Planning a budget around "What is an each way bet?" comes first. Every betting strategy rests on two questions: what to bet on, and how much to put on each pick. The second one decides more than most people expect. A sound bankroll and a fixed staking plan keep a bad week from ending the whole budget, while a loose one turns ordinary losing runs into real damage. What follows covers the staking side, where a plan can be built for real.
Do betting strategies work, then? Staking plans control risk and cannot remove the margin built into every price. The best betting strategies, including the best betting strategy for football or any other sport, come down to picking where the bettor has real knowledge and staking with steady discipline. To create a betting strategy is to write those two parts down: a market to study and a staking rule to keep.
A betting strategy with Kelly staking sizes each bet by the edge the bettor believes they hold: the bigger the gap between their own probability and the price, the bigger the stake. The formula is exact, but it trusts the bettor's estimate completely, and an estimate that is slightly too kind means stakes that are too large. That is why most who use Kelly bet a fraction of it, half or a quarter.
Bankroll management units turn that share into a number. One unit is usually one or two percent of the bankroll, and every stake is counted in units: a normal pick gets one, a strong opinion perhaps two, and never ten. Counting in units makes results comparable across weeks and bet sizes, and it shows at a glance when stakes have started to drift upward after a winning or losing run.
Units make results comparable across weeks, sports and bet sizes, and they show quickly when stakes have started creeping upward after a streak.
Full Kelly trusts the bettor's own probability estimate completely, and estimates tend to be too kind, so half or a quarter of the formula keeps stakes from growing too large.
No staking plan removes the margin built into every price; it only controls risk, so the margin stays the cost of each bet placed.
From a separate sum decided once and set aside for betting only, never refilled from rent, bills or savings when it runs low.
Most staking plans set one unit at one or two percent of the bankroll, so a normal pick costs one unit and a strong opinion perhaps two.