Bankroll Management - Expert Tips to Manage Your Casino Bankroll

If you want to make your money last as long as possible when you gamble online, you need to manage your bankroll. Our casino experts are here to tell you how. We have put together a list of the best bankroll management strategies for you to incorporate into your play.

What is Bankroll Management?

Your bankroll is the amount of money you have available to play with. Say you create a casino account and give yourself a $1,000 budget. Your bankroll would be $1,000.

Bankroll management is the process of actively controlling your bankroll and how long it lasts. You can’t control whether you win or lose, but if you manage your bankroll properly, you can at least ensure you get a set amount of bets from your bankroll.

Let’s say you have $1,000 with a betting unit of 1% of your bankroll ($10). You’ll get a minimum of 100 wagers out of your $1,000 bankroll, regardless of how lucky you are.

Besides guaranteeing a certain amount of bets, effective bankroll management also allows you to:

Play within your personal budget
Extend your playing time
Prevent losses from impulsive betting
Overcome game volatility
Reduce stress

How to Practice Bankroll Management

Practising bankroll management starts with determining your baseline bankroll amount. You should make a budget based on your preferences, risk tolerance, and how much money you actually have available to spend over a set period of time (e.g., a playing session, day, week, or month).

Once you set your bankroll amount, you need to establish your standard betting unit or buy-in amount. You will use this for all the bets you place, so it’s important to think about your betting unit seriously.

The easiest way to select a betting unit size is to pick a percentage of your total bankroll. 1-5% is the standard range. We don’t recommend going much higher than 5%, but feel free to go lower. If you’re not sure what amount to go with, start low. You can always increase your unit size later.

6 Tips on How to Manage your Money in a Casino

The best bankroll management strategy is the one that works best for you. Finding out which strategy is best for you, though, can be difficult. To help you determine what works and what doesn’t, here are some strategies you can use to refine your preferences:

1. Flat betting

Flat betting is the most common bankroll strategy and the one we explained earlier. All you need to do is set a betting unit based on your bankroll size and stick to it for every single bet.

For example, if your bankroll is $1,000 and your betting unit size is 1% of your bankroll, you would always bet $10.

2. Percentage betting

Percentage betting is just like flat betting, except you adjust your betting amount according to your current bankroll.

Let’s say you start with a $1,000 bankroll and your unit size is 1%. Your standard bet would be $10. Now, imagine you lose your first bet. Your new budget is $990, so your new unit size would be 1% of that, which is $9.90.

The percentage betting bankroll strategy is good for conservative players looking to preserve their bankroll during bad stretches. However, it also means placing bigger bets when you’re on a winning run, so some players choose to cap their bet sizes.

3. Confidence model

The confidence model is another system based on the flat betting bankroll strategy. However, it’s a bit more complex. To use the confidence model, you have to establish a standard bet unit and develop a system for determining the risk level of each bet.

Then, you can alter the number of units for each wager based on the risk level. For example, you might choose to invest one unit on a bet with odds of +200 and 3 units on a wager where the odds are -110. The lower the risk, the bigger the bet you place and vice versa.

This is a good system because it can result in bigger returns for low-risk wagers. On the other hand, it only works if you have some sort of expertise in the casino game, sport, etc. you are wagering on.

4. Play high-RTP games

All casino games come with a baked-in house edge. This is the casino’s cut for offering the game and ensures they can be profitable in the long run. From the player’s perspective, this margin is called a return to player (RTP) percentage.

RTP describes how much money, on average, you can expect to win for every dollar you wager after millions of bets or spins. For example, a game with a 97% RTP will pay out $0.97 for every $1 wagered by the player on average.

Playing games with high RTPs doesn’t guarantee wins, but it does increase your chances of getting back something in the long run.

Here’s how some popular casino games compare in terms of RTP:

Blackjack: 99.0%–99.6%
Baccarat: 98.94%–99.07%
Craps: 98.64%–99.17%
Poker: 96%–99.5%
Crash games: 96%–98.5%
Roulette: 94.5%–97.3%
Slots: 92%–97%
Scratch cards: 85%–95%
Bingo: 80%–95%
Keno: 70%–80%

5. Avoid progressive betting models

If you look up bankroll management strategies, you’ll probably come across progressive betting systems which recommend you increase your bet size with every loss. While there’s some mathematical basis for these progressive models, they are also very risky and should be avoided.

Let’s look at the Martingale System, for example. It says you should double your stake after every loss.

Here’s what it looks like in practice if you start with a $1,000 bankroll:

Bet 1 – $10 ($990)
Bet 2 – $20 ($970)
Bet 3 – $40 ($930)
Bet 4 – $80 ($850)
Bet 5 – $160 ($690)
Bet 6 – $320 ($370)

After just six bets, you would lose almost two-thirds of your bankroll. If you went with a 1% fixed unit size instead, this loss would translate to just $60 or 6% of your bankroll after the same number of bets.

6. Take advantage of welcome bonuses

All the top online casinos in Canada have welcome bonuses. You can use these offers to extend your bankroll and play for longer. However, it’s important that you understand the terms and conditions and the specific details of the bonus you’re claiming.

For example, you can use deposit match bonuses to double your bankroll size with your first deposit, so it makes sense to change your initial bankroll strategy. Reload bonuses, cashback offers, free spins, and other promotions can also affect how you manage your bankroll.

How to Protect Your Bankroll When Luck Drives the Game

Knowing how to play blackjack and using other strategies can help you succeed, but whether you win or lose playing casino games online ultimately depends on luck. This is why you shouldn’t think about bankroll strategies as guaranteed ways to win. Instead, consider a bankroll strategy as a tactic to minimize losses.

Online slots, for example, go quickly. If you didn’t have a strategy, you could easily blow through your budget in 20 minutes. The goal of bankroll management is to stop that from happening.

You should consider the characteristics of each game (variance, RTP, etc.) and develop a sustainable bankroll strategy for that game. For games like slots, blackjack, and roulette, we don’t recommend wagering more than 1% of your total casino bankroll, especially if you’re just getting started.

How to Manage Your Bankroll Playing Poker

Unlike most other casino games, poker is a game of skill and everyone’s skill level is different. This makes managing your money a little more complicated.

How you play, your budget, and your favourite games will determine your poker bankroll management plan, and how rigidly you follow a system depends on how seriously you take your poker.

If you’re a poker pro with lots of experience, you can give yourself a bit of leeway when it comes to following a system. If you’re a newbie, having some rules for yourself and sticking to them can help you get up to speed.

How to use bankroll management for live poker

Poker at live-dealer casinos can connect you to players all around the world, but the same bankroll strategies apply as solo poker. That said, you should consider your buy-in amount and the quality of opposing players when you play.

Live poker players typically fall on the weaker end of the skill level, so you can afford to have a less conservative poker bankroll management strategy than with playing standard games. Again, though, managing poker bankroll depends on your playing preferences and betting style, so keep this in mind before playing any live poker games.

When should you increase your poker bet size?

Your poker bankroll management system should change as you gain experience. This means increasing your wagers when you have better hands. As you move to tables with a larger minimum bet, you’ll be playing against more strategic players. If you feel yourself constantly outclassed at the bigger tables, it makes sense to move down a level. The most important thing is that you are regularly analyzing your level and tracking your wins and losses.

Which bet size limits can you afford to play?

The number one most important factor to consider when settling on a poker bankroll management system is how much you can afford to play. If you’re a recreational player with a big budget, you can afford to replenish your bankroll regularly. Casual players should rather focus on making their money go as far as possible.

On the other hand, professional players who live solely on their poker income need to be very deliberate with their strategy because a bad month could be a serious problem.

Cash games	Tournaments
When entering a cash game, we recommend having 50 times the buy-in in your bankroll to be comfortable. This is a fairly standard amount that most experienced poker players agree on. However, if you’re a more experienced player, 30 buy-ins might be enough to succeed.	Tournament wins are harder to come by than standard cash game wins. This is why you need to have a different poker bankroll management strategy. Generally, you should have double the budget for online casino tournaments than cash games. If you’re a casual player, going in with 100 buy-ins is reasonable, while experienced players can get by with 50-60 buy-ins.

Bankroll Management for Sports Betting

Managing your bankroll is useful whenever you’re gambling, but it’s especially useful for online sports betting, where you can deliberately pick your wagers rather than completely relying on getting a lucky spin or hand.

How much should you wager?

Like with casino games, anything between 1% and 5% of your overall bankroll is fine for sports betting. If you’re a new or casual bettor, we really would not recommend wagering more than 2% on a single bet until you get comfortable with betting markets and your risk level.

You should also consider whether you want to use a flat betting system or a more flexible one, like a confidence model or percentage betting. In our opinion, confidence model betting is the best bankroll strategy for sports betting, but you should pick what’s best for you.

If you use a confidence model, wagering more than 2% of your bankroll makes sense for a fairly safe bet at low odds. For longshots — such as single game parlays — you really shouldn’t risk more than 1%.

Betting units explained

Establishing a betting unit means converting your bankroll into equal units. So instead of considering the actual monetary amount, think of your wagers as a percentage of your total bankroll.

The size of your betting unit and how you decide to place your bets comes down to your strategy and risk tolerance. The same strategies for casino bankroll management also work for sports betting.

Some players stick to a standard unit and do not deviate from it, no matter the bet (flat betting). Others will pick a range, such as 1-5x their standard unit size, and vary their bet size within that range based on the risk or perceived edge of the wager (confidence model).

Responsible Gambling Tips

Even with good bankroll management, you can still lose money. That’s why it’s important to always gamble responsibly.

One way to do this is to understand the mental side of gambling, which we covered in our guide on gambling psychology. That piece offers valuable insights into how emotions and cognitive biases affect gambling. We recommend you read it along with these helpful tips that you should keep in mind when playing online:

Don’t chase your losses

A sure-fire way to lose money is to chase losses. If your bankroll is down, refrain from placing big bets or longshots to try to make up ground. Instead, you should stick to your original strategy and try to regrow your balance slowly.

Don’t bet while under the influence

Wagering when you are not of sound mind is never a good idea. If you’ve been drinking or taking other substances, it’s best to stay away from all forms of online gambling.

Don't bet on bad odds or lines

Sportsbooks have different odds, betting lines, and markets. Before placing a bet, you should shop around. Finding a sportsbook that offers slightly better odds or a 1-point difference in the spread can make a huge difference to your bankroll in the long run.

Only bet what you can afford to lose

Bet within your limits. Only spending what you’re willing to lose. Never use savings, rent money, or other reserved finances to place online bets.

FAQ

Bankroll management is the process of actively using a system or strategy to maximize your bankroll and stay within your budget. This can be as simple as keeping track of wins and losses, but it usually refers to having a set bet amount and/or betting strategy.

The best bankroll management system is the one that works best for you. It’s a disappointing answer, but it’s true. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t being truthful. That said, there are some established bankroll management systems that are very popular, like flat betting or percentage betting.

No, the Martingale System is not a good bankroll management strategy. It may work out mathematically, but in practice, the risk is not worth the reward.

Change it! If something isn’t working for you, it’s totally okay to try something different. The most important thing is that you find a system that’s sustainable and works for you.

Tips & Strategies to Manage Your Casino Bankroll