| |
Money Management in Online Casino Gambling
Money management is one of the most important elements of online gambling. If you don’t have a bankroll large enough to accommodate multiple bets at the stakes you are playing, you will need to get very lucky or have your session end very quickly. You should have a separate gaming bankroll that does not mix with your other finances. Mingling bankroll with personal funds can lead to disaster. You should have very rigid standards for when you can either withdraw money from your bankroll or add to it and adhere to them.
Online Game Dependent Bankroll Management
Positive Expectation Online Games
If you are playing a game like internet poker where you can gain a positive expectation, your bankroll with respect to your limits should be based on your win rate, if you have one. Your win rate is how much you can expect to win per hour on average. You should base your win rate on many hours, even months, of play. A single session is not sufficient to calculate an accurate win rate, since you could be in the midst of a lucky or unlucky streak. Once you know if you have a positive win rate, you want to create a bankroll that will be large enough to allow you to weather whatever swings you experience and come out on top.
Negative Expectation Online Games
Games like online roulette, online craps and even online blackjack have a negative expectation. They are designed by the casinos so that the longer you play, the more you lose. The house edge amounts to your negative expectation assuming you are playing perfect strategy. If you are not, your negative expectation may be worse. If a game has a house edge of five percent, you can expect to lose $5 for every $100 you wager, meaning that if you wager $100 an hour, your negative expectation is $5 per hour.
With negative expectation online casino games, your bankroll should allow you to play for several hours for as many days a week as you like, and keep you in play until you can replenish your bankroll. For example, let’s say you have $1,000 a month for online gambling. You can afford to lose $250 a week. If you want to play for five hours twice a week, that means you can afford a negative expectation of $25 an hour. What this means is that if you play a game with a house edge of 5%, you can play at a limit that will require $400 an hour of wagering. What this means is that if you play 20 rounds an hour (20 spins of the wheel, hands of cards, rolls of the dice, etc.), you can afford to play at stakes of $20 a round. Simply readjust these calculations according to your available bankroll and you can keep yourself in play almost indefinitely. But remember that a sizable casino bonus can reduce the house edge considerably. |
|
