How to Track Betting ROI

Last reviewed 24 August 2026 · Written and checked by the bet.ing editorial team

ROI is total profit divided by total staked. A 5% ROI means you keep 5 cents per euro risked, which is a strong long-run result. Win rate on its own says nothing, and under a few hundred bets ROI is mostly variance rather than skill.

The formula, and the denominator that matters

ROI = profit ÷ total staked × 100. Use total amount staked across settled bets, not bankroll and not number of bets. Voided bets are excluded from both sides so they do not distort the ratio.

Some people call this yield and reserve ROI for return on bankroll. Whichever term you use, be consistent — mixing the two makes results look far better or worse than they are.

Why win rate misleads

Backing 1.20 favourites and winning 80% of the time produces a 4% loss. Backing 4.00 shots and winning 28% produces a 12% profit. Any strike rate can be good or bad depending on the prices behind it.

Break-even win rate by price.
Average odds	Break-even win rate	Win rate for +5% ROI
1.50	66.7%	70.0%
1.91	52.4%	55.0%
2.50	40.0%	42.0%
4.00	25.0%	26.3%
10.00	10.0%	10.5%

Sample size is brutal

With a genuine 2% edge at even-money prices, a 100-bet sample can easily show anything from −18% to +22% ROI purely from variance. That range narrows slowly: it takes thousands of bets before ROI reliably separates a small edge from luck.

This cuts both ways. A losing run does not prove your method is broken, and a winning run over 40 bets proves nothing at all.

Closing line value: the faster signal

CLV compares the price you took with the price at kick-off: (your odds ÷ closing odds − 1) × 100. If you consistently beat the closing line, you are getting better prices than the market's final consensus, and profit tends to follow. CLV stabilises over a far smaller sample than ROI, which is why serious bettors track it first.

What to log

Date, selection, sport and market.
Stake and the exact odds you took.
Closing odds, if you can capture them.
Result, including void and half-win settlements.

The bet tracker records all of this locally in your browser and computes ROI, win rate and CLV for you.

Be honest with the log

Retroactively excluding "silly" bets is the most common way people convince themselves they are profitable. Every bet counts, including the impulsive ones — especially the impulsive ones, because they are usually where the losses are.