Building up a bankroll is one tough task! Ask any punter.

It's easy enough to get your startup bank but it's another thing altogether to build on the bank.

This is because racing is no business for the faint-hearted. It takes courage and confidence to win. The latter is especially important. Lose confidence and all's lost, according to some seasoned veterans.

Many staking methods require a large operating bank. If you can manage it, have an A bank PLUS a Reserve bank. The idea I'm putting forward here doesn't demand two banks but, well, you never know.

The betting scale we're looking at goes like this:

2-2-2-2-4-4-4-6-6-8-10-12-14-16-18-20. A further 2 units are added should the bets go beyond 20 (i.e. 22, 24, 26, etc.). Now, a unit can be any sum you like, from $1 through to $5 or $10, or even $50 or $100. It's up to you how much of the readies you have available and are prepared to risk.

For the purposes of this explanation, I'm beginning with a bet of $2.

To operate the betting scale, you simply follow it for each bet. You will need to maintain a race-by-race record of your investment and the resulting profit or loss. You progress one step after a loser, and the series ends, and a new one begins, at any time the profit on a series equals or exceeds the amount of the last bet you made.

Say, for example, your first bet is on a winner that pays $5 for the $2 bet. The profit is $3. That means the profit is above the last bet you made which, of course, was $2. Because of this, a new series is begun.

Here's another example: Let's assume the first seven bets lose. You are losing $20. The scale shows that the eighth bet is $6. Let's say this one is a winner at 3/1.

There is a profit of $18 on the bet. So the series is still losing $2. Thus, we move on to the ninth step, another bet of $6.

It loses. The loss is now $8. Your next bet is the tenth, of $8. It's on a winner at 5/2. You win $20 on the bet. Deduct the net loss of $8 and there is a profit of $12, which is MORE than your last bet amount (which was $8).

So the series is ended with a profit and you now return to the beginning of a new series.

The aim of this scale is to take advantage of winning cycles and to have more money on the winners than on the losers in any series of bets.

The scale achieves this by starting off with small bets, increasing gradually as the non-profit period continues, and continuing to increase until you reach the point where the profit on a series equals, or exceeds, the amount of the last bet made.

A group of winners may invariably follow a losing streak so the scale calls for increasingly greater bets, even after winners, until the profit is achieved.

Thus, a streak of, say, three straight winners, even at short odds, following a run of losing bets, will usually call for increasing the bet, or moving up the scale, after each winner so that the three largest bets in such a situation would be on winners.

If that should happen, there would invariably be a profit on a series that would be sufficient to equal or exceed the amount of the last bet, and the series would end.

Final example: A string of 13 bets, starting with nine successive losers, then three wins from the last four bets to show how the bankroll builder can turn a flat-bet loss into a profit.

The first nine bets lose, and then there is a dividend for $2 of $5.20, another at $5.60, a loser and then a winner returns $6.

A flat bet of $2 on each runner would have lost $9.20 but with the bank builder the first nine bets go down (2-2-2-2-4-4-4-6-6) and the loss at this stage is $32.

The tenth bet is $8 on a winner returning $5.20 including the $2 stake.

The profit on the bet is $12.80, reducing the loss on the series to $19.20.

The next bet, the eleventh on the scale, is $10 on a winner paying

$5.50 for $2. This gives a profit of $18. Deducting it from the overall loss of $19.20, we have $1.20 left in the losing column.

We now move on to the twelfth step. The bet of $12 is lost and we are now down $13.20.

The next bet is $14 and it's on a winner paying $6 (for $2). The profit on this bet is $28. This wipes out the $13.20 loss and puts US $14.80 in front.

The profit has now equalled and exceeded the amount of our last wager so the series is closed.

At no time in $2 units did it require more than $40 actual capital to play the series. The $14.80 profit represented a 37 per cent return on capital invested, compared to a flatbet loss of 46 per cent.

By P.B. King

PRACTICAL PUNTING - JULY 2001