How to Determine the Recommended NBA Bet Amount for Your Bankroll

You know, I was playing this horror game the other night—one of those where every bullet counts and the enemies just keep getting tougher, merging into these armored nightmares that soak up your precious ammo. It struck me, not for the first time, how much that feeling of managing a scarce resource under escalating pressure mirrors what we do when we try to bet smart on the NBA. Your bankroll is your ammo. The season is the horror game. And if you don't have a plan for how much to fire on any given play, you’ll be staring at a game-over screen before the All-Star break.

Let’s get one thing straight: figuring out your recommended bet amount isn’t about picking winners. That’s a different, equally brutal challenge. This is about survival. It’s about making sure a bad week, or even a brutal month, doesn’t wipe you off the map. In that game I was playing, the moment I got sloppy and started blasting away at a basic enemy, I’d inevitably face a merged monster later with nothing but a peashooter. In betting, that’s like throwing too much on a random Tuesday night matchup because you’re bored, only to miss out on a truly confident play you’ve researched for Saturday. The “harder exterior” of the merged enemy? That’s the compounding effect of losses. A few bad, oversized bets don’t just hurt; they armor up your remaining bankroll, making it exponentially harder to climb back.

So, how do you actually determine the number? The core principle is something called the “unit system.” Forget dollar amounts for a second. Think in percentages of your total war chest—your bankroll. Most serious bettors I know, and the math backs this up, recommend risking between 1% and 5% of your bankroll on a single play. Personally, I’m on the conservative end. I treat my bankroll like it’s the last magazine in that horror game. I typically use 1% to 2%. Why? Because the NBA season is a marathon of 1,230+ regular season games. Variance is a monster, and it will corner you. If your standard bet is 1 unit, and that unit equals 1% of your bankroll, you can withstand a losing streak of 20, 30, even 50 bets without being decimated. It gives you the ammo to keep playing, to keep thinking, and to level up your process.

Let’s put some fake numbers on it, because specifics help. Say you start the season with a dedicated betting bankroll of $1,000. Not money for rent, not for groceries—money you are 100% okay with losing. If you’re a 2% bettor, your standard unit size is $20. That $20 is your bullet. Some plays might feel stronger, maybe you go 2 units ($40). A real fringe, long-shot play? Maybe half a unit ($10). This system automatically scales. If you have a great month and your bankroll grows to $1,500, your 2% unit is now $30. You’re betting more because you’ve earned more ammo. Conversely, if a nasty slump brings you down to $700, your unit drops to $14. It forces discipline. It protects you from yourself.

Now, here’s where my personal opinion comes in, and it goes back to that game. The game “leveled well” alongside my upgrades. Just as I got a better weapon, it threw more, tougher enemies at me. The betting markets are the same. They are efficient and ruthless. You might feel smarter, you might have a great model, but the market adapts. Thinking you can suddenly jump from 2% bets to 5% bets because you’re “hot” is a trap. That’s when the market merges three underdogs into a super-team that crushes your overconfident bet. I’ve been there. I’ve broken my own rule, seen a merged enemy—a parlay of bad luck and poor sizing—blow a hole in my progress. It’s a gut punch.

The final boss, in both contexts, is emotion. The horror game wants you to panic and waste ammo. The betting ecosystem wants you to chase losses or get greedy on a streak. A rigid, percentage-based bet sizing system is your upgraded armor. It’s the objective protocol that runs in the background when your brain is screaming to “go big” to win back what you lost. It tells you, calmly, “Your unit is still $20. Stick to the plan.” Without it, you’re just reacting. You’re not managing; you’re surviving shot-to-shot, which is a terrible long-term strategy.

So, before you place another bet, do this one thing: calculate your total, dedicated bankroll. Then, pick a percentage you can live with—be honest about your own risk tolerance. I’d argue for starting at 1% or 2%. Make that your unit. Write it down. That number, more than any gut feeling about the Lakers’ defense, is your key to staying in the game. It turns the long, grueling NBA season from a horror story of potential ruin into a challenging, but manageable, campaign where you get to play all the way to the final buzzer.