Attitude to Risk and Risk Management

[LFC81Eoin]

My guiding principle is the tried and tested method of not putting all your eggs in one basket and pre-planning as much as possible to avoid such a scenario - usually by not maxing reloads for example with US books and working out the overall risk when considering having to complete a WR.

At the moment, my bankrolls (US and GBP) are spread over 40 places if I include bank account and Moneybookers. The most risk I feel tomy main GBP float is to the value of 2% in a particular book where I have no WR to complete. The most risk to my US float is to the tune of 30% of that particular float in one book and I have a small WR to complete.

Because it's late, I'm going to go off on a tangent to what I feel is equally important... in fact, I feel it is more important as it over-rides the idea of risk-management as an isolated thing. I think before considering the risk of being caught out by money management issues comes into play, I would think about the risk of a loss of sense of reality. Bear with me, I think I'll make sense

Many of us probably started with a few hundred or so and, over the months/years, the hundreds turned into thousands of profit and some of us may have quite considerable bankrolls now, all (or the majority) of which are from profit. The betting turnover which was once £500 per month may now be £thousands a day. The figures easily lose meaning. The four-figure payouts blur into one another, you log into a book to find you'd forgotten about £850 or something. Is it a nice surprise or have you gone bonkers? Wouldn't you notice someone's taken an £850 3-piece suite from your lounge, you wouldn't miss it? Ok, a strange way of saying it but still, you get the idea - that money wasn't missed because it was just a figure on a screen, forgotten about. So it can be quite an unhealthy mindset that one develops in relation to money. Consciously, one may be thinking about money management in terms of "shall I risk x today to gain y" but subconsciously it could be more a case of "does x even mean anything to me anymore?" clouding that money management question.

And considering there is not one person here who hopes to lose money and, most likely, pretty much all will do this to mainly make money (although for some it is a source of enjoyment/learning experience etc), I would say that before we jump to risk management as a way of protecting our profits sensibly (in order to go on to make money), we should first protect ourselves from losing reality. Dramatic and possibly very obvious I know but still, if the figures lose meaning to you, then how do you expect to manage the figures productively, manage the risk involved etc?

It may be impossible to fully see money as it was once seen once you get a decent bankroll and so on and some may not even care about wanting to do so, but maybe there are steps to take to try and help if the above makes sense and anyone feels at risk of making a major risk-management boo-boo which, regardless of whether it's "all profit" or not, would matter to them. For those with children, perhaps you can visualise those figures as future education or whatever. Perhaps volunteering a few hours to a local charity to see how them receiving a donation of £50 means a lot to them can bring home those figures you view later that day on your screen. Whatever it be, perhaps some (not everyone) may think they require a way of helping with not losing focus on the figures and what they equate to in reality. Of course, in this game, tagging every penny to a physical object is not going to help because then you will absolutely fear any risk whatsover which is equally unhelpful... but overall, perhaps this is something worth taking a moment to consider just to make sure the ability to manage money isn't being battered by a mindset which isn't really that helpful.

edit, sorry I kinda missed answering the q... I've not been in a position of over-exposure so can't say what I have done to get out of it. Any sort of laying obviously means more money can go to the book you're already worried about and mugging can increase a balance in a book which might be struggling and it can obviously lose your funds as well so neither are ideal. But what does doing nothing achieve? So it's a hard call I think. I've been able to stay within a level of risk I felt comfortable with and I'm pretty sure that's remained at 15% or less than my overall float (USD+GBP) in any book I felt wasn't too financially confident in. Like you, I have managed to avoid the effect of books going rogue/bust - I've played at several which went bankrupt but always got out months ahead thankfully. As you say, this luck can turn at any point though although we can all still go by our feelings much of the time and try to be as aware as possible... pretty much all we can do.

I don't know how i missed this thread before, but i just read this and i think its an excellent post , i have gambled and lost a 1000 pound some days and it just messes with my head so much .

You lose more than money when you lose 1000 in a day you become out of touch with reality , i was going to the shops for lunch a few days ago and i had lost around 800 gambling and i was looking at a magazine and i wouldnt buy it cause it was 6 euro , then i start thinking i just f*cked away 800 quid in a few minutes online backing whoever and i won't even buy myself a magazine .

It just doesn't seem like real money , i log onto betfair and i don't have a clue what figure should be in the top corner , i don't keep records , but i wouldnt bat an eyelid at sticking a few hundred quid down on a mug punt .

After reading this post and thinking about it , i've decided to withdraw everything and leave myself a float of about 5k that way i cant mess around .

[Fella]

A few random thoughts on this:

I definitely find that my attitude to risk varies according to which kind of risk it is. For instance I have a very low tolerance to casino variance (does my head in). And poker is even worse! However, totally illogically, I've mugged & lost more (in one go) than I've ever lost on a casino bonus & MUCH more than I've ever lost on a poker hand without caring. So go figure.


Another strange aspect to this: "Bravery", or for want of a better term, just how comfortable you are with risk, isn't permanent! Example: Before I ever did a US book I was fairly apprehensive. When I first started dutching them (Heroes vs Betjoint....) I was quadruple-checking every step of the way. However after a week or so I was chilled & found it second nature & not daunting in the slightest. Then I didn't do another US book for ages & next time round, guess what - back to cacking myself. And then after a couple of bets, back to being chilled. Same thing happened when I very first started betting 4-figure amounts (although now I do that often enough that I'm fine with it. However, I'm sure if I stopped doing it for too long I'd be nervous all over again).

I find this applies in general to opening new accounts too. If I'm focussed on MB then I open accounts & whistle through them in no time & with barely a second thought. But if I leave it for a few weeks in between opening a new account, I begin to regress into some kind of frightened little rabbit fearful of signing up anywhere new in case it turns out to be dodgy. This latter phenomenon is made worse by an entirely separate but even more insidious one - the less that I do new signups, the less I can be bothered to do new signups. It begins to feel like altogether far to much hassle to bother reading about them, checking terms, payment methods, other caveats, understanding the offer, looking for matches, sending ID, trying to get paid, etc etc etc etc.........


......& then - I'll suddenly snap out of it & just get on with it & within literally a few minutes of diving into a new signup I've remembered afresh just what a doddle the vast majority of offers are. And I'll be wondering what on earth had stopped me signing up to {wherever} weeks ago. I've repeatedly experienced the above cycle over the last 2-3 years & I understand it perfectly, yet that doesn't mean I don't keep falling into it.

Regarding "risky" signups, I'm convinced that they are financially +EV & in fact very +EV, even allowing that at some point you'll get stung. However you need to factor in that it's not just a financial decision. Even if you make $1,000 profit at some dodgy offshore book & you do eventually get paid, if you spent two months sweating that payout was it really worth it? I'd say for some people yes & for others no. A case in point with that is a certain bookie that always takes months to payout (you know the one, it's the one that no two people spell the name of in the same way). I see arbs there all the time & I'm 99% certain that if I joined there I would get paid out OK in the end, however it's really not worth it, to me, to spend months chasing/waiting for payment, even if I KNEW I'd get paid in the end. I know that the mental hassle would make it a -EV proposition for me. I often see threads where people have been paid "in the end" at some bookies & the mood of such threads is "alls well that ends well" but I don't think it is. Even if you got your money in the end, you've had to suffer a lot in the meantime & suffering is no fun for anyone. And this should be fun! Or at the very least, it shouldn't be suffering. So I will sometimes do iffy signups, but only when I think it's a very VERY good offer & I'm in the sort of frame of mind where I feel up for dealing with hassle if it occurs.



Regarding the "thinking of MB money as real money" thing, I don't really have an issue with that. I always think of offers in terms of tenners (Coral DOND offer = 1 tenner, Eurosportbet signup = 4 tenners, Panbet signup = 2 tenners, & so on.....). I also think of debt &/or anything I might be saving for in those terms. Want to pay a £10K debt? Easy, that's just 1,000 tenners. 1,000 little ol' offers each worth a tenner. And if you find a few that are worth £100 along the way, that's 10 tenners in one go. I doubt there's a person MB-ing who couldn't find 1,000 tenners worth of offers pretty easily.....). Want a top-of-the-range iPhone on PAYG? That's just 55 tenners. Cheap at half the price. (As most things would be). And so on.

[LFC81Eoin]

Quality post i could of wrote that myself ( except i'm brutal at writing things ) , but thats almost exactly as i feel except for the last bit about the tenners thing , i wish i taught like that my thinking is sign up to panbet do the qualifying bet match it off ,then mug the 25 on stoke and fulham to draw, and it losses and i end up making nothing on the offer.

[Oasis]

Once again, a brilliant post by Fella there.

I can 100% agree with the trepidation about joining new books after a spell out. I took a well deserved break over Christmas, turning off the computer and not bothering. Deleting any offers than came into my inbox and it was a wonderful break from the monotony of it all.

However, since I have started again in January I'm finding it very hard to get my head back into it. I often find this with breaks in anything, I need to be constantly doing something or my head drifts out of it. I remember last October/November I was completely in the thick of it. The best month's I'd ever had in matched betting. Diving in and out of casinos/slots/bookies, signups/reloads everything. Didn't really have time to stop and think, yet now (even though I have a list of things I need to do) I'm finding it very hard to get back into and worried that I'll mess things up. Hopefully I'll ease myself back into it, and with my stint with "The Gambling Times Relay Torch" coming up in a couple of weeks, I'll really need to be on my game. Hopefully that'll be the jolt I need to get my arse in gear.

[essybe]

This has ben a really great thread to read and thank you to all the people who have contributed to it.

The point I would make for me is that a target is needed to do something with the money that you have earned. I fell into a trap of making money doing this just for the sake of it for a while; I was tallying up every week/month for a while there, seeing my money going up but not really seeing it - it was at a stage where it was like playing a computer game and every time I played I got further. I have now got a couple of targets for my money to aim for so I value what I am doing.

When I had no targets I didnt appreciate the risk of it and got to a stage where I had money left in bet24 and after doing one of their £21 offers I had £9 left so I just mugpunted it on Chelsea - I didnt appreciate the money \i just saw a figure of 9 - when it lost it made me think and apreciate that these figures I seeon the screen is money - I now visulise the figures as notes so as to help me concentrate. (hope this makes sense - I have went a bit of topic and rambled on as well!)

[wobbler]

Brilliant thread and some fantastic long quality posts here.

My position is that I see this as pure profit. I started with £100 on a prepaid Maestrocard and have earned quite a few thousand so far (hard to keep track because I pay all my bills out of it plus I'm always buying luxury electrical items ) I still currently have a sizable amount at my disposal but I am still very risk averse and that is probably what is holding me back at the moment.
I have a fear of US books with their large WR's and I have not had much experience with dutching. I don't really touch Casinos anymore because most of them have insane wagering requirements. I'm old school from when the WR used to be 1 to 10x WR and everything counted towards it.

I really need to get my arse into gear this year with some of the US and Asian books as I've pretty much milked the usual UK household name suspects to death. I'm getting frustrated with being limited at books when there are so many books out there that I haven't done yet.

This could be a great year, I just have to bite the bullet and get on with it!

[billysastard]

This has ben a really great thread to read and thank you to all the people who have contributed to it.

The point I would make for me is that a target is needed to do something with the money that you have earned. I fell into a trap of making money doing this just for the sake of it for a while; I was tallying up every week/month for a while there, seeing my money going up but not really seeing it - it was at a stage where it was like playing a computer game and every time I played I got further. I have now got a couple of targets for my money to aim for so I value what I am doing.

When I had no targets I didnt appreciate the risk of it and got to a stage where I had money left in bet24 and after doing one of their £21 offers I had £9 left so I just mugpunted it on Chelsea - I didnt appreciate the money \i just saw a figure of 9 - when it lost it made me think and apreciate that these figures I seeon the screen is money - I now visulise the figures as notes so as to help me concentrate. (hope this makes sense - I have went a bit of topic and rambled on as well!)

I can easily relate, just in the last week or so the figures on the screen ahve become just that figures. I dont relate it to money at all. I really need to snap out of that.
I was in the same boat as you with bet24 I was going through my asccounts and found £24, now the sensible thing was to withdraw, oh no no no. I transferred it to the casino, dumped it on black, it came out 0. £24 gone ina few seconds. Now £24 is not a lot of money, actually bollox it is a lot of money to some. Anyway in my eyes at the moment £24 is not a lot of money so I had no issues just chucking it away. I then went to my regular poker site and proceeded to stick $100 on bj in one hand. It won so a nice bonus, but again it had no meaning at the time. On reflection a few hours later I was like wtf, I have gone from being one of the most cauttious people in terms of matching out bets to somebody who just decided to chuck $100 on a hand of bj on a whim.
Now if a bonus was involved like it was with totesport casino and you have the chance of turning £100 into £300, then I will play that game all day long and twice on a sunday, but when it comes to no bonus being involved I am usually very strict.
I have no issues with going full steam into a book, if I have decided to do them, then I must trust 100% that I will be getting paid, if I doubted for a minute that things are not right then I wont go in. Maybe I am too cautious on that score, but there is one book i just wont touch now but others play on a regular basis but for me it just does not feel right going back in. So away I stay.

[wobbler]

I have no issues with going full steam into a book, if I have decided to do them, then I must trust 100% that I will be getting paid, if I doubted for a minute that things are not right then I wont go in. Maybe I am too cautious on that score, but there is one book i just wont touch now but others play on a regular basis but for me it just does not feel right going back in. So away I stay.

That sounds exactly the same as me Billy, this year I'm going to take more calculated risks as I need to keep momentum. I'm blasting trough this Titanbet at the moment and it's giving me a small feel for the larger WR's.