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 I know a
little about money management, as I’ve been in the
investment business for many years. I've been a
Principal, a Registered Advisor and a top producer in the
financial services field; and there's an element of
stocks and bonds that can be related to sports gaming,
if you analyze deeply enough. Clearly, one of the most
important components to investing, or sports gaming, and
wagering, is the issue with money management. Whether
it’s Black Jack or Poker, picking a football team to win, or mutual funds
and stocks and bonds, it’s fairly
common sense that a sound, disciplined approach, need be in
place if you’re going to be successful. (When
you've got stress going on in the real world, I'd
suggest not going to the Sport's Book at this
time. You really need to be picking winners and
managing money with a clear mind. Trouble in the
real world is not the time to be making money
decisions).
Keep in mind, while I can help a client figure out a
portfolio, I also know how it feels to get that 'juice' before a
big game, with dollars riding at the sports book. But
let me remind you that the winners of this skill and
game are the players that don’t over-react, nor become
emotional, or do the most common mistake a maverick
gambler can do: “chase”
the bet". This skill is really better served for the even
keel, and, rational player, who might for example, step
back, and assess, stick to a solid game-plan, and not rush
their next decision, often out of dismay, even anger. It may indeed be very much
exciting, or a thrill, to “chase” down a Sunday
evening, to “get back to even”, but lets face it; this
is the stuff that can get you “killed”. No analysis
really needed with this fine fault,
but to "chase down" anything related to money decisions,
well, usually turns out very, very bad. You should never
do that when you're dealing with your financial
portfolio, so why apply that to a decision involving
anything else that involves money, like sports gaming?
A sports
player actually breaks even in sports like football, at
52.4 percent, not the 55 that many gamers might think.
That would be calculated at 11-10 odds. How’s that?
Simple. If you have 11 games right, 10 wrong, then
that's 11 games divided by the total of 21, with the result
being 52.4. Obviously, anything better than
that will make you a profit. (Many gamers assume 55
winning picks is the key, as 55 would you get you 10
more winners than losers over 100 games wagered. But remember, the house
cut, or (juice), only goes to bets that lose.
So, for illustration purposes, if you tried to win 100
dollars a game over 100 games played, you'd have to place 110 dollars per
bet(10 percent, or juice to the house, is 10 dollars per
bet), on every game, and if you hit 55 games correctly,
you'd lose 45, for a net 10 game advantage. The 45
losses would result in an extra $450 dollars having to
be taken away from the net 10 games profit to cover the
house (losses times 10 percent to the house),
but you'd actually still have $550 in your pocket as net
profit.)
My point here, is that obviously, this is
better than a break-even figure. You don't
necessarily have to be that good to win in sports
gaming.
So, how
can this help you in your own personal money management
with sports gaming? Sports gaming can still be a
lot tougher than you might think. To have a successful season,
again you'll have to
hit better than 52.4 percent, but the average gamer,
according to different sources, hits somewhere between
45-48 percent. This is worse than simply by chance,
or flipping coin when trying to figure out winners? If your betting style is
all over the place, and you're “chasing” a dwindling success
pattern, then this is simply going to lead you to disaster.
So, your best chance of success is to really stick to a
sound disciplined money-management system, calculate your risk on a
select few games per session, and find enough
information from sources like EZ Sports Winners, to help advise you on those
decisions. You'll increase your chance of success many
times over. If you end up trying to do
your own analysis, and you find a zillion games you'd
like to be involved in, well, this is a red-flag, and you'll do yourself a
big favor the next time you go to the sports book, take a
big step back, and gather yourself. Too many games or contests considered can
get you hurt quickly in this business!
You can
limit a disaster by creating a sound investment and money-management plan
that begins with arriving at a calculated amount of what
any investor, would like to
risk for his entire investment, and for our purpose, over
the course of a year or season for our sports player.
Break that down to a per-week basis, then per-game, you
can then arrive at an approximate amount to play on any
given contest. A great way to do this is to figure
the largest amount of money you'd play on any one game,
then wager accordingly. A rule of thumb here is to figure
out your total bank-roll you'd like to limit yourself to
for the entire season, and multiply this amount by 2%. This number gives
you a decent top-game-play estimate. If your total
bankroll is going to be $50,000 for example, then in this case, you're
looking at a $1,000 ($50,000 time 2%, or .02). For
further strategy, a sports player could decide on the
strength of each play, and employ a rating system, such
as the one offered by EZ Sports Winners, to decide an
amount to wager on any given play. (EZSW employs a
1-10* game rating, with 10 being the best. For every
rating number, you should incorporate 50 units, unless
otherwise noted). This is suggested play only, and you will
have to arrive at the dollar unit you'd like to place on
each unit. For further explanation, visit our EZSW system page:
http://www.ezsportswinners.com/ezsw_system.htm.)
This plan will create a sound money-management strategy
that will help keep you out of trouble. When you
do win, a great way
to apply that to an increased wager is to take half your
winnings and put them away in reserve, using the other
half spread out on an average per-game basis, divided up
by
how many additional week-ends you decide you want to
play. For example, lets say you end up the
week-end with a $10,000 dollar profit. And you
have 14 weeks left in the NFL season. You'd put
$5000 away in reserve, and the other $5000 could be added
to a week-end basis, averaged out over 14 weeks.
That's roughly $350 dollars a weekend, maybe $50 to $100
dollars a game over the course of the rest of the season.
This will help manage your decisions when are you
winning, rather than "doubling-up" on any single play,
or losing your winnings on any one decision.
While this doesn't seem exciting, this discipline will
help ensure your best chance of success!
With that
said, how can we truly protect against the downside? Well,
let’s face it, there’s a risk no matter what kind
investment, and sports gaming is no different. We
can however, put stop-losses in place, to protect a
major landslide. Remember, any
investment, to make a profit, engages a certain amount
of risk. Any significant return on your money has
everything to do with the amount of risk you'd want to
take. If you want absolutely no risk, forget sports
gambling. Put it in the bank. In fact, don’t even touch
a mutual fund. Put it in a savings
account at the bank, quite seriously. Remember too though,
and for illustration purposes here, you in fact get little return
in exchange for the low risk, and your 'real' return
is even less. Take out the taxes on your low guaranteed rate, as well as the amount of inflation, and your
dollar can be in fact losing value over time in various
instances. And of course, your time frame is
very important on figuring your risk tolerance.
Many people of course need the stability of their money,
and this would of course make a lot of sense for a
retired person, or for people with a short-term
situation, such as monthly budget dollars. The
"return" isn't your goal here, as stability is your main
concern. Obviously, sport-gaming isn't the channel
for these kinds of dollars. The sports-bettor is
obviously looking for something different.
What we
have at the other end of the spectrum of course is the sports investment, or
sport bet. It's at the most extreme in terms of risk and
reward, and you're going to have to understand this, if
your goal is to try and win, rather than just enjoy
simple recreation (although there's nothing wrong with
this of course, if that's your goal). But,
It's not for the feint of heart.
It's a rapid result, with the only money used in this
recreation being you luxury money, or the money you
could easily afford to lose. This is a very
serious note I might add. All the more reason to
have a sound plan. I implore you to have a
sound gaming strategy, a solid money-management system, and a
discipline, to stick to your plan rather than rush judgment, to help
keep you from making irrational and emotional decisions.
This will ultimately serve you for the most optimum chance of
success.
Bottom
line, though, a more practical way of establishing your
working bankroll each season is to simply ask yourself
how much you can afford to lose in a worst case scenario
and use that amount as your working bankroll. Maybe this
amount increases as you put some winnings away, which is
very important, but this would of course help you stop a
total disaster in any given session.
Good
luck!
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