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Why use a Betting Bank!
You have no doubt heard the term "Betting Bank" but what is it and why is it one of the most important tools that a Gambling professional uses? This section also introduces the "Return on Investment" measurement and how this can sometimes be used to "Minimize" your losses.
What is a Betting bank?
A betting bank is an amount of money that you put aside exclusively for betting. It can be as small or as large as you want. However, and you have probably heard this a thousand times, it must be money that you can afford to lose. It should be funded from money that you will not miss should everything go pear-shaped and you lose the lot.
Why do the Professional Gamblers use a Betting Bank?
Think of your Betting Bank as if it was the Stock for a shop you own. If you lose it all you are in effect, out of business. No Stock, No Sales, No Income.
A professional gambler protects his Betting Bank at all costs, and constantly monitors money going In (Wins) and money going Out (Losses). If the professional gambler did not do this then he would not know his profit and loss.
What is Return on Investment (ROI)?
"Return on Investment" or ROI as I will now call it, is a measure of how well your betting is doing. You should keep records of all bets made from your betting bank and their results, and then you can easily work out your ROI.
For example:
Let's say you struck 18 bets at £10 each. Then your Investment would be £180. Let's also say that you won £215 (including Stakes) with your winning bets then your ROI would be £215 divided by £180 which equals 119.44%, so the ROI on your 18 bets would be 19.44%, excellent by any standards.
Alternatively, say you only won £162 from your winning bets then the ROI would be £165 divided by £180 which equals 91.67% the ROI would be minus 8.33%, which is not very good.
In either case you can analyse your bets further. In the above example let's say you had placed 10 bets in non-handicap races and the other 8 were on handicap races. Then you could compare your ROI for both these categories and maybe shine some light on where the losses are happening. If you can do this then you can ignore the types of races where you are losing money and concentrate more on the area where you are making money.
Obviously, without accurate records this valuable analysis is not possible.