The Easiest Way to Build a Sports Betting Bankroll
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Betting on sports is one of my favorite gambling activities. I’ve always been a sports fan and played for as long as I could when I was younger. I’ve made most of my money betting on boxing over the years, though I have dabbled in just about every major sport. Betting on sports is also one of the few gambling activities where you can overcome the house edge and make a profit.
One of the biggest problems with making a profit while betting on sports is if you can learn how to get an edge. And in order to make a lot of money, you need to have a large bankroll. In the first section below, I’m going to show you the numbers that explain why you need a large bankroll.
Most sports bettors don’t have $50,000 or $100,000 they can use to start betting. But there’s an easy way to build your sports betting bankroll that I’m going to show you in this article. The best news is that you can start building your bankroll using this method even if you’re not a winning bettor yet.
You can use this method to build your bankroll while you gain more experience and figure out how to win.
Why You Need a Big Bankroll When Betting on Sports
The reason you need a big bankroll as a sports bettor is because the margins are small. In order to break even against the vig, you have to win between 52% and 53% of your games. Winning sports bettors are able to win between 53% and 55% of the games they bet. These numbers are based on betting games with a point spread and a vig of 10%.
Many inexperienced sports bettors underestimate how hard it is to win on a consistent basis. I’ve seen bettors run numbers like the ones in this section assuming they can win 60% or more of their bets. This is unrealistic, and the numbers derived from this are worthless. It’s extremely hard to get to 55%, and only a few bettors can do it consistently. But at least it’s realistically possible, so here are some numbers using 55% to show why you need a large bankroll.
If you bet on 100 games every month and win 55% of your bets, you win 55 games and lose 45 games. Here are the profit numbers at several different average bet amounts.
- Betting $11 to win $10 on each game is a total amount wagered of $1,100. You don’t receive anything back on your 45 losses, and you receive $21 back on each of your 55 wins. You get your original wager of $11 back and a win of $10, for the $21 total. 55 wins times $21 is $1,155. When you subtract your total amount wagered of $1,100 from this, your profit for the month is $55.
- Betting $55 to win $50 on each game is a total of $5,500. On the 55 games you win, you receive $105 back on each game for a total of $5,775, for a profit of $275 for the month.
- Betting $110 to win $100 on each game is a total amount wagered of $11,000. Your return on 55 wins is a total of $11,550, for a profit of $550 for the month.
- Betting $220 to win $200 on each game is a total of $22,000. The return on your 55 wins is $23,100 for a profit of $1,100 on the month. And so on.
In order to make a decent amount of money betting on sports on a monthly basis, you either have to bet on more games or bet more on each game. It’s challenging to find 100 games every month you can bet on that offer value. Most games have lines that are tight enough that there isn’t much value on either side.
The amount of money you consider as decent profit depends on how much you’re able to make doing something else. Some people consider $2,750 a month decent money, and others can make more than $5,000 a month doing something other than betting on sports.
It doesn’t matter how much you need to make betting on sports; the point is that you have to risk a large amount of money in order to have a chance to make decent money.
If you can truly beat the vig, you don’t need a bankroll as big as someone who can’t beat the vig, but you still need a large amount to ride out the ups and downs. Even winning sports bettors have losing streaks.
The minimum bankroll you should have as a winning sports bettor is enough to cover all of your wagers for a month. Using the examples above, if you’re good enough to win $5,000 a month betting on 100 games, you need a bankroll of at least $100,000.
The only other thing you need to be aware of is that once you get into the area where you need to make large bets on many games, you might find it challenging to get enough money down on enough games. The easiest way to do this is live where there are many sportsbooks, but online sports betting helps.
Simple Sports Betting Bankroll System
The easiest way to build your sports betting bankroll is to add a set amount each week. Keep adding the same amount each week and your bankroll will continue growing, even if you’re still improving your skills.
Here are a couple examples using $110 a week. You can use the same easy math I use below to run the numbers using a different amount. The average sports bettor wins half of his or her bets, so I’m going to use 50% for one example and 55% for another example. I’m also using bets on 10 games every week in these examples. As you improve and your bankroll grows, you can bet on more games every week if you can find enough value to do so.
On your first week, you start with a total bankroll of $110. You make 10 bets of $11 to win $10. If you win five games and lose five, you have $105 at the end of the week. You add $110 the second week, for a new total of $215. In the second week, you can stick with betting 10 games at $11 each or you can bet on more games. You can also bet more than $11 per game. I recommend keeping your bet size down as you’re learning, because it helps your bankroll grow faster.
Here’s how much your bankroll grows to at the end of a year if you stick with 10 bets of $11 each every week and win 50% of your games. Your total contribution to your bankroll is $5,720, you bet on 520 games and win 260 of them. Even though you don’t win enough to overcome the vig, you still end the year with a bankroll of $5,460.
Now, let’s look at what happens using the same numbers when you win 55% of your games. You still risk $5,720 on the year, but your return is now $6,006. And you’re still adding $110 every week in addition to your profits, so your bankroll grows faster.
Earlier, I suggested keeping your average bet size low while you learn how to be a winning sports bettor. Once you start winning close to 55% of your bets, you need to start ramping up your bet size. Assume you end the first year with $6,000. Instead of betting $11 to win $10 on 10 games each week, now you bet $33 to win $30.
Your total amount bet over the course of the second year is $17,160 and your return on this at 55% is $18,018. In addition, you add another $5,720 to your bankroll through your regular contribution every week. This gives you a total bankroll of almost $24,000 to start your third year.
Keep increasing your average bet size as your bankroll grows, and you can build a large sports betting bankroll in just a few years. The keys are to make consistent additions to your bankroll and continue improving your skills.
Conclusion
I know this isn’t a sexy way to build a sports betting bankroll, but it’s a guaranteed way to grow it while you learn how to win. Even if you struggle to become an overall winner, your bankroll keeps growing. Once you start winning more games, your bankroll grows even faster.
While it’s hard to believe, you can grow your bankroll to over $100,000 in five years or less with only $110 a week if you can learn how to win 55% of your bets. This requires an aggressive average bet strategy, but you can do it without a large risk of going broke.
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