Bankroll Management

[KahosNight50]

Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had ideas on how to manage your bankroll for Casinos (Both online and land based). If there was one spot where I feel like I am very weak it is in bankroll management.

[vanHooff]

I tend to type out long stories so I'll start out with a conclusion paragraph in bold before spouting the rest of the drivel.

Often 'bankroll management' is viewed as the collection of techniques and measures you take to grow, or at least preserve your funds.
Some applicable fields are poker, investing, sports betting and videopoker.
For the type of gambling that is most discussed on this forum: online slots, losing goes so fast (3%-4% per spin) that most players do not have a 'bankroll', instead replenish the gambling money on a regular basis because they are going broke all of the time.
For that matter discussing 'bankroll management' for slots would mostly be about how to get enough fun for your money, how to optimize the chance of cashing a profit, how not to lose more than you can afford, or in certain cases where bonuses are involved, how to provide yourself enough chance to get the extra (bonus) money.
There is no 'easy money' to be made in gambling for players,
although profitable opportunities may exist for expert players and/or while making use of bonuses or other incentives.

Bankroll management in sports betting:
there are dozens difficult ways for winning in sports betting, and a couple of easy ways for losing.
Oversimplified it comes down to this: the bookmakers offer tons of bets with a calculated profit margin (typically 2%-7.5% for them)
If you manage to bet on the 'bad bets' of the bookmaker that actually are profitable for you, you are making money.
Still you could go broke because of the variance .
One of the techniques for maximizing growth of your bankroll while managing the chance of going broke, is Kelly criterion . 
Note: in some cases you may want to apply different techniques such as middling, arbitraging, surebetting. Especially when using bonuses.

Bankroll management in poker:
You need to have a positive winrate in the games that you are playing, despite the rake (3%+) or tourney fees (5%+)
In order to monitor your games and to know your winrate, you would probably use a program such as Holdem Manager/Poker Tracker.
For the last 5 years online poker has been unprofitable for 99.9% of players, but with resurrection of regulated markets, new opportunities may emerge. For live poker it is harder to get an indication of your winrate. Also in live poker the rake may be very high and the amount of games/tables very low. Still you must not be broke to stay in the game, so good bankroll management is crucial.

Bankroll management in video poker:
In videopoker, both online and land based, the 'return to player' / payout percentage of the game itself is between 98% and almost 100%. If you add up some extra incentives such as bonuses (rare), loyalty points or 'comps', you might be gambling slightly profitably.
No easy money though, quite high variance and/or in most cases a hell of a grind.
In Las Vegas Brick & Mortar casino's, the lower stakes you play, the worse pay tables you get.
Online you might get the best paying variants only on single-hand play.

Bankroll management for playing with bonuses (all gambling) :
bonuses come in many forms and are typically intended for prolonging play time for players, while at the same 'tying up' the player in order to reduce the chance for a cashout.
Bonuses that are rewarded immediately ('prewager') always come with Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) that you need to adhere to, or risk losing your deposits + winnings. 
For the average player, not accepting any prewager bonuses causes the least headaches and might be smart since easy money is rare.
An exception might be if you live in a newly regulated market in the USA, say Michigan or New Jersey.

Yes, there are very few expert crafts guys who still manage to make a living or good side hussle grinding out bonuses. calling out suspect @780xFTW 

Online slots bonuses, extremely simplified: since you are expected to lose 3.5% per spin on a typical 96.5% RTP slot, you'd want a 100% match cashable prewager bonus to be 28,5*Bonus to be zero EV (expected value) In European markets and because of regulations, there is a tendency towards bonuses not being fully 'cashable'. Instead your own money should always be fully cashable and the bonus a little bit of extra with all sorts of T&Cs attached.

I am not going into fullest detail, but EV calculations for prewager cashable bonuses are not perfectly suitable.
In certain cases it may be possible to gamble profitably on -EV prewager cashable bonuses, because the wagering requirements do not have to be fulfilled when losing all of the balance. This is one of the ways how online streamers can stay afloat, even without getting money from affiliating revenue. This is not easy to calculate, but simulation and/or experience go a long way.
I estimate that bonuses up to 45*B could still be profitable on slotting in casino's with a full portfolio, highest RTP settings and high maxbet sizes.

For the average player the takeaway for playing with a standard cashable prewager bonus is this: it prolongs your playing time.
The wagering requirements (WR) must be met while still adhering to all other bonus T&C. You should familiarize yourself with variances and RTPs of various slots that you play. You might tweak your gameplay a little bit by choosing slots and stakes. One of the strategies for beating a bonus is playing a bit higher variance and higher stakes early on, and grinding it out by playing lower variance and lower stakes when clearing the WR is in sight. Note this strategy may be a breach of bonus T&C.

In practice, there are some but only few bonuses directly profitable for typical players.
If these bonuses are well-known, widespread (ab)use is to be expected and the bonuses are likely to be discontinued. 

I am giving one example of a slightly profitable bonus, yet I strongly recommend NOT to try to cash in on this because of the risks.
Even if you manage to convert these bonuses into cash, you might be restricted from receiving further bonuses.
Royal Panda gives 35*B prewager bonuses all the time.
As long as you are not 'dipping into bonus money', you are wagering and there are very few restrictions. As soon as you 'dip into bonus money', the bonus T&Cs apply. This type of bonus is immediately profitable as long as you play online slots with RTP of 97,14% RTP or higher, which are rare. 
You could play expensive bonus buys on Kalamba games (RTP: 97,7%) or even Aces&Faces VideoPoker (RTP: 99,26%, VideoPoker contributes 100% towards wagering) and be profitable.
You will probably going to tilt or hate life  when grinding out a bonus on that VideoPoker variant on low stakes for an estimated profit of EUR 1 per hour or so. 

Even if you play slots at lower RTP than 97,14% and if while playing with own money you are not playing differently than when playing without any bonus altogether, you should reach sight of clearing the WR now and then, so the bonus is worth a little something. 
The other side of this coin however is that while having bonus funds your play balance looks inflated, and this may well trigger you to play a bit too high and make you not cash out soon enough.
 

'Bankroll Management' for online slotting:
- Responsible gaming: not playing at all may be the smartest option. This applies especially to problem gamblers.
- Responsible gaming: for players who do play, self-discipline is the most important thing.
Know how much you can afford to lose, when you can play and when you should not, be prepared to quit instead of reloading money even if the playtime is short. There is no amount of other measures that can replace this.
- Responsible gaming: other measures, casino's: you may want to impose some of the measures available.
Some examples are deposit limits, loss limits, restricted maximum playing time, maximum bets.  
- Responsible gaming: only play with money that you can miss. Consider all deposits to become losses. Play at stakes that you are comfortable with.
Regular players could easily not play higher than €0,50 per bet and still lose a couple of hundred or Euros per session.
There is absolutely no shame in playing €0,10/€0,25 stakes even though most Twitch/Youtube videos show EUR 5 or more per bet.
- Prolonging playtime: you may want never to use 'turbo play', you may want not to use bonus buys.
- Maximizing chances of a cashout: set win targets and cashout when those are reached.
Example: deposit EUR 100, cashout target at EUR 300.
Might you reach EUR 400 by getting a decent bonus, you may want to further play to reach a new EUR 500 target, but please  do not drop below EUR 300. (350?)
- maximizing chance of a cashout (bonus) 
When playing with a bonus you should keep an eye on the wagering requirements and to slow down a bit when finishing the WR with a decent balance is in sight, while still adhering to bonus T&Cs.

Happy gambling.

 

[780xFTW]

i associate BRM with poker. if u have a good one u hardly have a risk of ruin.

for slots it doesnt really matter since every spin is a -EV (negative expected value) decision from your part so your longterm ruin is just a matter of time.

there are some rare special cirumstances that make casino games +EV but these mostly come with a high varicane.

best advice is to not gamble at all (atleast dont gambe with the intention to earn money) gamble for fun and dont chase losses