How professional bettors track their bankroll (and what casuals get wrong)

Almost every casual bettor tracks bets the same way: vibes. They remember the wins, soften the losses, and feel "about even" right up until they check the bank statement. Pros don't do this. They run a ledger like a small business — because that's what it is.

The unit system

Pros don't bet dollar amounts. They bet units. One unit is typically 1–2% of total bankroll. A $10,000 bankroll = $100–$200 units. Every bet is sized in units, every result is logged in units, and the bankroll grows or shrinks the units with it.

Why this matters: when your bankroll grows, your bet sizes grow proportionally. When you hit a cold streak, your bet sizes shrink. You can't blow up.

What gets logged on every bet

• Date and sport
• Specific bet (team, line, odds)
• Stake in units and dollars
• Closing line value (CLV) — was the line better or worse when the game started?
• Result and P/L
• Optional: estimated win probability at time of bet

CLV is the single most important number pros track. If you consistently beat the closing line, you're sharper than the market — even on losing weeks. If you don't, you're probably just chasing.

The cadence

Pros review weekly and monthly. Weekly: any line they got beat on, any sportsbook that's been slow to update, any pattern that's leaking money. Monthly: ROI by sport, ROI by bet type, and a hard look at whether the edge is still there.

What casuals get wrong

1. Tracking only wins and losses

W/L is noise. EV and CLV are signal. A 6-9 week with strong CLV is a great week. A 9-6 week with awful CLV means you got lucky and you're about to give it back.

2. Sizing on confidence, not bankroll

"I'm really confident in this one, I'll throw $500" is how bankrolls die. Confident bets are where pros increase from 1 unit to 2. Not from 1 unit to 25.

3. Not tracking peer bets

The bets you make with friends, in fantasy leagues, on the side — they're real money, and most bettors never log them. By the end of a season the friend tab is often bigger than the sportsbook ledger, and nobody can remember who's actually up.

The two-ledger approach

Modern bettors run two ledgers: one for the sportsbook (CLV, ROI by sport, the usual pro toolkit), and one for friends. The second one is where Settled lives — every bet signed by both sides, per-rival running balance, and an honor score that follows people across every wager they make. Whether you're a pro or a casual, the bets with friends are the ones that should embarrass you the least when you read them back in six months.