Money Management is just as important as picking winners......In fact, without both you are destined to fail. The single biggest reason why sports betters fail is because of the lack of proper money management. Just like a good business plan, you must have a plan for betting on sporting events.

All plans must start with a bankroll, defined as the amount of money that you have put aside to risk on sports wagering.....Your bankroll does not have to be the amount of money that you have on hand, just the amount that you can comfortably lose without effecting your lifestyle. For the sake of this conversation we are going to use $5,000.....Next we will select a unit wager...This may cause some alarm in many of you, but we use 2% of our bankroll as a unit wager...$5000x.02=$100.....$100. would be a 1 unit play.....Wagering on sports is very similar to a stock on Wall Street. Your bankroll is going to go up and down, so we must be able to weather the storms and a 2% wager allows us to do that.



As your bankroll increases, there is a need to increase the amounts of each unit wager. We use 20% increments or 10 units...10x.02=20%. Simply put, using the $5000. starting figure, one would increase his unit play to $120 after he won 10 units. His bankroll would be $6000. Therefore$6000x.02=$120. Your wagers would then stay at $120 until you hit the next level or dipped back down to the $5000 mark. A slip down would result in a $100 bet, while an increase to the next level,($120x10 units=$1200+6000=$7200)would result in a $150 bet.($7200x.02=$144 or rounded to $150.)Your bet size is increasing but your overall risk remains the same. By increasing your bet size at predetermined levels without increasing your risk you can safely build a nice nest egg. Lets look at the results of a person who started with $5000 and used this system. They are quite impressive and might shock some of you.


Units........Unit Bet........Bankroll
0............$100............$5000
+10..........$120............$6000
+20..........$150............$7200
+30..........$180............$8700
+40..........$210............$10500
+50..........$260............$12600
+60..........$310............$15100
+70..........$370............$18200

At plus 70 for the year you are still betting just 2% of your total bankroll. Your risk is the same as you started. You are simply taking advantage of an increasing bankroll. The key is the predetermined levels of increase.
 

 If you follow these guidelines you will earn more money then you’ve ever won in sports wagering. Only 2 to 3% of people who wager on sports are long term winners. For the most part it’s not because the losers are bad handicappers, or using poor handicapping sources. IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO CONCEPT OF WHAT A BANKROLL IS, ANY RESPECT FOR IT, OR HOW TO USE IT. If you are interested in maximizing your earnings and minimizing your losses using a disciplined, unemotional system, then read on…if not, do everyone a favor, especially yourself, and find yourself a hobby other than sports investing. There are three factors to successful sports investing: 1. Handicapping the games proficiently. 2. “Shopping lines” to get the best value. 3. Employing a disciplined money management program. You can do above-average with the first two but fail (financially) if you do not manage your money correctly. But you will never do poor, financially if you successfully manage your bankroll. One of the most difficult things to do is follow instructions. If you are able to achieve the PATIENCE and DISCIPLINE to follow these rules you will become more financially successful than you have in the past. If you aren’t willing to follow instructions or lack patience, read no further. For those of you who have the discipline, prepare to be more successfully wagering than ever before. STEP 1 – DEFINE YOUR BANKROLL. This is a sum which, if you were to lose the entire amount, would not alter your current chosen lifestyle. Use a separate bankroll for each sport (for example, College and Pro Football use separate bankrolls). Don’t be embarrassed if this amount is small. With proper discipline and money management it will grow large! STEP 2 – (A) WAGER A CONSTANT PRE-DETERMINED PERCENTAGE OF YOUR BANKROLL IN EACH GAME. For example: 3* - 3%, 5* - 5%. (B) NEVER WAGER MORE THAN 5 GAMES PER BETTING PERIOD. This insures that never more than 25% of your bankroll is exposed at a given time. STEP 3 – CONTINUE TO WAGER A PERCENTAGE OF YOUR ORIGINAL BANKROLL PER PLAY UNTIL YOUR CURRENT BANKROLL EITHER INCREASES 50% OR DECREASES 50%. STEP 4 – If your bankroll decreases 50%, reduce your wager 50% until your bankroll returns to its original level. THIS IS IMPORTANT because it keeps you from “chasing” during a cold streak. “Chasing” is the most common mistake of the average player and the surest way to “tap out”. By reducing your wager 50% it guarantees you to stay in action until you have either regained your momentum or lost 30 units (zero bankroll) in which case you definitely need a new handicapper or avocation. The only sure thing to send you to the poor house sooner is playing parlays or teasers. They are a -Bookies Dream-. You deserve to lose every cent you bet if you play them. “Square”, “Sucker”, and “Loser” are too kind to describe your mentality if you play parlays or teasers. STEP 5 – ON THE POSITIVE SIDE. Let’s assume that good handicapping skills have ballooned your bankroll by 50%. Step to the next window and increase your wager by 50%. (For example, if you had been wagering $100/game, increase your wager to $150/game). Should your winning ways continue and your original bankroll doubles, you would then wager twice your original amount (now $200 in our example). Continue to increase your wager 50% with every 50% increase in your bankroll, STEP 6 – TAKING PROFITS AFTER LOSING STREAKS! This thinking is taken directly from the Triple- Stack Method. Anytime you have more than doubled your original bankroll, then lose back 1/3 of your bankroll, take profits and return to your original bankroll. (Example: Your original $1000 bankroll has grown to $2400. But a losing streak reduces it to $1600. The $800 difference from your high point represents a loss of 1/3 of your bankroll. But the $1600 in your bankroll still represents $600 of profit. Take that $600 profit and return to your original bankroll of $1000). You’ve cut short a losing streak and taken profits. STEP 7 – TAKING PROFITS AFTER WINNING STREAKS. During the course of the season we all are subject to winning streaks which are mostly the result of a number of close point spread wins. It’s at these times that we feel like we’ll never have another losing day! WRONG! So, I’ve devised a method to lock in profits from these great times. It’s based on years of tracking winning streaks by length of streak and percentage of streak. The rules are as follows: Rule #1 – TAKE PROFITS from a current winning streak any time you have won 80% or more of your Most recent 20 plays (16-4 or better). You are “unconscious” if you’ve done this. Take the Profit and return to your bankroll level before the 20th game hot streak began. Rule #2 – In a similar way, TAKE PROFITS any time you have won 75% or more of your most recent 30 plays (23-7 or better). You are only “semi- conscious” if you’ve done this. Again, take the profits and return to your bankroll level before the 30 game streak began. By having the discipline to follow these directions you’ll find yourself increasing your wealth in winning seasons and saving losses in tough times. WHAT YOU SAVE IS WHAT YOU EARN! This message originated with Steve Turner of Texas Sports Wire, one of the oldest and most respected handicappers in the business. I might also add one of the most honest, and that's from personal experience.

Don't get caught up in the moment. It's very exciting to have action on every game on the tube. However, are you doing this for entertainment purposes only, or are you doing this to earn extra or full time income?? If your doing this as entertainment and can afford to have action on every game, then by all means, enjoy it. But, me personally, I see the Tournaments as a prime time to find weaknesses in the vegas line. A wise old man told me once.. "Vegas cannot put 25 games up and nail everyone....study the lines and find your niche of sniffing out mistakes...they are there, but can you see them....that is the art." Which carries me to Tip 2.

What I mean by situational plays, is be very selective and play ONLY the games you handicap, in which ever form you choose, and play the only ones that earn the right to become an investment. There is no difference in studying the numbers in Wall Street and studying them here. No matter what you say, or how you look at it, bottom line is, they are still just numbers, period. When you have more numbers to go through, the more mistakes your going to find. That's just how the law of numbers works. And there is absolutely nothing you, nor I can do about this. I have spent literally 10+ years studying and learning things the hard way. And probably paid just as much as a student would spend to attend a University for 4 years. But suppose you look at this from a different angle. What's done is done, now spend the next 10 years applying what you have learned and be a Winner for the next ten years. Oh and one other thing, always remember where you came from. There are many, many people out there who get burned and lose more than they can handle and there is simply no reason to do that. It's quite stressful and our lives are already confusing enough than adding this to your minds. It certainly makes sleeping a tough thing to do. So, my advice from experience, simply don't allow yourself to get into this situation. Which brings me to the final tip for now...

Whatever method you choose for handicapping and as a wagering system, follow it diligently. Make yourself a success plan and follow it. On thing I do encorporate into my system is I add a slot in my plan to allow up to 5 plays on any given day that I choose from other Think  win members. That's what were here for, isn't it?? I mean if we don't share our knowledge, how in the world are we going to learn anything else. Kind of like the sponge theory of the brain being like a sponge. You see, a sponge can only hold so much before it simply won't gather anymore liquid. Therefore, if we don't share what we have learned with our fellow men and women, how do we expect to be able to absorb more information and continue to learn? This is a great place to share information....a beautiful model to use as a tool... that's what it is. Let me ask you something, if you paid 100 bucks for a tool and bought this tool for a specific reason....would you use it? Of course you would, why else would you have bought it? All of these things are quite simple, but it requires a strong minded person to not give into the temptations that lead to lessons learned, but learning them in a way that is simply not necessary at this time in history.
The technological advancements we are witnessing is only the beginning. I really don't believe we've scratched the surface yet. Use these tools for your benefit and use them to become more intelligent and excel your learning and wealth. Not only will you become more intelligent, but I truly believe if you apply these ideas and principles, you'll come out with a fat bank acct and a big ol' possom eatin' grin on your face.