Deposit Limits
Deposit limits allow you to limit the amount of money you can deposit into your Betfair account daily, weekly or monthly. The limit restricts the amount of money entering your account before you start gambling, stopping you from losing more than planned. An effective use of this is to budget a set percentage of your disposable income for entertainment purposes.
Set a Deposit Limit
Setting a deposit limit is easy. If you are creating an account for the first time with Betfair, you can select a limit on the new account registration form. For current accounts, head to the ‘My Account’ section, click ‘Player Protection’ then ‘Deposit Limits’, and set your limit.
Stake According to Deposit Limit
Setting a staking plan that suits your deposit limit is important. If you have a $100 limit for the week, develop a plan and stake it accordingly. If you are more confident in two horses winning over the weekend and think four other horses in other races have good chances or are over the odds, stake like so: $40 on the two horses we are confident will win and then $5 each on the other four horses we think have a good shot or are good value. This way, we have a plan to stick to the limit that we set earlier and invest our money in the horses we rate most highly.
For those wanting to do more research on developing a staking strategy, it’s worth reading about ‘unit betting’ and the ‘Kelly criterion’.
Have a Plan (Avoid Emotions of wins/ losses affecting your staking)
It is human nature for emotions to influence actions. After we have set a limit and staked accordingly, we might be susceptible to bet based on our emotions rather than initially planned approaches; whether that’s chasing losses or upping our stake with our winnings. It can be helpful to devise a plan for the bets you will place in a set period to limit the opportunity for impulsive or emotional betting, which detracts from your original strategy. An example of this can be a simple spreadsheet to set out daily wagering activity:
| Moonee Valley | R6 | Charm Stone | $25 |
| Moonee Valley | R8 | Mr Brightside | $50 |
| Moonee Valley | R9 | Bella Nipotina | $25 |
Or you can stake what you want to spend on each race if you’re gambling for entertainment purposes:
| Moonee Valley | R1 | $10 | Moonee Valley | R2 | $10 |
| Moonee Valley | R3 | $10 | Moonee Valley | R4 | $10 |
| Moonee Valley | R5 | $10 | Moonee Valley | R6 | $10 |
| Moonee Valley | R7 | $20 | Moonee Valley | R8 | $10 |
| Moonee Valley | R9 | $10 |
Ensuring a plan is in place when wagering, such as staking, promotes a proactive approach to gambling within your means.
Other tools
Loss Limits – allow you to limit the amount of money you can lose over a given period. The nominated limit can be set for a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly period.
Time Out – allows you to take a short break from gambling. This enables you to temporarily block your account for a period of 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 7 days, or 30 days
Self-Exclusion – Self-Exclusion allows you to close your account for a specified period of 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years or permanently. This prevents you from accessing your Betfair account for your selected period.
For more information visit: https://www.betfair.com.au/info/responsible-gambling/
