Bank Roll - advice wanted please

[Gnorman]

Hi, not sure if this belongs in this forum, if not sorry. For the first time this season my bankroll will be being used for poker as well as football bets and I expect it to fluctuate much more because of this. So I am wondering what kind of stakes I should be using. My football bets are generally singles or doubles and I don't go chasing huge odds. A small priced winner is better than a large priced loser imo. If I stick to level stakes (a fiver, for arguments sake) and I am on a good roll after a few months then winning 10 - 15 quid is not going to seem very exciting. I am thinking of making my stake a precentage of my total bank roll, that way my stakes rise or fall in proortion, but what is a sensible %? I average 2 or 3 bets per week and was thinking of making my stake 10% of my bankroll, is this too high? I don't want to have to keep topping up my bankroll if I can help it (wishful thinking eh! ) Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Good luck one and all for the coming season. Regards, Gnorman

[mrmuzeman]

Re: Bank Roll - advice wanted please A generally perceived notion is that you shouldnt bet any more than 5% of your roll on any 1 thing. So I would suggest 5% :ok

[spreadman]

Re: Bank Roll - advice wanted please :welcome Gnorman, if you find that your 'hit' rate is such that you are confident of avoiding a losing bet run of less than 5 bets, then you could increase your % stake of your betting bank to 10%, and even consider 15%, of available bank, as the actual stake value would still decrease proportionately if you were unfortunate to hit a long losing run. However, this must be your decision based upon performance, confidence and ability. A system that you can confidently claim will never have consecutive losses of 5 or more bets should be shared with the world, as I have yet to discover one. :\ Good luck!

[slapdash]

Re: Bank Roll - advice wanted please It depends how good you are. There's a formula (the "Kelly" formula) that gives the best percentage to bet. I.e., the amount that will make your bankroll grow fastest in the long run. Take your expected yield (the profit you expect the bet to make on average as a percentage of the stake) and divide by the odds (in British format such as 2/1 or 33/1). So for example if you are placing a bet at 5/2 (or 2.5/1) and your expected yield is 10% (which would be a pretty good yield for a bet at these odds), you take 10% and divide by 2.5 to get 4%. So the best percentage to bet would be 4% of your bank. Of course, you need to know your expected yield to apply the formula accurately, and this is not easy to judge. It's best to be a bit conservative in estimating it. To bet more than about 2% at odds around 5/2 I'd have to be extremely confident that it was a very good value bet.

[Gnorman]

Re: Bank Roll - advice wanted please Thanks for the replies. Regards, Gnorman