Bankroll: the money rules that keep you alive
Two mistakes ruin more bettors than bad predictions: betting too much of their money, and not knowing if they're actually winning. This lesson gives you simple rules for both.
Units: a fixed bet size
A 'unit' is just a bet size you pick in advance — usually 1% of the money you set aside for betting. If your bankroll (betting money) is 1,000, one unit is 10. Betting the same unit every time makes your results easy to compare: 'I'm up 15 units' means the same thing whether you bet 10 or 100 per unit.
ROI: are you really winning?
ROI (return on investment) is your profit divided by everything you've bet, shown as a percentage. If you bet 1,000 in total and have 50 profit, your ROI is 5%. A steady +5% over a few hundred bets is excellent. A big ROI over just a handful of bets means almost nothing — you need a large sample before trusting any number.
The golden rule: never bet it all
Even good bettors lose streaks. If you bet 20% of your money on each bet, a few losses in a row can wipe you out. Betting a small, fixed percentage (1–2%) means a losing streak hurts, but never ends you. Think of your bankroll like a long trip's fuel: don't burn it all on the first hill.