These strategies are easy to understand and execute. However, even with strategies like these, there’s still a potential for you to run out of bankroll, so you should always be careful when betting. Also, along with finding value for each bet, you can grow your bankroll a lot further.