Bankroll for Blackjack: How to manage your money

15 Apr 2021

Chris Horton 15 Apr 2021

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Bolstering your blackjack skills and refining your ability to make profitable decisions at the table is all well and good, but if you aren't able to manage your money correctly.

As with all casino games, blackjack chips are part of your arsenal in the war against the house and the only way to emerge triumphant is if you can fire your bullets as efficiently as possible. The only way to ensure that this is the case is if you have a predefined bankroll for blackjack.

Blackjack Bankroll Management

Having sound bankroll management is one of the biggest skills you can acquire as a gambler because it forces you to implement a certain amount of discipline that's necessary to survive in the casino world.

Throughout history an untold number of gamblers have suffered at the hands of impulse and frivolity, punting off all their cash and wondering why all their carefully planned strategies didn't work.

In essence, having a bankroll for blackjack and setting yourself certain rules is the glue that sticks everything else together.

Indeed, without managing your money correctly it doesn't matter how many blackjack betting systems you know because if you lose all your cash you won't be able to implement them.

Setting Your Blackjack Bankroll

So now that we’ve established the importance of bankroll management, what sort of cash do you need to stay safe and maximise your chances of a profit?

Basically, the short answer is: it depends.

Because the money you risk at the blackjack table should only be that which you can afford to lose, this figure will obviously vary from person-to-person.

Everyone has different tolerances and different financial strengths, so to get a true answer we need to look at ratios and general principles.

The first principle that's extremely important to grasp is that a bankroll for blackjack is not the entire sum of your net worth. Just because you've got $10,000 in the bank it doesn't mean you can define this amount as your blackjack bankroll.

In reality, the amount you should be playing with will be a small percentage of that total amount; assume an amount that you'd be willing to lose without worrying about it.

Your Blackjack Bankroll in Action

Let’s suppose that you’ve checked your finances and you can afford to put $1,000 into your blackjack bankroll, how should you now proceed?

The simplest way to manage your money is to divide it up into buy-ins and, for the most part, you should split it into 10 equal amounts.

By only taking 10% of your bankroll into a session you decrease the risk of going broke but still leave yourself enough opportunity for a good result.

Using the above bankroll as a starting point, you should be sitting down with $100 for each session. Moreover, you should be placing bets that are around 5% of your starting bankroll. So, in this scenario, your maximum bet per hand should be $5.

Although this may seem a somewhat meagre amount to some people, the reality of the situation is that bankroll losses can quickly spiral out of hand.

Although a $1,000 bankroll might seem like a lot of money to playing $5 hands, a sustained run of losses can easily half this amount and leave you struggling to regain your composure.

Is there a bankroll blackjack calculator?

There is paid software that will allow you to manage your bankroll for blackjack. But we recommend you learn to manage your balance yourself - as it is free to do.

What is the optimal blackjack bankroll strategy?

Split your bankroll into 10 equal portions and only gamble with 10% of that portion, giving you plenty of room to bet more and win a decent amount of money.

Should I use a blackjack bankroll management app?

If you feel it is useful, then by all means. However, this software is either paid for or it will come with lots of ads. You may want to learn to manage your money yourself before using an app.