Grade and Track Your Online Sportsbook Unit Plays

A big part of winning money betting on sports is properly managing your money in an online sportsbook betting account. Whether you are a casual bettor with one basic account at one online sportsbook or an avid sports gambler with multiple betting accounts across a wide spectrum of online betting outlets, money management should be a high priority when it comes to your overall sports betting strategy.

Most sports bettors rely on a unit betting system that grades your picks based on your confidence level for an individual play. The higher the confidence, the higher the units wagered. It does not matter how much money each unit represents as long as you take a consistent approach to grading the picks. Every bet you make is not an 8-unit lock. In fact, there is no such thing as a ‘lock’ when it comes to betting on sports.

You need to properly gauge each pick you turn into an actual bet for its potential return on investment. Betting underdogs comes with some inherent risk because they are not expected to win. The pointspread in football and basketball are the great equalizer, but that is simply a betting tool and not an indication of an actual margin of victory. The risk/reward factor of betting underdogs to win straight-up on the moneyline can be an attractive option if your confidence level in a bet of this nature is already high.

The bottom line for any sports betting strategy is to make more money than you lose. By turning to your online sportsbook for a comprehensive report on your betting history, you can enhance your winning percentage by grading and tracking all your unit plays.

If you bet the exact same amount of money on 10 football games, a winning percentage lower than 55 percent is costing you money when you factor in the 10 percent commission you pay for all the losing bets. If you just so happen to bet $200 on the five winners and $50 on the five losers, you would be way ahead of the game with a net return of plus $725. Turning things around in this scenario, if you won seven of the 10 games you bet at $50 a win verse $200 for the three losses, the net return would be a loss of $310.

Your overall winning percentage is a very important piece of information, but it will not give you the full picture unless you break things down to the number of units bet.

Nobody bets on a game to lose, but every bet you make does not win. There are any number of different ways to handicap a matchup based on the sheer number of stats, facts and betting trends that can be factored into the equation. If you are losing far more games than you are winning regardless of the units bet, your individual handicapping process could be flawed. If you are coming in anywhere close to 50 percent with your wins verse losses and still losing money overall, the process you are using to grade your bets could be the issue.

It is important to know your win-loss ratio based on units bet as the initial step towards making the necessary adjustments. If you are winning 60 percent of your three-unit bets, then that number needs to be bumped up. Even if you are losing only 40 percent of your seven-unit bets, that number should probably be dialed down. The bottom line is to always trust your instincts while avoiding the temptation to get greedy. A few high unit losses a week can really take its toll on any sports betting bankroll even if your overall winning percentage is in the black.