The short answer
A bankroll is money set aside for betting and not needed for anything else. A unit is the standard size of a single bet, expressed as a percentage of that bankroll rather than as a dollar figure.
Managing a bankroll means choosing a unit small enough that a normal losing run does not end the exercise, and staking consistently rather than by mood.
Nothing on this page describes what anyone might earn, and no staking plan changes whether a bet is worth taking. Sizing decides how long you last, not whether you are right.
What a normal losing run looks like
The following is an illustration, not a result anyone obtained, and not a claim about any method on this site.
Suppose a bettor places bets at even money and wins 55 per cent of them. That is a strong hit rate, and a person with it would still lose 45 per cent of the time.
The chance of losing six in a row is 0.45 multiplied by itself six times, which is about 0.0083, or roughly one in 120. That sounds rare until you consider that someone placing a few hundred bets will pass through many overlapping sequences of six, so runs of that length are expected rather than surprising.
This is the entire argument for small units. A run that is statistically ordinary has to be survivable, because it will happen, and it says nothing at all about whether the underlying approach is sound.
Choosing a unit
Common practice is a unit of one to two per cent of the bankroll for a flat staking approach. Smaller units mean slower movement in both directions and a much lower chance of running out.
Flat staking, where every bet is the same size, is the simplest approach and it is difficult to improve on without a genuine estimate of your edge on each bet.
If you do have an edge estimate you trust, the Kelly criterion sizes each bet from that edge and your bankroll. Most people who use it use a fraction of it, because full Kelly is more aggressive than it feels and is very sensitive to overestimating your own edge.
Recalculate the unit occasionally rather than after every result. Resizing constantly turns a staking plan into a mood.
Rules that do more work than they look like they should
The unglamorous rules are the ones that keep an approach intact.
- Bet only money you can lose without it changing anything about your life.
- Keep the bankroll separate from everyday money so you can actually see what it is doing.
- Do not increase stakes to recover a loss. Chasing converts a normal drawdown into a serious one.
- Do not increase stakes because you are winning either, beyond a planned recalculation of the unit.
- Record every bet with the price you took. Without a record you are relying on memory, and memory is generous about wins.
- Set a limit on time as well as money, and treat both as fixed before you start rather than negotiable during.
What bankroll management cannot do
It cannot turn a losing approach into a winning one. Staking well while betting badly loses money more slowly, which is not the same thing as a solution.
It cannot remove variance. It only decides how much of it you can absorb before you are forced to stop.
And it cannot tell you whether your results so far mean anything. Short samples are dominated by luck in both directions, which is why closing line value is a more useful early signal than a profit or loss figure.
If betting has stopped being entertainment, staking rules are not the right tool. Gambling Help Online is available on 1800 858 858, and the responsible gambling page on this site lists further support.