If you’re wondering how to set up a betting spreadsheet, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll walk you through the steps to create a simple betting spreadsheet that you can use to record your wagers and winnings. Along the way, you’ll learn how to utilize both internal and external cells to create a formula that will allow you to easily update your wagers and winnings as the race continues.
Start With A New Sheet
As the name would suggest, a betting spreadsheet is used to track your wagers and winnings on a particular sports game. You’ll need to have a free sheet available in order to create one. If you’re using Google Sheets, you can click here to get a brand new sheet.
This article will focus on the construction of a simple betting spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel. If you’re looking for an alternative, you can click here to learn about alternatives.
The Basics
The easiest way to set up a betting spreadsheet is by using the existing spreadsheet templates available in Microsoft Excel. Simply open up a new workbook and you’ll have everything you need to get started. Alternatively, you can click here to access a GitHub repository that contains several premade betting spreadsheets that you can download and use as a basis for your own.
Columns & Rows
In order to keep things simple and easy to follow, we’ve organized our spreadsheet in a very simple format. We’ve divided our spreadsheet into three columns: Wager, Win, and Loss. We’ve used a row for each horse in the race and entered the appropriate wager, win, and loss amounts in the cells accordingly. There are seven total rows in our spreadsheets showing the results of each individual horse in the Belmont Stakes.
Headers & Footers
Each spreadsheet consists of a header and footer which serves three purposes:
- It provides a convenient way to number the rows
- It provides a way to identify who worked on the spreadsheet
- It provides a place for the relevant formulas
The header rows are used to identify the contents of each column and are therefore static. They’re commonly referred to as the “structure rows” and are used to identify the columns in the spreadsheet. In our case, we’ve labeled our columns with header names such as Wager, Win, and Loss and then used a formula to calculate the total amount bet on each horse. This is shown in the first row of the spreadsheet.
The footer rows are used to identify the relevant dates and times at which the spreadsheet was last updated. They’re also used to identify which sheets are included in the workbook and act as a sort of catch-all for any additional notes or information that might be useful.
Formulas
We’ve used three formulas in our spreadsheet. The first formula calculates the total amount bet on each horse using the basic summation formula. The second and third formulas are used to determine the winning and losing amounts for each horse.
The second formula looks at the bet & win sequence of each horse and updates the cell with the appropriate wagering amount. It takes into consideration the amount wagered on each horse and any winnings from previous runs. The last formula does the same but looks at the loss column and subtracts the amount lost from the total amount wagered.
The Finished Product
Once you’ve entered the appropriate data into the columns and rows, you can format the spreadsheet to your liking. We’ve chosen a column format that’s similar to the human anatomy and have given each cell a color that’s related to the respective column it’s in. This is optional and you can choose your own colors if you’d like. To learn more, click here.
Using the existing templates from Microsoft Excel makes setting up a betting spreadsheet easy. You’ll just need to fill in the blanks with your own information. When you’re finished, you can click the tab at the top of the sheet to see your work. You can also format the cells to your liking and save the workbook to use or share with others.