Stake size decides whether an edge survives the swings. Small, steady and spread.
Set aside a betting bankroll: money that you can afford to lose. Every stake is a fraction of it.
An edge is the gap between the price you take and the true chance. A bet with a 5% edge returns 5p per £1 staked on average. The average only shows up over hundreds of bets. Any single bet just wins or loses.
The larger the edge, the bigger proportion of your bankroll you can stake.
Kelly is the formula that turns your edge and the odds into a stake: what fraction of your bankroll to put on. The bigger the edge, the more it stakes. The longer the odds, the less, because a longshot loses more often. So higher odds and lower edges need a bigger bankroll behind the same stake.
We recommend half Kelly: half the stake the formula gives. Nearly all the growth, far smaller swings. At full Kelly the chance of ever halving your bankroll is 50%. At half Kelly it is 12.5%.
Kelly sizes off the edge. The two plans you will meet elsewhere size off the price, or not at all: flat staking vs backing to win.
Bet too big a fraction and an ordinary losing run empties the bankroll before the edge can pay. Cutting your stake fraction cuts that risk faster than it cuts your growth. When in doubt, bet smaller.
Two ways to size a bet. Flat stake is one stake for every pick, sized at the average price we back. Dynamic stakes size each bet at the price in front of you. Flat trades a little growth for a lot less thinking.
£0.63 total per bet, which is 0.32% of your bankroll.
An each‑way bet is two bets, so the total above is split evenly across the win and the place part. The figure errs small on purpose: it sizes the bet off the win price, and an each‑way bet reaches the places far more often than a win‑only bet at the same price.
The edge achieved by our strategies (15%) is likely to be higher than you'd achieve in real life as it assumes watching round the clock with all bookies open. In real life, checking a few times a day with a smaller selection of bookies, your edge may be lower. We recommend choosing a lower number for this calculation.
Bookmakers notice big bets on value prices. £100 each way on a midweek outsider stands out. £5 does not.
Spreading small stakes across several bookmakers takes the same total value with a lower profile at each one. That keeps accounts healthy for longer, which is worth more than any single bet.
Why quiet bets matter: what gets accounts limited, and how Shrewd picks for it.
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