Guest post written by Eddie Lloyd
We need to start by keeping it simple. To illustrate this I thought I’d relay how I started out and have continued over the last three years. Prior to my journey as a pro, I had to establish how I was to start building my bank up from a small amount into something that was going to create a living for myself.
The first thing I had to realise was that unlike normal jobs where you are paid an hourly rate or fixed monthly salary, betting for a living does not do this. Instead, I had to understand that I would only “get paid” when I had returned a certain percentage on my investment. This would fluctuate from month to month depending on winning or losing streaks.
Starting out as novice I decided to use one bank and one approach. Once I’d doubled my bank, I would then split it into two and bet using two approaches with the now two separate banks and so on until I was covering all my angles.
A valuable lesson here is that once we have made a profit from our initial starting bank, we need to treat ourselves to something tangible. This is known as positive reinforcement. For me I went and bought myself a CD. I’d put a lot of hard work into showing a profit on my betting that by rewarding myself, I had something to show for it. It’s very easy to forget the numbers displayed in our betting accounts are actually real money, so we need something that shows it’s real!
Let’s break this down a little further. Let’s say that we start with a 100 point bank and our first approach is going to be a system that through paper trading has shown a good return on investment. We use one account and keep a record of every bet we place. Now it may take 6 months, it may take a year but through discipline and patience we have now doubled our bank to 200 points. Congratulations you have now shown a fantastic profit on your betting. As I said before you now need to reward yourself with something tangible. Take ten pounds out and go and buy a CD or maybe a bottle of Port for the festive season!
Now you have two choices here with your 190 point bank. You could split it into two and start betting using two different systems/approaches or you could now start betting double your original stakes. For example, if you were betting to level stakes of 1 point you could now bet with 2 points. Double your bank and bet using 4 points etc…
Another way to look at this is that if you were risking 1% of the bank (e.g. ÂŁ100 bank, risking ÂŁ1 per bet) you could now still only risk 1% of the bank but your bets would be ÂŁ1.90 (1% of ÂŁ190)
The second choice is you split the new bank into two and have two 95 point banks, one for each angle.
If you chose to bet your two angles from the same account you need to keep strict records of how each angle is performing so as to keep on top of where you stand. I do this using excel. I have a different excel sheet for each angle I use and if I were to add the profit from each one together then the total will match my overall balance in my account.
I now have a few angles for each genre of racing and call each one a campaign. I start with a new bank at the beginning of the Jumps season and that runs alongside my all weather campaign. The bank stays un-touched until the end of the season where I then “pay myself” my twice yearly salary. I then start afresh come the start of the Flat season and let the bank run through until the Jumps start again.
I hope by reading this that you will now understand the importance of discipline and patience in building your bank to a sizeable level and maintaining this discipline in order to reap the rewards.
As usual any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below and I will respond.
Ed
hi i started a portfolio of tipsters two so far aiming for 5 or 6 would a 100 point betting do for them all or should i have a 100 point bank for each one many thanks steven
You can do both. Personally I prefer to use a single bankroll but doing this means you must track each tipster individually so you can manage your portfolio. 100 units may not be enough if combining the bankrolls. You need to get the tipsters historical selections and combine them and then look at the downswings to determine what an appropriate bankroll should be. A quick guide is to make it a minimum of double the biggest downswing (that’s not the same as a losing streak, downswing being the biggest drop in profits over a period of time until a new high is reached).
If you can’t get the past results to be able to do this with, I recommend six months or more although you can do it on three months but it’s more volatile, then I would suggest using individual bankrolls until you have enough results to combine the selections and merge bankrolls. You don’t have to merge them all at once, you can merge two when they have enough data even if the others don’t then add the others in as you get enough for them.
thank you for your advice