How Bankroll Management Extends Your Gambling Enjoyment

In many aspects of your life, you exercise a form of budgeting, whether you realise it or not. For example, you know your monthly household income, and you understand your monthly expenses, so any additional spending is weighed up against your available cash or savings. If you have £700 left for spending each month, you wouldn’t go out one day and buy a nice painting for £600, leaving yourself just £100 to last the rest of the month.

Yet when it comes to online gambling, be it at casinos, online poker or betting on sports, many people throw their good financial commons sense to one side. They might bet too much on a game without any thought about how that impacts their long-term ability to play at the same stakes – or play at all.

This is where what we call bankroll management is so important. In this article, we introduce you to the concept of bankroll management and why it is so crucial. And we’ll give you some examples so that you can apply them in a responsible way to your own online gambling entertainment.

Betting must always be done responsibly, and this will be solid advice about betting the right amount for your circumstances. With that being said, always reflect on your gambling, and stop if you think you are overdoing it. Ensure that when you play at online casinos, they are licensed from the UK Gambling Commission and, like STS Casino, promote responsible gaming.

What is Bankroll Management?

While it is what it says on the tin – managing your bankroll – you must first work out what your bankroll is. A big mistake for novices is to assume that whatever cash you have available is your gambling bankroll. This is not true. Instead, you must consider what cash you have available that you are willing to bet with as your bankroll.

So, in the scenario we mentioned earlier, where the person has £700 a month available after monthly bills, that does not mean they have £700 ready to gamble with. If they lost it, they would have no money at all. Instead, that person might decide to have a gambling bankroll of £200 – and stop if they lose it all. In this way, they will still have £500 to live on for the month.

Now we have established our budget put aside for gambling is £200, we must commit to this being a non-negotiable figure. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, so we must do what we can to protect it. That means gambling sensibly and is where the ‘management’ of bankroll management comes in.

Betting Small Percentages

If you have £200 in your bankroll, you should not overstretch yourself on any single bet. Imagine opening up a roulette table and putting your full £200 on black? Sure, you might hit black and double your bankroll to £400 at a stroke. But consider what happens if the number is red? You lose your entire bankroll in seconds and have no money remaining to play with, perhaps for another month.

You lose your bankroll and any enjoyment that you should get from your online gambling activities. It’s meant to be fun, after all.

The answer is to only ever put a small percentage of your current bankroll on any particular bet or poker game.

Experts largely agree with the amount you should risk to conform with solid bankroll management, and it might surprise you. It’s around 3%.

That might seem like a tiny amount, but with our simple example, you can see that this gives you an enormous scope for swings that don’t go in your favour. Lose ten or even 30 bets in a row, and you won’t lose your shirt.

Constantly Adjust your Bankroll

Your available bankroll is not fixed because it will go up or down as you win or lose any given session. With this in mind, you must adjust your betting amounts accordingly.

Your bankroll is higher after a winning session, so the next time you play, and remember that most UK casinos are open again, you can bet more since 3% of the larger bankroll means a bigger bet is available. On the flip side, if you have a losing session, your bankroll shrinks, so your bet sizing must be lower, too.

Adjusting in this way means you shouldn’t lose your roll. If it goes down, so does your bet sizing to not be at risk of busting.

Example of winning

Say you start with that £200 bankroll. Betting only 3% at a time means placing bets in the casino of £6 a time. – or wagering only £6 on a football bet or registering for a £6 online poker tournament.

If you have a great £100 winning session, your bankroll is now £300. This means that next time you sit down to play, you can bet 3% of £300, which is £9 a time. You risk losing the same proportion of your bankroll with any game, but equally, your ability to increase your roll exponentially is plain to see.

What about losing sessions?

This, of course, is the downside of any form of gambling. You can lose. If you endured a losing session from your £200 roll – let’s say you lost £50 and now have only £150 – your stake levels must drop accordingly. Next time you play, you must bet no more than £4.50 each time.

Keep on losing, then keep adjusting down your bet amounts. In this way, it is going to extend your gaming. If you were down to just £20, then that means stakes of just 60p (remember, it’s 3%), which you can do at many online casinos and most sports betting sites.

Stick with it because if you go back on a winning run, it means you can move your stake limit back up again.

Bankroll Mistakes to Avoid

The most obvious mistake is ignoring your own bankroll management rules. Yes, it’s frustrating when you have a losing session, but chasing those losses will end in disaster more often than not. If you start with £200 and somehow drop to £50, don’t go “gung-ho” and bet £50 on one roulette spin in the hope of winning your money back. Work your way up sensibly.

A second issue is not properly establishing your gambling bankroll in the first place. Imagine walking into the casino with £50 cash in your pocket. Some people might assume it’s fine to bet this amount of cash in the evening since that’s what they have available. But if there’s only another £250 in the bank, it’s unlikely £50 is what you can afford with your bankroll to spend on one session.

Play according to available gambling funds, and you should manage to avoid busting. Your playing time will be extended, and you will get a lot more fun from your gambling entertainment.

Responsible bankroll management promotes more responsible gambling and will help you be constantly aware of how much you are spending and how exposed that leaves your finances.