Good betting bank management is one of the most important parts of football betting and trading.
It doesn't really matter how good your strategy is if you're staking too much, chasing losses or risking money you can't afford to lose.
A betting bank gives you a clear amount to work with and makes it much easier to keep your stakes under control.
In this guide, I'll explain how to set one up, how much to risk on each bet or trade, and how a simple points system can help you manage it properly.
What is a betting bank?
A betting bank is an amount of money that has been set aside specifically for betting and/or trading.
It should never be more than you can afford to lose.
Good bank management helps to protect you during losing runs, which every bettor or trader will face at some point.
The danger comes when a bad result leads to chasing losses or increasing stakes to try to get the money back quickly.
Think about it... if you take a large loss, how many profitable trades do you then need just to get back to where you started?
Small losses are part of betting and trading. Any system that claims it never loses should be treated with a lot of caution.
The aim is to protect your bank and give yourself enough room to deal with the inevitable ups and downs.
As your bank grows, you can gradually adjust your stakes to match. We'll look at how that works shortly.
How much should your betting bank be?
There is no set amount you need for a betting bank.
The most important thing is that it only contains money you can afford to lose without it affecting your bills, savings or everyday spending.
For one person, that might be £200. For someone else, it could be £1,000 or more.
The size of the bank will simply determine how much each point is worth when you work out your stakes.
You do not need a huge betting bank to get started. In fact, if you're still learning, it makes sense to keep things small until you are more comfortable with your strategy and staking.
Building your first betting bank
If you don't already have a betting bank, matched betting can be a useful way to build one.
Many years ago, I blew my trading bank and couldn't afford to simply deposit more money into Betfair.
My cousin mentioned that she had been making money from matched betting, so I decided to give it a try. I searched online for matched betting sites, signed up to Betting Mastermind and had covered the cost of the membership within a couple of days.
From there, I put the profits aside rather than spending them.
Within a few months, I had built up more than £1,000, which was enough for me to start thinking about football trading again.
There are now plenty of matched betting websites and guides available. You can learn the basics for free, although a paid service can make things much easier by finding offers and providing the tools you need.
Outplayed is one of the biggest matched betting services in the UK and worth considering if you want some help getting started.
How to manage your betting bank
Whether you're aiming to trade full-time in the future or simply make some extra income, protecting your betting bank should always come first.
The easiest way to manage it is to keep it separate from your everyday money.
A different bank account can make it much easier to see exactly how much you have available for betting or trading.
You also don't need to keep your entire bank sitting in Betfair. In most cases, you'll only be using a small percentage of it at any one time, so it makes sense to keep the rest elsewhere.
There is another benefit too. If you have less money sitting in your exchange account, there is less temptation to increase stakes or chase losses after a bad result.
As a general rule, only keep enough money in an exchange to cover your normal betting or trading activity.
It can also be useful to keep some funds in another exchange, such as Smarkets, just in case Betfair has an outage and you need another way to trade out.
How much should you stake?
One of the most common questions new traders ask is, "how much should I stake on each trade?"
There isn't one answer that suits everyone, but if you're new to betting or trading, it's usually better to start smaller than you think you need to.
The important thing is to make sure a losing run doesn't do serious damage to your bank.
Using points to manage your stakes
A simple way to do this is to divide your bank into points.
I usually suggest 100 points, so a £1,000 bank would give you a point value of £10. A £500 bank would be £5 per point, while a £5,000 bank would be £50 per point.
If a 100 point bank still feels too aggressive, you can use 150 or 200 points instead.
You can then recalculate your point value as your bank rises or falls.
How you use that point value depends on the type of bet or trade:
- Back bets – you can use a fixed stake, or adjust the stake so that your potential profit stays around the same amount.
- Lay bets – focus on the liability rather than the stake. The important figure is how much you could actually lose.
- Trades – stake size can vary depending on the strategy, so it often makes sense to use smaller stakes and keep your maximum risk under control.
Whatever method you use, the main thing is that losses stay manageable.
If you’re sweating on a late goal, then you’re staking too much.
Betting and trading staking plans
Here are some of the main staking plans you will come across:
- Fixed stake – you use the same stake on every bet. This is also known as level staking and is a simple way to judge how a strategy performs over time.
- Fixed profit staking – the stake changes depending on the odds, so the potential profit stays roughly the same if the bet wins.
- Percentage staking – your stake is based on a percentage of your betting bank. This is similar to the points system explained above, where your stakes rise or fall as your bank changes.
Progressive staking – stakes increase or decrease depending on previous results. Systems such as Martingale fall into this category and can become risky very quickly during a losing run.
Staking plans to avoid
A common mistake is to increase your stake after a loss in an attempt to win the money back more quickly.
It may appear to work for a while, but one bad losing run can quickly send the stakes out of control.
The best-known example is the Martingale system, where the stake is doubled after every loss.
If you start with a £10 stake and lose 10 times in a row, your next stake would need to be more than £10,000. Even before that point, the amount of money at risk becomes very difficult to justify.
We all take risks when betting or trading, but they need to be controlled. Adding more risk simply because the previous bet lost is usually the opposite of good bank management.
Simple, sensible staking gives you a much better chance of dealing with losing runs without doing serious damage to your bank.
Our 'Goal Profits Academy' football trading course covers bank management in more detail.
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Compounding your betting bank
Compounding simply means increasing your stake size as your betting bank grows.
For example, let's say you start with a £1,000 bank split into 100 points, making each point worth £10.
If the bank were to grow by 10 points in a month, it would increase to £1,100. You could then reset the bank to 100 points, making each point worth £11 for the following month.
Over time, that can make a big difference because both the bank and the value of each point increase together.
The table below shows what would happen if a £1,000 bank grew by 10% each month:
| Opening Balance | Stake | Monthly Profit | Closing Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Month 1 | £1,000 | £10 | £100 | £1,100 |
Month 2 | £1,100 | £11 | £110 | £1,210 |
Month 3 | £1,210 | £12 | £121 | £1,331 |
Month 4 | £1,331 | £13 | £133 | £1,464 |
Month 5 | £1,464 | £15 | £146 | £1,611 |
Month 6 | £1,611 | £16 | £161 | £1,772 |
Month 7 | £1,772 | £18 | £177 | £1,949 |
Month 8 | £1,949 | £19 | £195 | £2,144 |
Month 9 | £2,144 | £21 | £214 | £2,358 |
Month 10 | £2,358 | £24 | £236 | £2,594 |
Month 11 | £2,594 | £26 | £259 | £2,853 |
Month 12 | £2,853 | £29 | £285 | £3,138 |
In this example, the bank reaches £3,138 after one year and £30,913 after three years.
Of course, this is only a mathematical example. Football trading results will vary from month to month, and there is no guarantee of making 10 points every month.
The important thing is to let your stakes rise gradually with your bank rather than forcing trades or chasing a monthly target.
What happens as your betting bank grows?
As your betting bank grows, the value of each point can gradually increase with it.
That doesn't mean you need to raise your stakes every time you have a good week. It usually makes more sense to review your bank at set intervals and adjust your point value gradually.
You may also reach a stage where you only need a small percentage of the full bank available in Betfair for your normal trading.
The important thing is to keep the same approach that helped you build the bank in the first place. Bigger stakes shouldn't mean taking bigger risks.
Common betting bank mistakes
Even with a sensible betting bank in place, there are a few mistakes that can quickly cause problems.
- Staking too much – larger stakes may mean larger profits when things go well, but they also make losing runs much harder to deal with.
- Chasing losses – increasing stakes or forcing extra bets after a bad result is one of the quickest ways to damage a bank.
- Increasing stakes too quickly – if your bank is growing, let your point value rise gradually rather than making big jumps.
- Using money you need elsewhere – your betting bank should always be completely separate from money needed for bills, savings or everyday spending.
- Ignoring your actual risk – with lay bets and trades in particular, make sure you know the maximum amount you could lose rather than focusing only on the stake.
Most problems with betting bank management come from taking on more risk than you originally planned. Keeping things simple and consistent makes it much easier to stay in control.