Each year it is estimated that billions of dollars are wagered on sports picks including free football picks, free NFL picks, free college football picks, baseball picks, basketball picks and hockey picks. Sports betting started a long time ago and continues to become more and more popular thanks in large part to the invention of the Internet. As human beings we all have an appetite for risk and excitement. Sports betting provides us with an outlet to fulfill those innate desires. As a consequence sports betting can bring out emotions that can cause us to act recklessly and out of character. Learning how to manage your sports betting bankroll can help you control these emotions.

The biggest mistake people make is they allow their emotions to interfere. We have all done it. If we are winning money on our free football picks, NFL predictions, free college football picks and other sports picks, then we allow greed to enter into the equation. On the other hand, if we are losing our sports picks then we start chasing by betting too much of our bankroll on one game. It is very tempting to bet a large amount of money on any one game but this is what the house and bookies bank on.

Prior to entering the sports handicapping business, I worked for over 10 years in the financial services industry managing money and investment portfolios. During my tenure in financial services industry, the biggest mistake I witnessed people make involves the age old term, “don’t put too many eggs in one basket”. Everyone is guilty of this at one time or another. We all want to get rich fast, thus we end up investing too much of our money in any one asset class, sector, industry and/or stock. Another mistake we all make is our tendency to chase the hot stocks, sectors or industries. Unfortunately, neither of these strategies are a good recipe for financial success. In order for us to reach our financial goals and dreams of one day retiring with the large yacht, house on the ocean or whatever they may be, we need to practice financial discipline.

Financial discipline requires us to stay to course. We can only achieve our sports betting goals over the long term if we stick to our strategy during the good and bad times. Reaching our financial dreams takes time and the discipline to ride the up and downs. Of course there will be bad streaks and good streaks in sports betting just like there is good and bad periods in the stock market. But the key to success is dependent on our ability to ride out the ups and downs. This can only be accomplished if you stay the course and diversify your bets during the good and bad times. Don’t allow yourself to bet too much of your bankroll on any one of your NFL football picks, free college football picks or other sports predictions. To put this in perspective, if you missed only the best 40 performing days of the S&P 500 index in the last 10 years (1998-2007), you would have a negative 8.4% return. However, if you stayed the course and kept your money in the S&P 500 index everyday for the past 10 years, you would have earned a positive 5.9% return.

Almost every sports bettor bets too much per game relative to his or her bankroll. The reason for this is simple. It is more exciting to bet large amounts of money on our free football picks, free NFL picks, college football picks, MLB picks, NHL picks and NBA picks. The inevitable outcome is that we usually deplete our sports betting bankroll to zero and stop playing before we even had a chance to win. Or we try to recoup our losses by chasing and betting too much per game. This can quickly snowball into a dangerous and reckless turn of events. Fortunately, if we can learn to control our emotions by managing our sports betting bankroll, then we can significantly limit the probability of finding ourselves in this predicament.

So what is the maximum that you should bet per game? First we need to determine your bankroll. This is different for every person but you should never start with any more than you are willing and able to lose. However, there is one constant that applies whether you bet 10 dollars per game or 1000 dollars per game. You should also never bet more than 5% of your bankroll on any one game, just like you should never invest more than 5% of your investment portfolio in any one stock. In fact most of your bets should be between 1-3% of your bankroll. Only sports picks that you feel really confident about winning should you bet 4-5% of your sports betting bankroll. I hope this article helps and good luck!