Money Management & Staking Plans

[BillyHills]

I honestly think that the single biggest problem that punters face and struggle with throughout is their money management skills and settling on a suitable staking plan. I have spoken to many people over the years in this game and witnessed it at first hand, and when asked about this subject they freely admit its all very haphazard and its something that is swapped and changed and never really been mastered. I for one fall into the 'never really been mastered' category and have trialled many different staking plans over the years and still dont know the best way to approach my betting. I dont expect this thread to come up with the definitive answer to my problems but thought its worth discussing and if nothing else show we are not alone in searching for the 'perfect' solution to the age old puzzle. Ive include Money Management in the title as i think this should be discussed first, i do honestly think there are some basic rules here to put down in black and white as i believe if these are not mentioned the any staking plan will fail before it starts. I think we all agree, but dont necessarily do, is its a must to have a separate betting bank, i cant emphasise how important this is (sorry if i'm being obvious to the more experienced punters but not everyone is so). Once gambling starts to have an impact on your 'other' life then its doomed, for sure. On the scale of life its doesnt matter if the fav in the 3.15 at Kempton wins or not but one thing that is a cast iron certainty is that the rent/mortgage/council tax/shopping bill has to be paid at the end of the month, some people live in denial and think that day will never come but unfortunately is does at very regular intervals. The failure to be able to meet all of these commitments happens in life, i'm sure we have all been skint on the third week of the month, life is tough at times but to sacrifice any of it for the sake of a daft afternoon in the bookies can be far reaching on those closest to us. This also effects the way you bet, the pressure mounts, you start chasing losses, you lose your discipline which is the big word in punting quarters and that in turn effects your relationships with your loved ones and the cat gets kicked too often, you know what i mean. By having a separate betting bank which you can easily afford takes all of the above problems away, the bills get paid, you are only risking what you can afford to lose and if your luck is out you should still have a shoulder to cry on at least. The second thing that is a given is that you keep a record of your betting history, if you follow a staking plan then this obviously has to be done anyway but if you are just a level stakes kind of guy it's so valuable to know the state of play of your betting at any time. You may have gone on a losing run and without looking back at your bets it will be impossible to identify any glaring errors you are making. Do you make more money on win bets rather than EW, do you perform better in higher class races etc....After a while you should be able see how you can cut out the silly little mistakes and increase your profits. Some think that they only have to look at their online statements to see this but they dont tell you half the story in my opinion, some dont want to know how much this hobby is costing them either! So now we have those two things out of the way its just a matter of what horses to bet and how much to put on them? The first is up to you and so is the second but have you ever thought that you have no structure to your betting, i have many times. Have you ever thought you pick plenty of winners but at the end of the day you should be winning more or losing less? Your betting strategy may be at fault which no staking plan will ever help, for example you may be trying to bet in too many races but that is another whole topic. I'd be interested to know how people approach this, i know we all will have different levels of betting but the ideas should work for any bank i would have thought? The betting bank is interesting as most professionals that i have read reckon you should only bet/risk 2%-3% of you bank at anytime. I have been a tad more aggressive than this in the past i must admit and my system recently worked on 5% which i was comfortable with. I do think the smaller % of bank you deal with does help you with your confidence levels. I know if i have plenty behind me in the bank then it wont affect my selection process, my nature is to be quite conservative in life, a tight git to those who know me i suppose, thats why i was never any good at Poker, not aggressive enough, but i thought 5% was being conservative? I do think the more money you stake does have an effect to most people on what odd they will bet at which is wrong but does happen for sure. Ive seen people walk in to a bookies with say £20 in their pocket, if the next race they fancy the fav they will have a tenner on it to win, if they back a 16/1 shot they will have a quid each way, its totally irrational when you think about it, so on one hand you about to risk 50% of your bank on the first fav and in the other scenario you will risk 10% on a rag. Some will have a few lucky 15's instead but again thats about strategy but whatever it is surely you should only risk the same amount of your betting bank? There are millions of different staking plans out there and i dare say some of us have tried most of them at some point, one of my old chestnuts is the percentage plan, i feel comfortable with this most of the time as long as you set the parameters correctly. For those that have not used this before its simply dividing your bank after each winner (or selection, whichever you choose) I will start off with a bank of say £200 and if my selection process has shown me enough, i will usually start with a bet of 5%, so £10, and continue to use 5% for very bet in the hope that the bank will steadily rise and the stakes will too. It can get bogged down if you hit a losing run but it does allow for 20 straight losers to go bust which again helps with the confidence factor. I have seen some plans split the profits in half and put some in a separate bank thus enabling you to protect half of your winnings, this is fine but will restrict how quickly the stakes will rise. I find it a nice steady plan for a strategy that selects one or two bets per day. Well thats my offering, hopefully others will confess to their secrets or failures, i know some will have a range of say 1-5pts for their selections but i would be interested to here how they reach these conclusions and what percentage of bank this equates too? (I'm not asking anyone to tell us how much they bet in real pounds/euros).

[Jimmy2shoes]

Re: Money Management & Staking Plans Cracking read G' at the age of 43 and just like you tried many many different approaches since a gambling age of 15, i have come to the conclusion that...........Lady luck is either with you, or not. Lost count how many times i thought i had won the close photo finish, only to see i got beat, then on the days you look very closely and fling the line away, it shows up you actually fecking won. And we all have a story on starting to count the winnings, but our horse falls at the 2nd last or worse still the Last when clear. I stopped all the science and analysis and trends etc etc a long time ago, in a horse race ANYTHING can happen, SURE you have the very good horses that should win, the Frankel's - the Sprinter Sacre's etc etc BUT even the very best of trainers and jockey's will tell you, you still need Lady luck looking down on you. Sometimes it pays in just sticking with them, sometimes it don't, it's a very very funny game but so is the lotto, and just like the lotto you can only win if you have a ticket, and if you have a ticket then maybe, just maybe, your numbers might drop making you a winner.