Money Management or Money Management Scheme?

You know, sometimes we get on this blog and we talk about the importance of money management when you're playing casino games, whether they are online or in the land-based environment. It's probably pretty important for us to explain what we are talking about, and indeed, what we are NOT talking about.

When we talk about money management, we are talking about betting sensibly in relation to your bankroll. When you go into a gambling session, online or in the physical casino, you are working with funds that have a limit. So it makes sense that you can't continue to wager as if you have unlimited money. That's because if you make too many of those wagers and lose, you're going to be out of action, and then you're going to be "reaching over the line," so to speak, when it comes to betting with money you can't afford to lose. What you would ideally like to do is lay out your wagers – namely your average wager – so that it is in portion to your bankroll to the extent that it greatly reduces the element of ruin.

In other words, if you're going into the casino with $1000, you don't want to make your average wager $100 or even $50, because you are not allowing for the possibility of bad runs. What you'd much rather do is limit your maximum bet to 1/40 of your total bankroll you taken to play.

What some people THINK is meant by money management is putting together a system completely based on betting that is supposed to beat a casino game. Usually that game is something like roulette or blackjack, and the particular system calls for doubling a bet after a loss, so that if you're on a bad run, your betting more and more and more with the expectation that one of those bets is going to win. This is called a Martingale system, and what this does is bring you into real danger of losing your entire bankroll quickly. You can believe this – you can get taken over the table limit quicker than you ever imagined. There is no way that could possibly represent wise management of your bankroll.

The ultimate decision is up to you, but we could never recommend you being so reckless as to wager something that is out of proportion to your bankroll just because you might foolishly believe that the "law of averages" is going to save you every time.