If your bankroll management is bad, nothing else matters. You can have the best blackjack chart or roulette system in the world and still torch your money by staking like a maniac.
This page is your Casino Money Plan. It’s the basic framework I think every casual player should use before they sit down at a table, open a live casino, or fire up a slot.
By the end of this, you’ll know:
- How to ring‑fence a gambling bankroll without touching real‑life bills
- How to turn that into sensible session bankrolls
- How much to stake per hand/spin/roll
- How to set simple stop‑loss and win‑goal numbers that keep you out of trouble
No theory, no fluff. Just a money plan you can actually use.
1. Step One: Build A Proper Gambling Bankroll
First job: separate your gambling money from the rest of your life.
- Work out your disposable income after essentials (rent, food, bills, debt).
- Decide how much of that you’re comfortable losing on gambling without stress.
- Keep it separate – e‑wallet, spare account, or ring‑fenced pot — and never top it up from money you need for real life.
Some casino and betting guides suggest using 10–25% of your “fun money” as a starting point, not 10–25% of your entire income. That’s the ballpark: enough to enjoy yourself, not enough to blow up your month if it goes badly.
If you can’t honestly afford to lose it, it doesn’t belong in your bankroll.
2. Step Two: Split It Into Session Bankrolls
Once you’ve got a total bankroll, you split it into sessions. This stops one bad night from wiping out your entire pot.
Example:
- Total casino bankroll for the month: ÂŁ400
- You want four sessions → £100 per session
- Each session is self‑contained: when it’s done, it’s done
Most bankroll guides agree that thinking in sessions is safer: you pre‑decide how many sessions you’ll play and divide your bankroll across them. That way, a brutal run in one session doesn’t kill your whole month.
Key rules:
- Never borrow from future sessions “just this once”
- If a session is over (time or money), walk away – even if you “feel like” one more spin
This is the difference between a controlled gambling hobby and chaos.
3. Step Three: Use The 1–2% Stake Rule
Now you’ve got a session bankroll (say £100), you decide your unit size – what you actually bet per hand, spin, or roll.
The simplest rule that keeps people alive is this:
- Risk roughly 1–2% of your total bankroll per bet
- For pure casino sessions, you can apply the same logic to your session bankroll if you’ve already segmented things down
Examples:
- £100 session → £1–£2 bets
- £200 session → £2–£4 bets
- £500 session → £5–£10 bets
The 1–2% rule exists for one reason: losing streaks will happen, and this keeps them from wiping you out. At 1–2% stakes, even 15–20 losses in a row hurt, but they don’t end you.
Anything above 5% per bet is high‑risk territory. Some bankroll guides are blunt: 5% stakes plus a 100–100 run at even odds can cut a bankroll in half because of the house margin alone.​
For most players, 1% as a standard stake and 2–3% as a “max confidence” stake is more than enough.
4. Step Four: Set Simple Stop‑Loss Limits
A stop‑loss is the point where you say “I’m done” for this session. You don’t argue with it, you don’t move it mid‑game.
Common, realistic ideas:
- Stop if you lose 40–50% of your session bankroll
- Some guides use 20–50% as a band, others accept a full 100% loss of that session (not total bankroll) as the absolute top limit
Examples with a ÂŁ100 session:
- Early warning at £50 down: pause, take a break, maybe call it for the night​
- Hard stop at £60–£70 down (or the full £100 if you’ve pre‑decided that’s your total risk for this session)
Casino session planning advice often suggests a layered stop‑loss: a “circuit breaker” at around 50% of your session roll where you must step away, and an absolute stop at 100%. That alone stops a lot of tilt.​
What matters more than the exact number is this: once you hit it, you stop. No topping up. No “one more deposit”.
5. Step Five: Set Realistic Win Goals
A win goal is where you give yourself permission to walk away ahead instead of handing it all back chasing “just a bit more”.
Common sense guidelines:
- Aim for a win of around 30–50% of your session bankroll
- Some people use 50–100% for longer, higher‑variance sessions – the key is that you pick a number and stick to it
Examples:
- £100 session → happy to leave around £130–£150
- £200 session → happy to leave around £260–£300
Many casino planning guides recommend hybrid goals: you’re basically paying for a couple of hours’ entertainment, but if you hit a profit that would cover something meaningful (dinner, fuel, a night out), you treat that as a clear “cash out” signal.​
You can also use a “lock‑in” approach:
- Start with ÂŁ100
- Hit ÂŁ140 (+40%)
- Move your stop‑loss up to £100 (original stake)
- Either build from there or walk out even in the worst case
That way, you don’t turn a strong winning spot into another frustrating breakeven or losing session.
6. Flat Betting vs Fancy Progressions
Once people hear “bankroll”, they start hunting systems. The truth is simple:
- Flat betting (same stake each bet) is the most stable way to use your bankroll.
- Progressions (Martingale, Fibonacci, etc.) don’t change the edge – they just change how you lose when the maths catches up.
Most bankroll and casino guides quietly recommend either:
- Flat stakes based on 1–2% rules, or
- Very small, controlled variations (e.g. tiny presses after wins, not big jumps after losses)
If you want to play with progressions, treat them as entertainment within your money plan, not a way to “fix” losses. Your unit size and limits matter more than your pattern.
7. Adjusting For Different Games
You can run the same core Casino Money Plan across different games, but you need to respect the risk profile.
Some good general pointers from casino and bankroll guides:
- Blackjack and solid video poker – lower edge, decisions matter, 1–2% per hand is very reasonable for casual play.
- Roulette and craps – still table games, but volatility depends on your bet types and number of bets working; stick to low‑edge bets and keep the 1–2% rule in mind for your total at risk per spin/roll.
- Slots – high volatility, no decisions after you click spin, so treat stakes even more cautiously and lean towards the low end of your percentage rule.
Same bankroll structure, different expectation: games with higher variance deserve smaller stakes or tighter stop‑losses.
8. Build Yourself A Simple Session Checklist
To make this real, here’s the exact checklist you can use before any session:
- Total bankroll for the month/period
- Session bankroll for this session
- Unit size (1–2% rule)
- Hard stop‑loss (e.g. 40–50% of session roll, or the full session if that’s your plan)
- Win goal (e.g. 30–50% profit, or a number that buys you something tangible)
- Game choice and rough time limit
This mirrors what a lot of bankroll and casino planning guides recommend: fixed units, clear limits, and defined sessions instead of endless play.
Write it down before you start. If you can’t explain your plan on a Post‑it note, it’s too complicated.
9. How This Casino Money Plan Fits With The Rest Of The Site
This Casino Money Plan / Bankroll Basics guide is the foundation for everything else:
- When you read the New Player Blackjack Money Plan, you’ll see the same ideas applied to blackjack hands.
- When you read the Blackjack Strategies, Roulette Strategy and Craps Guide, you’ll already know how to size bets and set limits.
- When you look at slots and bonuses, you’ll have a clear budget instead of letting them creep into everything.
You don’t control the cards, the wheel, or the dice. You do control:
- How much you bring
- How much you stake
- When you stop
That’s what this Casino Money Plan is for.