A couple of "newb" questions. All replies appreciated.

[MCS]

[ QUOTE ]
Because of my small bankroll at the moment I have'nt been making wagers over $20. So, does that mean that for me, a unit would be $20? I think that that is what I'm hearing.

[/ QUOTE ]

A "unit" is sort of like the standard of measurement for your bankroll, usually a small percentage like 1.5%. Again, the term is used to give everyone common ground in discussing games. Some one betting "three units" on a game feels strongly about it, regardless of how much actual money they bet.

Say I was betting $5 most of the time, with occasional $10, $15, and $20 bets. Then a $5 bet would be a one unit bet, and the others would be two, three, and four units. If I make $50 this year, that's a ten unit profit. If someone else makes $100 but their bankroll is much higher and so $100 is their unit, then they've only made one unit of profit, which means I did better resultswise as far as making bets.

(Of course, making $100 is better than $50, but you see the point.)

Also, if you just see a line that says "ATL -3" or something like that rather than "ATL -3 -115" assume that there's an implied "-110." The standard thing is to bet $110 to profit $100, so they often leave that part off just to avoid clutter. "ATL -3 -115" means two things: (1) that the line on the game is 3, i.e., Atlanta wins the bet if they win by more than 3 and it's a push if they win by exactly 3, and (2) you have to bet $115 to win $100 if you want to bet on ATL -3.

So in this case, if you bet $230 and Atlanta wins by 7, you profit $200. If it had just said "ATL -3" you could have bet $220 to win $200.

[20Five]

[ QUOTE ]
Excellent info, 20Five! Thanks for aking the time to write it down. I have a VERY small bankroll right now to work with (the majority of my roll is tied up in poker sites where I do the majority of my playing. I am picking this up on the side because first I love sports, and second, why not make it interesting, right? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Because of my small bankroll at the moment I have'nt been making wagers over $20. So, does that mean that for me, a unit would be $20? I think that that is what I'm hearing.

Thanks again!

[/ QUOTE ]

You're welcome.. as mentioned before the closer a 'unit' is to 1 or 2% of your bankroll the better, as it will do the best job of keeping you out of serious trouble when you bump into a bad run which is inevitable.

Good money management more important in sports betting then it is in poker, and I will mention this again that odds are it will determine your results almost as much as which games you play.

If your just starting out, I'd suggest with coming up with a basic Money Management strategy and sticking to it as best as you can even before you try learning the ins and outs of how to cap your own games and all that jazz.. coming from the tables Im assuming you can excercise patience in this respect.

I was in the same boat as you, winning poker player who decided to dump money into sports betting (mainly because I got a full time job and couldnt play as much as Id like anymore) It can be fun, and frustrating at the same time.. the learning curve I think is much steeper in sports bettin as the edges we are playing for are much smaller then in poker.

Anyways, stick around here.. This site and covers.com another are really the only two I have used in my education to this point.. no books or anything else. There are some posters who know a thing or two and have some experience and will often help out if they can.

GL [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[jmrogers7]

Excellent advice. Money management is definitely key, as you know from being a poker player as well. As I mentioned above, my bets have been anywhere from $5 to $20. Sure wish I had made more than a $5 bet on the Nationals yesterday! that would've been sweet! Took them for $5 but wasn't willing to wager any more than that with Hudson on the mound.

My involvement in fantasy baseball is definitely a plus in capping these MLB games. It has kept me up on most all player news and such which is always helpful in being informed.

Anyway, thanks to all for the answers and advice! It is greatly appreciated and I look forward to more of the same!

GL to everyone!

[null]

Hello,
A unit can really mean anything, depending on who is using the term. Generally it means 1% or 2% of your bankroll. If you are varying the amount you bet based on how much you like a play, you aren't supposed to do more than double it (and I've also read advice of only increasing it by 50%). Varying the amount you bet by more than that is usually a bad idea.

As for that line, when I bet St. Louis -1 -116, that means you subtract a run from their score. So if they win by one my bet pushes. Baseball is generally bet on the moneyline, but there's also a thing called a runline you can bet. When you bet a runline you either give up 1.5 runs with a favorite or get 1.5 runs as a dog, for adjusted odds (unlike spreads it doesn't vary from game to game, although some books will offer several different runlines for the same game with different juice). There is also such a thing as an alternate runline, which handicaps the dog and gives runs to the favorite. Pinnacle lets you change how many runs you give/take with a runline, so I took St. Louis -1 -116 instead of betting them on the moneyline at -157. Most places only deal with the standard +/- 1.5. When betting runlines, keep in mind a good percentage of games are decided by a single run.

(got beaten by just a little bit there, heh)

[jmrogers7]

Thanks, null! You guys are definitely helping me understand things better!

[jmrogers7]

Again, thanks to all for answering all of my questions. i truly appreciate it!

Just so everyone knows what I am dealing with, I just started betting sports online (have made sporadic offline bets throughout the years but never seriously or consistently, and mostly only during football season as I have a small league based on picking games ATS).

I put $150 into SportingBet.com in order to play poker there. After realizing that my style of play wasn't working there with the INCREDIBLY loose games there right now (I like 'em loose but I could not adapt to 6-way caps each betting round. I'll stick to Party/Empire Poker for the fish!), my small roll there of $150 went down to $68.

I decided that instead of just cashing out I would just use that $68 and make some small sports bets to keep myself interested. If I were to lose that small roll there I wouldn't be upset as it is a small portion of my overall roll that is wrapped up in poker at other sites. I am just using this as a recreational thing to keep me more interested in sports in general.

In the 3 days that I have been making bets there (a combination of NBA and MLB bets) I am 8-5-1 and have my roll there up to $138 so I am +$70.

I have not made a bet over $20 and my bets have all been $5, $10 or $20. Does this mean that as I have described it, my definition of my own personal unit would be $20?

My breakdown is as follows:
MLB
---
Side Bets = 3-2-0
Totals = 1-0-1
Overall = 4-2-1

NBA
---
Side Bets = 2-1-0
Totals = 0-1-0
Money Line = 2-1-0
Overall = 4-3-0

OVERALL = 8-5-1
+ $70

[MCS]

[ QUOTE ]
my bets have all been $5, $10 or $20. Does this mean that as I have described it, my definition of my own personal unit would be $20?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, reread the responses and think about it. $5 is your smallest bet. You're betting in multiples of $5. Your unit is $5.

[jmrogers7]

Makes sense. Thanks. I guess I was thinking about it as the majority of my bets (albeit, I have only made a small amount of bets to date) have been of the $20 variety. But, I see your point.

[sportypicks.com]

As an added point, make sure your unit size is the amount you "wager" on a game not the amount you win if you win.

For example if your unit size was $5 and you are playing a
-200 favorite you should risk $5 to win $2.50. Likewise, if you were playing a +200 dog you should risk $5 to win $10. Otherwise you wind up doubling your bet size on the favorites.

[WackityWhiz]

I have a question about units as well. As you may know i've been posting all my plays and how many units i'm up. I started the year betting 11 on each game. As I've made some money, I've increased my bet to 15. So, lets say I win 33 bucks in one day when I'm betting 15. My previous stats (my current +/- units on the year) are based on my 11 wager. Do I treat my 15 wager as a 1.45 unit wager? Or do I switch it to a 1 unit wager?

The only reason I ask is because I want to portray accurate results to you guys on how many units i'm up (or down). This was probably confusing as hell, but try to piece it together, thanks