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If you have been following our Betting School series, covering a range of topics on sports betting, you’re on the way to being a sharp bettor!
One of the key areas we haven’t overlooked is staking plans, which are a really important part of any successful betting strategy.
Just having a value edge on the markets isn’t a guarantee of success.
To maximise your chances of being profitable and, most importantly, not losing your bankroll, you have to make sure you are staking sensibly.
A Simple Betting Bank Example
Let’s think of a hypothetical example.
You discover that a long-lost uncle has left you £1,000 in his will, with the unusual condition that it can only be used for sports betting. Go with me here…
What would you do with it?
A) Put the entire £1,000 on a short-priced favourite.
B) Bet £500 on an even-money selection, knowing you still have another £500 if it loses.
C) Divide the £1,000 into smaller units and only risk a small proportion of the bank on each bet.
Hopefully, you picked C.
Option A could wipe out the entire bank with one losing bet, while option B still exposes half of it on a single result.
Dividing your bank into points gives you much more room to cope with losing runs and the normal variance that comes with betting.
How Betting Points Work
Rather than thinking purely in pounds, many bettors divide their betting bank into a number of points.
For example, if you had a £1,000 bank divided into 50 points, one point would be worth:
£1,000 ÷ 50 = £20
A standard one point bet would therefore risk £20, or 2% of the starting bank.
The number of points you use should reflect the type of bets you’re placing and the level of variance you expect. Strategies targeting bigger odds and lower strike rates will generally need more room for losing runs than strategies based around shorter-priced selections.
You can also use fractions of a point where appropriate rather than treating every bet the same.
For example, this weekend, you might decide to:
Bet Arsenal at 2.00 for 1 point (£20.00)
Bet Saka to be First Goalscorer for 0.25 points (£5.00)
It’s far from the glamorous ‘get rich quick’ type of marketing you see from many betting services, but this is the reality for many professional gamblers, who will see slow but steady growth of their bankrolls that will add up over time.
There are also different staking plans you can use, which all have advantages and disadvantages.
Examples of Staking Plans
1) Flat Staking
This is where you would bet the same amount, regardless of the odds you are taking.
If you generally bet at odds that are within a short range of each other, then it can work very well.
However, if you are staking the same amount on selections at odds of 10/1 as you are on evens shots, then you might face some large drawdowns in your bank before you notice any profits coming through.
The flat staking plans can be a useful way to track some of your strategies and record data.
2) Kelly Criterion
This staking system aims to calculate how much you should bet based on the edge you have and your available bankroll.
In theory, this is a highly effective way to maximise your gains.
However, full Kelly staking can produce substantial swings, particularly if your estimate of the true probably is inaccurate. Many will reduce their Kelly stakes to ¼ or less of what is advised in the formula.
It can also be complicated to calculate and add additional time to your betting admin, which can also put some people off.
3) Stake To Win
This is one of the staking plans that I favour the most.
Stake To Win is a simpler form of variable staking where the stake changes according to the odds, with the aim of winning the same amount from each successful bet.
For example, you could bet however much to win £100.00.
Bet on – Arsenal to win at 2.00 for 1 point (£100.00) to win £100.00
Bet on – Havertz First Goalscorer at 11.00 for 0.1 points (£10.00) to win £100.00
This can take some added time if you are working it out manually, and bookies might pick up on your non-rounded stake sizes; however, it’s still a useful guide and an effective way to manage your risk.
4) Martingale Staking
Originating on the roulette tables, this classic staking strategy is designed to recover previous losses by increasing the stake after each losing bet.
It sounds appealing on the surface, but you could very quickly run into a lot of trouble with a few losses. You would need a large bankroll to cover the event of a few losses in a row, and you may face maximum staking restrictions on some markets where you simply cannot bet the amount needed to recover the last loss.
It’s also a strategy that’s only really simple to follow on 50/50 evens selections (hence its origins in roulette), as the risk and potential liabilities are much higher on either shorter or longer odds selections.
For that reason, it isn’t a staking approach I would recommend for sports betting.
Conclusion
A good staking plan won’t turn losing bets into winning ones, but it can make a huge difference to how well your betting bank survives the inevitable ups and downs.
There is no single method that will be best for everyone. The right approach depends on the markets you bet on, the odds you typically take the level of variance involved and how confident you are that your strategy genuinely has an edge. If you want to understand that side of things in more detail, take a look at our guide to variance in sports betting.
A few things are worth remembering:
Staking isn’t the most glamorous part of sports betting, but protecting your betting bank should always come before trying to maximise your profits.
