In sports betting your bankroll is the total amount you have available for betting. It is the amount which, if you lost it all, it would prevent you from being able to place additional bets. It is the life blood of the serious sports bettor and as such it needs to be coddled and protected.

Nearly All Sports Bettors Go Broke

97% of those who start betting on sports eventually go bust. They lose all of their original stake. Is it because they can't consistently pick winners? We'll never know - because they go bust by consistently over betting their bankroll. They make bets that are far too large a portion of their bankroll and they end up losing it all.  It is possible to have a winning system for picking bets and still lose money by betting too much on each pick.

The best sports handicappers in the world are winning 55% of their picks in the long term. Anyone who claims to be doing better than that over several seasons is either a bald-faced liar or seriously deluded. If you're losing 45% of the time you're going to hit some long losing streaks. If you're betting more than a few % of your bankroll on each bet, your losing streak will break you. Bankroll management is just as important as bet selection when it comes to being a serious, long term sports bettor.

If You Want to Keep it Simple, OSBS Recommends this System for Betting

1. When Betting on Underdogs your bet size should be 2% of your total bankroll.

2. When Betting on Favorites your bet size should be 3% of your total bankroll.

3. Never have more than 10% of your total bankroll on open bets at any time.

Online sportsbooks will offer a value betting line on underdogs far more often than they will on favorites. This is because the bookmaker is milking square money on a favorite he knows he will get action no matter what line he offers, or because he already has too much action on that favorite and wants to encourage more betting on the underdog to cover his exposure on the game. You will normally see three or four times as many underdog values as Chalk values.

What To Do With Favorites...

Above market value bets on the favorites cause more concern, angst and discussion at OSBS than any other topic. There is significant reaction to increasing the risk (amount bet) and reducing the reward (amount won) by betting 3% on the favorites. Some practitioners of our system eschew betting on the chalk altogether, and stick exclusively with the underdogs. Others see those values as an opportunity to place larger scalp or arbitrage bets with the exchange in order to turn a small profit and/or make progress in meeting the rollover requirements for a deposit bonus awarded by the sportsbook. Others are content to bet 3% with their small advantage and reap their profits in the long term.

Don't Chase Losses

How you decide to handle your advantaged lines on favorites is up to you, but you will be making the majority of your bets on underdogs. Underdogs frequently lose. That is what an underdog is supposed to do. They will win at times, however, and when they do your money will be on a line that was above market value and you will be paid off at a rate to make you profitable in the long run. But you will have some brutally long losing streaks. It is the nature of the Online Sports Betting System. When this happens many bettors want to increase their bet size to win back their losses. This is called "chasing" and it is exactly the wrong thing to do. Don't fall into that trap. Stick to the betting guidelines above and you will be profitable in the long term.