How Should You Split Your Bankroll Between Sportsbooks?
Bankroll management is often seen as the most important aspect of sports betting. It helps determine the amount you should wager on a certain bet, enables you to stay on track, and protects your risk of ruin.
However, a question can arise about how you should allocate the funds in your bankroll to the various sportsbooks you are using.
Ensuring that you have enough available in each account is a vital strategic advantage, necessary in the fast-paced sports betting environment and the ever-changing odds.
When beginning, divide your bankroll among the number of sportsbooks you have evenly. If your bankroll is $1000, and you have four sportsbooks, then place $250 in each account.
As you gain experience, and are tracking your bets; you will be able to identify trends and see patterns of books that often have the majority of lines that can be taken advantage of.
In these cases, you can allocate a higher percentage of your bankroll to these accounts over those that are not.
There are of course exceptions to the rules that we will explore, for example, signup bonuses and promotions that can be accessed when signing up for new books, which can affect how much you should place in the beginning to take advantage.
Different Strategies That Can Be Used To Allocate Your Bankroll
There are a variety of strategies that can be implemented to divide your bankroll between your books.
Once you factor in the different variables including your sizing of bankroll, number of books, and promotions or signup bonuses you would like to take advantage of, you may consider a few of these strategies, including:
Equal Distribution
The simplest way to distribute your bankroll across your sports books is with an equal split.
Take your bankroll, and divide it by the number of sportsbooks you want to fund.
For example, if you have two sportsbooks and your bankroll is $500, then for each book you would place $250.
This is recommended when starting, when you don’t have much data or experience on each of the books to know which you will use more often, or which have better lines on a more consistent basis.
This will allow you to take advantage of most opportunities without spreading yourself too thin.
Weighted Distribution
Though you may consider distributing your funds in a weighted fashion in the beginning, this method is generally best when you have some data for each sportsbook you want to fund.
How often do they provide promos, are they offering signup bonuses, or are they consistently providing better lines than the other books you are using?
Let’s say you have four sportsbooks in total, and after some time of betting you realize that 75% of your bets are placed on a specific sportsbook.
Now this doesn’t mean that you should focus solely on this lone sportsbook, but you may consider allocating a higher percentage of your available funds to this sportsbook.
This comes apparent particularly when using the equal distribution method, as with our example if one sportsbook is being used 75% of the time, there is no real justification to continue allocating only 25% of your available funds to this sportsbook while keeping 25% in each of the other three books when they are only offering line opportunities 25% of the time combined.
Set a Reserved Fund
This usually is in combination with one of the other strategies, however, with this, you would keep a portion of your bankroll on the sideline, outside of any book.
This can be beneficial, especially when beginning when you haven’t had the time to obtain data on how each of your chosen books performs.
This will also give you a chance, though not as optimal as having it ready inside a book if an extremely promising play becomes available, though it will be slower than having it in the book, it will be faster to deposit straight from this fund, then having to wait for a withdraw and then transfer.
Having a reserve fund will also provide the ability to open a new book if wanted more quickly, or if a promotion pops up from an existing book that you want to participate in.
Maximize Your Efficiency Between Multiple Sportsbooks With Tracking
When allocating funds from your bankroll to multiple books, it can sometimes become daunting when trying to keep track and stay efficient.
Betting across books can provide the advantage of having access to more lines which is where the true values lie.
But it makes it much more difficult to keep a handle on losses and wins, your current balance available to bet in each book.
Tracking your bets by using a tool, or a simple spreadsheet can help resolve much of this confusion, doing a lot of the leg work in keeping track, and allowing you to focus more on the bets.
Using a tool like Pikkit may be beneficial, as it is able to connect with many of the sportsbooks to automatically track the available funds in each book.
Allowing you to visually each book in a single location, rather than having to log in and view each individual account.
With fewer sportsbooks, this is probably not a large concern, but the more books that are added, the more this type of tool can help greatly.
Mistakes to Avoid When Allocating Your Bankroll
There are some critical things that a bettor should try to avoid when moving funds into your accounts, or moving the funds between accounts to put yourself in the best position.
Overextending Your Bankroll
It is important to remember that your bankroll should only contain money you are willing and able to lose without putting yourself at financial risk.
No matter how good a promotion offered, or how advantageous a betting line is, it’s not worth risking your ability to continue betting over the long run, where the true profitability opportunity comes.
A variance will always occur in sports betting, and any one bet is never guaranteed to win.
Be sure that the way you decide to allocate your bankroll is in line with your available bankroll, to allow for it to be properly managed.
This leads us to another important mistake to avoid when allocating your bankroll.
Spreading Your Bankroll Too Thin
It is generally true, that the more sportsbooks available at your disposal will be advantageous to finding the best lines available, and setting you up for the greatest opportunity of having positive expected value.
But having too many sportsbooks that can’t be properly funded by your bankroll is just as ineffective as not having enough books in the first place.
When you don’t have enough funds in a single book, there is a risk that though the opportunities may present themselves more often, you may not be able to take full advantage of them.
It is ok, especially when first starting out to only open a few books, and slowly work your way to opening new books when it makes sense.
This is also true if you are starting with a smaller bankroll.
Not Understanding Deposit and Withdrawl Rules
Every sportsbook will define its deposit and withdrawal rules independently.
It is important to understand how these work, and what is necessary for both.
Some books may have a minimum withdrawal amount, meaning if your deposit with them is under this amount it may be more difficult for you to withdraw funds out if you want to move them to another book.
Others have rollover requirements, some may only require these rollovers on bonuses/promotions, and others will have a minimum one-time rollover on any deposit.
When it comes to promotions, it is important to understand that it is typical for that rollover requirement to include both the bonus money awarded by the sportsbook and the deposit total.
For instance, if a sportsbook has a 100% match up to $200 while requiring a 10 times rollover.
In most cases, if you take full advantage of the promotion, you deposit $200 and receive the $200 bonus, your rollover requirement will be 10 times $400, or $4000.
This means that withdrawing that deposit while keeping any remaining bonus money would require you to first place $4000 worth of bets.
Remember to investigate and remember the rules each of your books has, the ensure that you are not locking yourself into a sportsbook that doesn’t provide enough opportunity from the lines they provide to justify the funds you allocate to it.
Closing Line
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to splitting your bankroll across sportsbooks.
The key is to assess your unique situation and determine what strategy works best for you right now.
Keep in mind that this isn’t set in stone.
As you gain experience and understand how each sportsbook operates, you’ll be able to refine your strategy and continue to improve.
Analyze, plan, execute, and then adjust as needed.
