🎓 Lesson 3: Bankroll Management

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Understand the importance of bankroll management.
• Know the different bet sizing strategies.
• Effectively size your stake using the Kelly Criterion.

🧭 Introduction

                 At the start of this course, you set aside some money. That money is your bankroll, the amount you have available to bet with.

                 As we emphasized before, your bankroll is like your lifeline in betting. Risking it all on one bet is never a good idea. This lesson is all about how to protect and grow that bankroll intelligently through bet sizing deciding how much to wager on each bet.

⚖️ Bet Sizing

                 Even with a positive expected value (EV) and the best odds, you can still lose individual bets.
Losses are part of sports betting, the key is to protect yourself from large drawdowns and survive losing streaks.

🚨 That’s where bet sizing comes in.

Here are six main bet sizing strategies used by professional punters, with their pros ✅ and cons ❌:

1️⃣ Flat Bet Sizing

With flat bet sizing, you wager the same fixed amount on every bet.

🧮 Example:

With a $1,000 bankroll, you stake $10 on each bet.

✅ Pros:

• Simple and easy to manage.
• Reduces emotional swings.

❌ Cons:

• Doesn’t maximize your advantage when you have a big edge.
• Doesn’t adjust automatically as your bankroll changes.

2️⃣ Proportional Bet Sizing

You bet a fixed percentage of your bankroll on every bet.

🧮 Example:

With a $1,000 bankroll, you stake 1% ($10) per bet.

✅ Pros:

• Scales up or down with your bankroll.
• Keeps risk consistent.

❌ Cons:

• Bets get very small after losing streaks and very large after winning streaks.
• Doesn’t maximize your edge.

3️⃣ Payout Target Bet Sizing

You define a target payout for every bet and adjust your stake to achieve that payout.

🧮 Example:

Target payout = $20 per bet

• At 2.0 odds → stake $10
• At 1.5 odds → stake $13.3
• At 2.5 odds → stake $8

✅ Pros:

• Naturally reduces stake on longshots.
• Increases stake on favorites.

❌ Cons:

• Can risk too much on short odds.
• Doesn’t account for your edge (expected value).
• ⚠️ The worst of them all. It can encourage “chasing”. Psychologically, focusing on a fixed win amount may nudge punters to keep upping stakes on favorites after losses.

4️⃣ Kelly Criterion Bet Sizing

This is a mathematical approach to find the optimal fraction of your bankroll to bet based on your edge and the odds. It’s designed to maximize long-term growth while minimizing the risk of ruin.

This strategy uses something called the Kelly Multiplier, which we’ll discuss shortly.

To use the Kelly Criterion, you’ll use the 🔗 OddsFantasy Kelly Calculator to calculate the exact stake.

🧮 Example:

From the previous lesson:

• Bet: Over 5.5 innings in Hanshin Tigers vs Hiroshima Toyo Carp
• Odds: 2.15
• Expected Value: 3.27%
• Bankroll: $3,500
• Kelly multiplier: 0.5

According to the Kelly Criterion, the optimal stake ≈ $50.

✅ Pros:

• Maximizes long-term growth.
• Adjusts stake automatically to your edge.
• Protects against overbetting.

❌ Cons:

• Requires accurate probabilities.
• Full Kelly can be aggressive and volatile.
• More complex than flat or proportional staking.

5️⃣ Confidence-Based Bet Sizing

You scale your stake based on how confident you are in your edge by adjusting the Kelly multiplier.

🔼 High confidence = higher multiplier
🔽 Low confidence = lower multiplier

💡 Pro Tip

If you’re new, start with a 0.25 Kelly multiplier.
It’s a widely accepted, low-risk approach that smooths variance.

6️⃣ Hybrid Bet Sizing

Professional punters often combine multiple strategies. Hybrid bet sizing lets you build your own custom approach based on your risk tolerance.

🧮 Example:

OddsFantasy’s internal system combines proportional staking and confidence-based sizing to recommend optimal stakes.

The proposed amount to wager on this bet based on my bankroll, the odds, expected value and confidence is $31.

🔁 Recap

                 In this lesson, you learned why bankroll management is essential and explored six bet sizing strategies. You now understand that even with good bets, poor stake sizing can wipe out your bankroll.

✅ The safest approach for beginners:

• Use a low Kelly multiplier (0.25)
• Or flat/proportional betting until you gain experience.

🔮 Next Lesson Preview

                 Knowing how to size your bets is only part of the puzzle. To improve your betting strategy and gain confidence in your results, you’ll need to track your bets.

In the next lesson, you’ll learn how to:

• Log your bets
• Analyze and review performance
• Build the data you need to refine your strategy

⏭️ Next