How to Track Your Bets: ROI, Yield and What They Tell You
The fourteen fields a betting log needs, the difference between yield and return on capital, and a 24-bet month broken down by market to find the line that was quietly bleeding money.
A betting log turns a vague feeling about the month into two numbers: yield, which is profit divided by everything you staked, and return on capital, which is profit divided by the bank the stakes came from. A month of 24 bets and ₦12,000 of turnover ending ₦195 ahead is a yield of 1.6% and a return of 0.8% on a ₦25,000 bank — figures that only become useful once the log is split by market. Below: the fields, the arithmetic, and the point at which the arithmetic starts to mean something.
In short.
- Yield = profit ÷ total staked. Return on capital = profit ÷ bank. They answer different questions and are routinely confused.
- Fourteen fields cover everything you will later want to ask; the two people skip — the price at kick-off and the bets you passed — are the informative ones.
- A ₦195 profit on ₦12,000 staked is +1.6% yield; the same profit on ₦4,000 staked is +4.9%.
- Splitting the month by market found a −18.7% line in over/under that the headline figure hid completely.
- After 100 bets around 2.10 the noise band on your yield is about ±10 points, so a 5% result proves nothing yet.
Two numbers with the same reputation
Yield measures the quality of your selections: profit divided by turnover, the amount kept from every naira that passed through the account. It ignores the size of the bank and how often you bet, which is what you want when judging the picks alone.
Return on capital measures the productivity of the money: profit divided by the bank, the growth of the fund you actually spend. Two punters finishing ₦195 up on a ₦25,000 bank share the same 0.8% return; if one staked ₦12,000 and the other ₦4,000, their yields are 1.6% and 4.9%, and the second is the better bettor with too little turnover.
Keep both. Yield says whether to carry on with the method; return on capital says whether the method is worth the time. Neither can be rebuilt later from a bank statement, which is the argument for the log.
The fields a log must have
| Field | Example | What it lets you ask later |
|---|---|---|
| Date and kick-off | 14 Sep, 16:30 | Whether late-night bets are worse than planned ones |
| Competition | Premier League | Which leagues you actually understand |
| Match | Arsenal – Brentford | Duplicate exposure on one fixture |
| Market | Over 2.5 | The split that matters most — see below |
| Selection | Over | Favourite-side bias |
| Price taken | 1.95 | Everything downstream |
| Price at kick-off | 1.83 | Whether you beat the market or followed it |
| Stake | ₦500 | Whether the plan was really flat |
| Bank before | ₦25,000 | Return on capital, drawdown depth |
| Result | Won / Lost / Void | Strike rate |
| Return | ₦975 | Profit, checked against the account |
| Your probability | 55% | Whether your estimates are calibrated |
| Reason, one line | Both sides missing a centre-back | Which reasons keep losing |
| Source of the idea | Own notes / booking code | Whether borrowed picks pay |
Two of these get dropped by almost everyone. The price at kick-off costs ten seconds and is the only field that judges your timing rather than your luck. The written reason stops a losing month becoming a mystery: without it you remember the near-misses and forget the bets that were wrong from the first whistle.
Important. Record the stake, not the amount deducted after a bonus. A ₦500 free bet that returns ₦975 is not a 95% return on your money — nothing of yours was at risk. Keep promotional bets in a separate block or the yield on your own money becomes unreadable.
Working the month out from the raw entries
Twenty-four settled bets, mostly ₦500 flat, ₦12,000 staked in total. The account finished ₦195 up. Both headline numbers come from that pair of figures.
Example. Yield = 195 ÷ 12,000 = 1.62%. Return on capital = 195 ÷ 25,000 = 0.78%. Average stake = 12,000 ÷ 24 = ₦500. Turnover as a multiple of the bank = 12,000 ÷ 25,000 = 0.48, so you recycled roughly half the bank through the market in a month.
That last ratio matters. A 1.6% yield at half a turn a month grows the bank by 0.8%; the same yield at four turns grows it by 6.4% and carries four times the swing. Turnover is the volume dial, set by how many bets you find rather than how good they are.
The split that finds the leak
Now break the same 24 bets down by market. Nothing new is measured; the same profit is divided differently.
| Market | Bets | Staked | Profit | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match result (1X2) | 9 | ₦4,500 | +₦310 | +6.9% |
| Over/under 2.5 | 6 | ₦3,000 | −₦560 | −18.7% |
| GG/NG | 3 | ₦1,500 | +₦185 | +12.3% |
| Asian handicap | 2 | ₦1,000 | −₦140 | −14.0% |
| Three-fold accumulators | 4 | ₦2,000 | +₦400 | +20.0% |
| Whole month | 24 | ₦12,000 | +₦195 | +1.6% |
The headline said the month was fine. The split says a quarter of the turnover went into a totals market at −18.7%, and that one winning three-fold carried the result. Neither fact is visible in a bank balance.
The discipline is not to act on it yet. Six bets is not evidence of a weakness and four accumulators are not evidence of a strength; the table only tells you which questions to keep asking until there are 40 rows under a heading instead of six.
How many bets before the numbers mean anything
A yield is an average, and averages wander. The wander can be measured: for bets at around 2.10 the spread of a single result is roughly 1.05 units, and the spread of the average over n bets is that figure divided by the square root of n.
| Settled bets | Noise band at 2.10 | Noise band at 6.00 | What a +5% yield means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | ±21.0 points | ±44.7 points | Nothing at all |
| 100 | ±10.5 | ±22.4 | Still indistinguishable from luck |
| 250 | ±6.6 | ±14.1 | Weak hint, worth continuing |
| 500 | ±4.7 | ±10.0 | Roughly one band above zero |
| 1,000 | ±3.3 | ±7.1 | Meaningful for short prices only |
Two conclusions follow. A 5% yield over 60 bets is weather, not climate. And longer prices need far more evidence: 1,000 accumulator results carry roughly the weight of 200 singles at 2.10, which is why acca-heavy logs stay ambiguous for years.
The bets you refused
A log of placed bets records what you did; it says nothing about what you avoided. Add a second sheet with four columns: match, market, the price you rejected, the price at kick-off. Nothing else.
After 30 or 40 entries it answers a question the main log cannot. If the prices you turn down keep drifting outwards — you passed 1.95 and the market closed at 2.10 — your caution agrees with the market and there is nothing to fix. If they keep shortening to 1.80, the refusals are costing you your edge, and the problem is nerve rather than judgement.
The sheet also catches over-betting. Twelve refusals against 24 bets is selection; two refusals against 24 bets means you take everything you look at, a volume problem no yield calculation reveals. Holding stakes constant while you sort it out is the point of flat staking.
Reading your own log honestly
Settle voids as stake returned, not as wins. A void has a return equal to the stake and a profit of zero, and it belongs in the count of settled bets. Deleting the row inflates every ratio below it.
Enter a cash-out at the amount received. The profit is that amount minus the stake, and the price taken stays as it was. Rewriting the odds to match the payout hides how often you close early.
Reconcile the running bank with the account weekly. If the two disagree, the log is missing bets — almost always small impulsive ones, the rows a review most needs.
Judge periods by bets, not by calendar. "Last 100 bets" is a comparable unit; "September" is whatever fixtures fell in it. Where the bank and the unit come from is in the bankroll management guide; how the unit moves with the size of an edge is in the Kelly criterion.
FAQ
Is yield the same as ROI in betting?
Usually, but not always, which is why the two should be written out. Most tipsters mean profit divided by turnover when they say ROI, and that is yield. Profit divided by the bank is a different and generally much smaller number: in the month above, 1.62% and 0.78% describe the same ₦195.
What is a realistic yield?
Low single digits sustained over hundreds of bets is a serious result, because the margin built into prices has to be cleared first. Any figure quoted without the number of bets behind it is meaningless — the table above shows a ±10 point band still applies after 100 selections at around 2.10.
Do I need a spreadsheet or is an app enough?
Either, provided you can export the rows and add your own columns. The fields that make a log worth keeping — the price at kick-off, your own probability, one line of reasoning — are exactly the ones betting apps do not store, so a plain sheet with the fourteen columns above beats most trackers.
Should accumulators be logged as one bet or several?
One bet, with the combined price and one stake. Splitting a four-fold into four rows creates four results that never existed and flatters your strike rate. Keep accumulators in their own block as well, since their yield needs several times as many settled bets to say anything.
Read next
- Singles versus accumulators — why the two need separate blocks in the log.
- Betting odds explained — the price fields and what they imply.
- Today's predictions — fixtures to write into tomorrow's rows.
This article is for information only and is not an inducement to gamble. Betting involves the risk of losing money — never stake more than you can afford to lose. 18+. If gambling stops being entertainment, read our responsible gambling guide and seek help.
