Bank roll management is one of it not the most important parts of being a winning punter, I recently saw on twitter someone ask a tipster what he recommended as a start bank, his reply was I’ve no idea, I’m sorry but if the tipster as no idea then how the hell are you suppose to know, I was literally flabbergasted at the response. Tipsters with mixed stakes, no idea about start banks and tipping short prices I just don’t get how they have customers all those are RED flags to me to stay well away. Over the next few weeks I’m going to be doing a series of topics from my point of view, how over the last 30+ years I’ve developed my strategy, so if you have a topic you want talked about as openly as I can, then please get in touch with me at thehappypunter33@gmail.com, anything from buying a betting at 18 years old to biggest winning days or worst losing days, favourite horses, favourite races, or race types, why I only bet in all aged h’caps to methods and ideas going forward.
I’m starting with betting banks & bank roll management as It’s one of the most popular questions I get asked, about how much a starting bank should be and how to manage your bank roll. My advice since I started tipping on twitter nearly 8 years ago is to have a 100pt starting bank not a theoretical one but an actual one. Your betting bank should be kept separate from all other funds and used exclusively for your betting. So if your bank is £1000 to start with then your 1pt should equal £10 that gives you 100pts, now in all the 8 years I have been doing this no matter where or when you started you won’t have bust that bank at any point, that’s an important factor(we have gone close a few times). What you need to do is act like that £1000 has gone so you don’t get too emotional to each and every runner as that’s not how this works. We all get frustrated when ones that should win don’t or get mugged for a place but in the over round we get luck that goes our way as well. What is important is me hitting the required strike rates of winners and placed runners because that is what guarantees we will win in the long term. When I say long term I don’t mean a month or two I’m talking a minimum of a year, so when people sign up to the week-long trials and quit because we don’t have a winner they are missing the point. The trails are there so you can see what I do and if it’s for you as not everyone likes backing the bigger priced selections. The point of the 100pt bank is so if you join on a downward trajectory you should never bottom out. The idea being we grow your bank incrementally and as the bank grows so does your confidence in the system and methods and the less you worry about losing runs. I’ve long said no matter who you follow if they have a proven record of P/L then NEVER start following them during a good run as you have missed the best part and are likely to begin near the start of a downward period, conversely if you join during a downward stretch you have missed a lot of the negative draw down so are more likely to increase your bank in the beginning. Most gamblers see it the other way round and jump on board when a tipster is hot plus they want instant returns and that £10000 winning multiple again you’ll never get that following me as that’s not what I’m trying to do. We start with a 100pt bank in this case £1000 so we play at £10 per point so our bets are £10ew singles only at the best price we can get and best placed terms we can get. Another point most people don’t understand is the majority around 80-85% of my profit comes from the placed runners, winners are nice and do boost the overall profit as well as boost confidence but its the 3rds and 4th that make the difference. Now from over 10000 selections in the last 7-8 years I hit roughly a winner every 15 selections and a placed runner every 3.3 selections, if I hit these figures we will make money that’s a fact, the more off I am the more we lose the more I beat those figures, especially the win S/R the more we’ll win. The main reason I put my bets on the night before wasn’t just because of BOG(which now is on day of races except for the odd bookie) but for me once I have placed my bets those bets are forgotten about and that’s where discipline takes over, on the day of the races I watch them but don’t bet anything as chasing and extra’s here and there add up. If I have 5 selections and all 5 lose so I’ve lost 10pts then so be it I move on to the next day. So we’ve started with our 100pt bank at £10ew singles we have a 20/1 winner and return 27pts (£270) a profit of 25pts that goes in to the bank so we now have £1250 (125pts) in the bank we don’t bet more we stick to the £10 ew singles until our bank has 200pts (£2000) once we have reached that target we can reassess. We now have our initial £1000 plus £1000 profit so we can go to £12.50 per point so £12.50ew singles but our bank of £2000 gives us 160pts worth of bets baring in mind we have never lost a bank of 100pts we now have a huge buffer zone. We play at 12.50 pp until we win another 100pts which is £1250 which now gives us a betting bank of £3250 so we can go to £15 pp which gives us a betting bank of 216.67pts. We repeat the process until we have won another 100pts which is £1500 now giving us a bank of £4750 so again increase to £17.50pp now are bank is worth 271pts. Now we are at the stage where we can start making withdrawals from our betting bank as we started with 100pts we now have 271pts to our increased stakes so if you took out your original £1000 investment you still have a bank of £3750 which at £17.50pp is a bank of 214pts. So you see this is why losing runs never bother me as I’ve been betting like this for years with a controlled disciplined betting bank it removes the stress and anxiety about losers. Yes the bank drops off and losing runs aren’t ideal but they are unavoidable and just part of the process but as you can see the more you stick with it the better the bank looks and the more confidence it gives you. Now this is also where it is vital you track your own P/L as you increase the stakes when your bank reaches the 100pts profit not when mine does as we all get differing prices and placed terms so it is vital you maintain your own by tracking every bet you place. Obviously it helps to have numerous accounts with numerous bookmakers as one firm isn’t sufficient to get the various odds and terms as we are finding out this month the extra placed runners are vital, other months when winners are flying in then placed terms aren’t so vital as getting the best odds you can but it’s about being smart and going with how the current form is.
Just to highlight the betting bank method if you started on April 1st 2018 when I set up the happypunter.com you’d look like this now…
Start £1000 100pts
1st 100pts £10pp bank now £2000
2nd 100pts £12.50pp bank now £3250
3rd 100pts £15pp bank now £4750
4th 100pts £17.50pp bank now £6500
5th 100pts £20pp bank now £8500
6th 100pts £22.50pp bank now £10750
7th 100pts £25pp x11pts bank now £11025
so using a strict bank roll method in just over 2 years for a starting bank of £1000 and just £10pp you would now have made over £10000 profit and those losing runs wouldn’t be of any concern to you.Now that’s for the 611pts we are up since April 1st 2018 imagine what you would be betting in and the profits you would be making if you had been doing the same thing since March 1st 2013 when I first started this, that’s 2375pts and it could be so much more as we have had 2x 80/1 winners in that time but both were recorded at the much more achievable odds of 16/1 & 40/1 members may well remember them both Hepijeu at Uttoxeter and Love Your Work at Salisbury thats 120pts of unrecorded profits.
In answer to the above question you’d be betting at £67.50 pp with a bank of £92562.50 which is a bank of 1371pts now do you see why I never ever worry about losing runs as that’s how I’ve been doing it for the last 20+ years. The obvious concern worry is about getting bets on and again you need to be smart how you do it and that’s another subject I will tackle later on.Someone once said to me when talking about the bank roll management it’s all very good and well in theory, my reply is it’s even better in practice. Yes you need to be disciplined, yes you need to be very strict with what you bet but that’s the point this is a business to me so I treat it like anyone else would if they owned a business, profit margins matter as do getting the right price, if i see one we have backed has drifted and I have the option to cash out for a small loss and re-back at the better odds because I win more then that’s exactly what I’ll do it’s not an inconvenience its good business.
Good Luck
Gary