The IRS will only let you deduct losses to the extent that you win. For instance, if you lose $3,000 on one trip to the casino and win $2,100 on another trip in the same year, you can write off $2,100 in losses to offset the $2,100 in winnings, leaving you with a total of $900 of taxable gambling income. If you anticipate gambling more this year, get on track with your record-keeping now. This will make your reporting all the easier in 2021 and reduce your risk of an audit. Keep track of how much you win and lose per gambling session at all times. You can do this manually (with a good old-fashioned ledger!) or electronically. It won’t do you any good to make a $1,000 payment on your credit cards, if you bet a $1,000 on this week’s big game and lose. You’re still in a hole, it’s just a little deeper. Here are some ways to address your gambling addiction first.
- How Much Have You Lost Gambling
- How Much Money Have You Lost Gambling
- How Much Have You Lost Gambling Reddit
- How Much Have You Lost Gambling
Live sports betting is an exciting feature that sportsbooks are increasingly offering. If you’re betting using standard betting slips that are set in stone once the game begins, then chances are you have some sort of plan that guides your wagering. It probably includes methods of handicapping, various tools you can access and a blueprint for money management.
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In a way, if you’re also involved in live wagering that is probably already included in your plan. It has to be since you’re most likely using the same bank for regular and live betting.
But live sports betting, because of its nature, is quite different from normal wagering. And that means you need some additional guidelines to take you through the betting process. Here are the elements that you must address in your battle plan:
How Much You Need
Put in Your Bankroll and Click Calculate
Best Size Calculator Guide
How big of a sports betting bankroll you hold will determine how much you should wager and your potential to make cash. You can’t expect to make $100 in one day of betting with $100. You can’t expect to do that holding $200, $300, or even $400, for that matter.
If you want to make money on sports betting, then you’ll need a stake of at least $500… preferably $750 to $1,000. Why that much? It costs $11 to place a basic point spread bet. That $11 represents about 3% of your bank. It’s advisable to wager no more than between 2% and 6% of your roll on anyone bet.
Your Bet Size and Risk
3% Risk$0.00
5% Risk$0.00
Best Size Calculator Guide
How big of a sports betting bankroll you hold will determine how much you should wager and your potential to make cash. You can’t expect to make $100 in one day of betting with $100. You can’t expect to do that holding $200, $300, or even $400, for that matter.
If you want to make money on sports betting, then you’ll need a stake of at least $500… preferably $750 to $1,000. Why that much? It costs $11 to place a basic point spread bet. That $11 represents about 3% of your bank. It’s advisable to wager no more than between 2% and 6% of your roll on anyone bet.
With $500, you’ll be able to do that, allowing you to make some mistakes and make adjustments in order to win. You’ll have 45 bets at $11 each. That’s a decent number of wagers. Also, you’re trying to win 60% to 65% of your bets. Why that percentage? On average that’s the winning percentage over time of successful professional sports bettors.
If 45 point spread bets are placed and the bettor manages to win 65%, here’s the way it works: they will win 29 bets and lose 16. After all is said and done, they’ll have $609 in the bank. Also, they will have $5.00 left in the bank that they have not risked, giving them $614.
You may be thinking that’s not very good. You may have thought by making 45 bets, you could have turned that $500 into $2,000! Consider this, you started with $500 and have increased that original amount by almost 23%. What other investment pays like that? Additionally, even if you ran off a string of 45 wins, the most you’d make on a basic point spread wager of $11 would be $10, giving you a total of $945.
So first, you have to decide what your bankroll will be for a given event. If you think of the event as one big bet, then you may certainly apply the 5% rule and use 5% of your existing cash. You may want to be ultraconservative and use less than 5% or you may want to go high-risk and use 10% or more. It’s up to you. But one thing that you should consider is the damage that might be done to your business if you risk more than 5% of your bank.
Whatever limit you choose, do not raise it to make up for losses. The primary thing you need to remember is you have to be comfortable with whatever limit you’ve chosen.
How Much to Bet?
There are various theories regarding how to manage your bankroll. The best of these is to oversee your grubstake by being conservative. Wager between 2% and 6% of your cash. Stay away from parlays and other exotics as these really favor the sportsbook and not the sports bettor. Don’t get greedy. Make your first 45 to 50 wagers single wagers.
Once you’ve increased you stake by 25%, start taking some calculated risks. But don’t go crazy. Again, you want to intelligently manage your money and that means keeping emotion, outlandish hunches and desperation betting out of the picture.
Number of Bets You Expect to Place
First, you have to divide your betting bankroll into units. A unit represents your minimum wager. If you have a $300 bank for the game, you would divide that into 10 units. That means that you would have a total of 30 one-unit bets to make with each unit being worth $10.
If you decide to divide your money differently, into units worth $5, $15 or $20, it will affect how many one-unit bets you have to make. Here are some examples:
| Bank | Unit Worth | Single Unit Bets |
| $300 | $5 | 60 |
| $300 | $10 | 30 |
| $300 | $15 | 20 |
| $300 | $20 | 15 |
There are sportsbooks that will take $5.00 bets. If you want to be conservative and double the number of single unit bets you make, which can keep you in the game longer, then go with units worth $5.00.
Types of Bets and Number of Units
Prior to the game, you should also know what types of bets you’re going to make and how many units you’re going to risk on each type of wager. Additionally, you need to have a plan for expanding your betting if you’re showing a profit partway through the game.
As an example, you may decide that your foundation bet, the one you make consistently, will be one that carries even odds, or you may decide that foundation wager will range from even to 2-1 odds.
Perhaps you’ve decided to make numerous bets at a time. You’ll need to think about the range of risk you’re willing to take and how many units you’re willing to put towards each type of wager every time you bet.
As an example, with $5 units you may want to make the following: 1 one-unit even odds bet, 1 two-unit bet that has odds ranging from +250-+400, and 1 one-unit bet on a wager carrying odds over +600. Each time you wager, you’ll use 4 units.
The Long Run
Professional sports betting is not about a quick-hit win on a 500-1 shot. That’s for amateurs. It is about what every other business is about—knowledge, knowledge and more knowledge honed through experience and transformed into skills that will make you successful. Money management is one of the most important aspects of this endeavor.
In the movie Jerry Maguire, the pro football free agent demands of Maguire, the player’s agent, “Show me the money!” That phrase from that film became famous. For the player it was all about that agent pulling off the big deal.
The same can be said about in-running wagering. When all is said and done, it really is about you’re being able to show that money—to hold it and have it. If you can’t, if you’ve lost rather than won, then you’ve had a bad day at the office.
One of the major problems for any sports bettor and especially those wagering on live events, is bankroll management. Yet, this is the essence of being a successful sports bettor.
A Few More Tips
In order to create your live betting battle plan, you’ll have to know the ins and outs on whatever sport you’re wagering. You’ll also have to know what types of bets are available to you at a specific betting site and what bets are offered for the specific sport on which you’re wagering.
Sports gambling, like other types of gambling, is all about money management. Always remember that successful sports bettors, which means those who are in the game for the long run, are experts at three things—sports rules and strategies, understanding odds, and money management.
Keeping Track
Make sure that you write down every bet that you make, the type of bet and how much you wagered. Record all wins and loses and keep a ledger tally on how much you’ve lost or made. It’s about being smart in every aspect of the game—who you wager on, the types of bets you make and the way in which you oversee your cash.
Know Your Limit and Stick to It
You know you’re a poor money manager when you’re always going over budget. Money management takes discipline and many sports bettors are bad at it because they lack discipline.
It may help if you think of this as an investment. Ask yourself, would you keep pouring cash into a bad investment? Chances are you would set a limit on how much you’re willing to invest in a stock or some other venture. In the same way, set a limit for the game you’re betting and spend no more if you lose it.
Be Conservative
If you wager conservatively, that would be one unit per wager, you’ll stretch your bets out and this will give you a much better chance of winning than if you put your entire roll on one or two bets. You’ll be enticed to make up for loses quickly by putting a lot on the line. Don’t do it.
One Wager at a Time
Make one wager at a time. You may want to try to hedge your bets by making various wagers on one play, period, quarter or one at bat.
Streaks End
If you’re on a streak, whether it’s a winning or losing, remember that all streaks end. Also remember that a winning streak is partly due to your hard work and analysis but it is also due to circumstances that you could not imagine and chance happenstances that no one has control over. In other words, don’t start to feel invincible. Everyone loses and you need to be ready for it.
All or Nothing
You may get greedy or desperate and decide to go for all or nothing by wagering everything on a bet that pays 18-1. You may luck out and hit that wager. But chances are you’ll lose it. Throwing everything you have at one bet runs contrary to the term “money management.”
If you find yourself going all in when live betting, your best choice as far as money management goes is to step away and stop betting.
Learn More About Strategy
Millions of Americans love betting on sports. The sad reality is that the vast majority of them will lose money over their gambling career.
Understanding why so many people end up in the red is a complex proposition.
With that being said, there are a few main reasons why even the most knowledgeable sports fans end up losing in the end.
In this article, I’ll lay out some of the most common reasons why only a small percentage of gamblers end up being profitable over the long run. Keep these reasons in mind and maybe you can avoid the pitfalls that have kept so many bettors from consistently winning money.
1 – Lack of a Bankroll
If you’re not familiar with the concept of a bankroll, it’s no surprise that you haven’t been able to establish a profitable betting strategy.
Your bankroll is the single-most important thing to monitor because it helps you understand the money coming in and the money going out.
If you aren’t diligently keeping track, you can find yourself down a lot of money, quickly.
Your bankroll is the pool of money from which you bet. To create one, simply set aside a pool of money that you’re comfortable losing.
Once you have that set aside, decide how much of that pool (as a percentage) you’re willing to bet on any one play. Most pros recommend between 2% and 5%, but you can make this determination for yourself based on the size of your bankroll.
While simply having a bankroll isn’t going to turn you into a money-making machine, it will make you aware of the financial aspect. It will also help you treat sports gambling more like a business and less like a hobby. When you’re aware of the numbers, you’re more thoughtful in your plays.
2 – You Chase Losses
Chasing losses is the practice of trying to win back your losses by doubling down on your next bet.
This is obviously a big, yet common, mistake.
Chasing your losses doesn’t just often result in massive financial loss, but it ignores a key principle of sports gambling—the long-term mindset.
The way to become one of the few who end up profiting from sports betting is to remember that sticking around is important. Assuming that you’re going to keep on betting regardless of your outcomes, you need to minimize your losses to give yourself a chance to win in the end.
Do everything in your power to avoid having to “reload” your bankroll after you’ve lost it all and you’ll realize the importance of making small bets.
3 – You Bet Without a Reason
I understand that betting on sports is a form of gambling like roulette or blackjack. However, unlike those games, sports betting isn’t necessarily a game of chance.
How Much Have You Lost Gambling
If you’re betting on sports simply by choosing a team and letting the chips fall where they may, you’re losing the very real advantages that can be gained by doing research.
Before placing a bet, ask yourself why you’re making a certain play.
How Much Money Have You Lost Gambling
Take into account all the information available to you.
Sportsbooks depend on an uninformed public to make their money. They rely on bettors to make their plays based on feelings and hunches rather than real data. Think critically about why you’re making a play and you can avoid falling into this trap.
While it’s true that two informed bettors can end up taking different sides on a play, that doesn’t mean gathering information isn’t important. Before you make your next bet, make sure you have a concrete set of reasons for why you chose the team you’re betting on.
4 – You Always Choose Favorites
Generally speaking, the public has a major bias towards choosing favorites. It’s not hard to see why the favorite will usually win the game outright, and it’s a mental trick to realize that winning, in no way, equals covering. Simply put, people don’t like betting on teams that are probably going to lose, regardless of the spread.
This presents a tremendous opportunity for bettors to take advantage of underdogs.
Because the public bets so heavily on the favorite and the sportsbooks want to even up the money, often times, that will cause the spread to grow. The underdog will get more points than they “should.”
I don’t want to make the blanket statement of saying the underdog is always the better play. Just be sure that you’re betting underdogs at the same rate as you’re playing favorites.
5 – You Bet to Win the Game and Forget Value
Everyone likes to win their bets, but winning more than half your bets does not equal winning money.
Betting for value is a simple concept that’s hard in practice. Value betting means not risking significantly more money than you stand to win on any given play.
Sure, you’re going to win most of them, but the money you’ll win doesn’t outweigh the risk. Taking huge favorites on the moneyline means that one loss can derail your entire bankroll.
On the flip side, betting the moneyline on underdogs can mean you might lose more than half your bets, but still win money in the end.
This isn’t to say that it’s wise to bet moneyline underdogs at +500, but if you’re able to find some matchups where the underdog is around +150 to +200, consider mixing it in.
Additionally, if you take the time to actually track your winnings, you’ll recognize that you can overcome losses if you consistently bet for value.
Much like the public’s tendency to have a bias towards betting favorites because they’re more likely to win, the public also has a bias towards winning bets over winning money.
How Much Have You Lost Gambling Reddit
Next time you sit down and lay out your plays for NFL Sunday, remember that if you’re risking way more than you stand to gain, it might not be worth it to make the play.
6 – You Only Use One Sportsbook
With today’s increasingly accepting laws regarding sports gambling, there’s no shortage of sportsbooks to use for your plays. Take advantage of all the offerings by line shopping.
Line shopping is simple.
When you have a play in mind, visit different betting sites to find out which one has the best odds for your play.
Because sportsbooks work to even up the money, it’s likely that different books will have different odds based on the action they’ve received for a particular game. This is especially true of the moneyline, which typically varies more significantly across sportsbooks.
How Much Have You Lost Gambling
While the spread is usually a little more set-in-stone across different sites, there’s still a chance you might be able to steal half a point or even a full point if you look around. At the end of the day, you have nothing to lose by looking for better odds somewhere else. In the end, even small advantages pay off over time.
Conclusion
If you’ve been having a rough year betting on sports, it’s likely that you’ve been committing some of these betting faux pas along the way. These weaknesses in the general public’s betting strategy can be turned into opportunities if you’re willing to put in the time necessary to be successful.