THE GENERAL theme each week in this column is that, for winner or loser alike, it is not impossible to make significant improvements to one’s sports betting.
This, however, comes at the cost of having to put in some more — and, at times, tedious - effort than would otherwise be the case.
This is certainly the case when it comes to talking about betting banks.

Whether in the overall management of our finances or in refining the processes by which each pick is made, we quickly become more conscious of the overall picture of our betting.

As a consequence, we can be better-informed when making any adjustments that we identify by keeping a good, up to date set of figures.
The starting point in any attempt, having once realised the benefits of tightening up your betting, is to establish a routine of recording all betting activity.
As most people bet on sports because of an interest in the sport itself - the gambling following later - it’s easy to appreciate the difficulty in reconciling the enjoyment of having a bet with the lack of it that comes from the endless amounts of record keeping.

However, aside from the obvious indication of our overall betting health, a well-maintained and relatively detailed ledger of bets goes a long way towards helping winners to win more and losers to lose less — and thus get more fun for their money. There is, though, little point in diligently entering each bet and all its relevant details if on the other hand, and regardless of betting behaviour our overall approach to money management is to be prepared.

The management of a betting bank is of the utmost importance to the success or otherwise of our punting but, given that there is some work involved in organising it, it’s no surprise that this is one early hurdle at which a significant proportion of punters fall. The plus part is that it doesn’t take too much in the way of organisation to get it sorted out. The first and most important aspect of establishing a decent standard of money management is to take the necessary steps to separate the money used in your betting bank from your everyday funds.

Now for punters who are habitually drawn to the local betting shop with a spare £20 in their pockets on a Saturday morning, there’s no denying that this presents problems.

However, given the difficulty when it actually comes to overturning the odds when placing abet, it’s vital, where the punters have it within them to create a degree of advantage for themselves, that they try and make the best of these rare opportunities. So it is with taking steps to segregate betting from non-betting money. One thing that I believe helps with this is the use of internet bookies over their high street equivalents.

The usual type of online deposit account makes it necessary to first separate your potential stake from your It is, though, a question 0; calculating whether their amounts to a negative given the benefits of keeping your betting bank entirely separate from the rest of your money. Assuming, of course, that you want to get more money out of your betting, here’s my simple two-step plan to getting a decent system of money management together.

Part II Coming Soon!