Welcome to the world of soccer betting!
Now that you are going to be regularly betting on soccer matches one term that you need to get familiar with is “unit.”
At its most basic level, the unit is simply the amount of money that a bettor has decided to bet regularly from his bankroll – it’s the size of your bet.
For example, if you have a bankroll of €10,000 and you’ve decided to bet €100 per bet that €100 would equal 1 unit for you. A unit is not a set amount, you determine the size of your unit.
To continue with the example above, if you have a €10,000 bankroll and you’ve set your unit size at €100 that would mean you have a total of 100 units to bet in the future (€100 X 100 units = a €10,000 total bankroll).
We recommend that a unit represent a small portion of your total bankroll. We believe that setting the unit at 1% of bankroll (so using the above example with a €10,000 bankroll your unit would be €100) is ideal.
However, we also realize that many bettors can’t operate like this. For example, if your bankroll is €300 then placing a bunch of €3 bets would not be very exciting and would probably get old fast.
In this latter type of situation, we recommend that you set a unit size that is between 2% and 5% of your bankroll. Using the €300 bankroll as an example, if you set your unit at 5% your unit size would €15 meaning that you bet €15 per bet.
So why does “the unit” exist?
The answer is a unit is an easy way to keep track of your wins and losses.
While the general public will typically bet however much they want when they feel like it, a professional bettor must be organized. Using units allows for accurate record-keeping and allows you to easily keep track of your betting progress.
Units also provide you with an easy way to see if you are really winning long term. That’s why bettors will often refer to their performance by saying they are positive or negative a certain number of units.
For example, if a bettor says he is +25 that means he is up 25 times whatever 1 unit is to him. Using our first example above, that would mean he is up €2,500 (25 X €100 = €2,500).
Remember, keep your unit size preferably at 1% of bankroll or between 2% and 5% if you have a low bankroll. Then refer to units as a way to show your overall won-loss performance over time.
The bottom line with units is that they are a great measurement device to organize your soccer betting.