A Guide to Casino Bankroll Management

Why You Need to Use Bankroll Management

Bankroll management is the process by which you only ever risk a set amount of your overall gambling funds, thus ensuring that you always have some money left over, which can be used to play another day. Imagine it using a simple 50/50 model, where you have a 50% chance of winning, and a 50% chance of losing. If you place your entire bankroll on the line on one turn of a card, you could conceivably lose everything. If you only put, for example, 5% of your bankroll on the line though, a loss wouldn't be disastrous. By spreading the risk, you take away much of the luck associated with gambling, and can instead let probability come into play.

The overall benefits of using bankroll management include:

• Being able to play for longer with less risk - by managing your spend to never exceed a certain percentage you can ensure that you always have money set aside to cover your losses while you wait for your winning streak
• You can make smarter gambling decisions - by keeping track of wins and losses by time of day, game type and even mood while playing, you can improve your odds of making better betting decisions
• You can plan your future easier - having a better idea of how much you can potentially make through gambling will allow you a better look at the big picture (whether this is moving on to higher stake games or changing to a casino with different offerings)
• Lower banking fees - You should always have money in the account which means fewer payment transactions as you will make fewer deposits

Bankroll Management: The Basics

Exercising bankroll management is simple: you just have to portion off a small slice of your bankroll, and then only play with that exact amount of money for your entire session. Many people think that around 10% is a good portion to risk, and we would have to agree. So, if you have a total of £1,000 to spend at an online casino, you should only ever play with £100 of that money. If you lose the entire amount, you should move away from the computer, and come back another day. When you do come back, you'll still have £900 left, so you can risk £90 of this money.

It's also possible to micro-manage your money when using bankroll management, by adapting the stakes you're playing at, depending on how much you've won or lost.

• • Let's take the £100 used in the previous example, and say that you're playing blackjack. Ideally, you'll have enough money to play at least 30 hands, so you should be playing at a table for stakes of around £3 per hand.
• Before you start, you should understand when to move down to lower stakes. For example, you could say that when your money reaches £50, you'll change tables and start playing for £1.50 a hand. Conversely, you could also say that if you manage to increase your money to £150, you'll move tables and start playing for £5 per hand.
• You can plan your future easier - having a better idea of how much you can potentially make through gambling will allow you a better look at the big picture (whether this is moving on to higher stake games or changing to a casino with different offerings)
• Doing so will allow you to minimise your losses, while also giving you the chance to capitalise when you're on a hot streak.

Initially deciding on your stakes is also an important part of bankroll management, and the number of spins, games or rounds you need to have in reserve really depends on the variance of a game. An example of a low variance game is blackjack, as the wins are regular, but not that large. Slots are an example of a higher variance game though, as the big wins don't come too often, however when they do arise, they could lead to a big boost to your account balance. Basically, the higher the variance, the more turns you'll need. So, you could play at stakes of around £3 when playing blackjack with a stack of £100, however you'll probably only want to spin the reels of a slot for around £1 per spin.

The final piece of information to mention about bankroll management is perhaps the most important though: you should never play with money you can't afford to lose. This is part bankroll management, and part taking care of your own personal finances. Gambling is fun, but it isn't fun when you can't pay your bills because you've lost money playing baccarat, roulette, or any other game. If you find that you're spending money you need, you have a gambling problem. If so, please look at our page on responsible gambling, to find out how you can get help.

Some Tips for Managing Your Bankroll

It's one thing reading through the above and understanding it, however it's another thing entirely implementing the strategy to your gameplay. So, here are some quick tips and hints about bankroll management, which should make it easier to implement this strategy: