3. The Parlay Staking Plan
Employing the Parlay Staking Plan will enable you to vary your stakes when Lady Luck seems to be on your side for the night and you want to capitalise on the moment!
Every now and then a Bettor will have one of those periods when everything seems to be going beautifully, and losses seem impossible. The reality is, though, that this scenario is illusory, brought on by that intoxicating drug called "success" - which none of us can seem to get enough of!
The most important thing to remember when you get onto one of those highs - and by far the easiest thing to forget - is that, with 100% certainty, you will eventually lose if you insist on pushing the boat out too far. The reason to remember this is so that you continue betting with the prime thought in your mind that, if you suddenly start losing big time, you should limit your losses to a maximum of what you have won so far. In fact, it would be better if you could summon up the strength of character to walk away when starting to lose, with half or more of your earlier winnings still in your pocket!
So now let me tell you about two Staking Plans which, if applied without modification, could lead you all the way over the edge of the cliff if things started turning ugly.
The "Parlay Staking Plan" works on the principle of re-investing the whole of your winnings (including the original stake) on the next bet, and in effect "lets your money ride". It's no big surprise then that it's more well-known as the "Let-It-Ride System"! Using this method, if all goes well for you and the Odds are generous, your profits will grow exponentially. However, you need to keep in mind that where the house has the advantage you will almost certainly end up losing more than you win.
The Parlay is the method employed when betting accumulators on horse racing (often with fancy names attaching to each discrete tier (doubles, trebles, etc.), and the names differing according to which country you are in). However, unlike committing in advance to an accumulator bet with a Bookie (which you need to do if, for example, a number of sports matches are being played concurrently), with the Parlay you can choose not to continue and simply walk away with the current winnings in your pocket.
The Parlay is, apparently, considered by some pundits to be the oldest system employed for Pyramid style wagering. Personally speaking, however, we don't see how it ever got into that category. This is because we regard a true Pyramid staking system as one that goes up and down in nice equal steps, and over which the Bettor has some degree of control regarding the actual stakes employed. For example, the D'Alembert Staking Plan is truly a Pyramid system - you only have to plot the stakes on a 15-cycle run to see how beautiful the pyramids look (especially since you will have won at the end of the cycle!).
With the Parlay system the stakes increase in unequal amounts, and only ever go skywards - so for us this is a "Sky Rocket" system, not a Pyramid. And most of the sky rockets we have seen end in an almighty explosion!
If you are using the Parlay with "Short" Fixed Odds (meaning you are betting on "Favourites"), then you are at a severe disadvantage due to the compound effect of the Bookie's "over-round" (the term used for the mark-up employed by the Bookies to ensure that the Odds of all possible outcomes for the final result will exceed 100%, sometimes by a very big margin). For use with true "Value Bets" the Parlay may make a little more sense but, even then, extending the betting cycle beyond doubles is being a little too greedy. So the ability to quit when wining, even though you think you may still be on a roll, is vital!
We suggest that one way of using the Parlay more sensibly is simply to add the original first stake to HALF the winnings for each bet. For example, if your first stake of 1 Unit returned ½ Unit on top of that, then the next bet would be for 1¼ Units. This is one advantage the modified Parlay Staking Plan has over placing an accumulator bet with a Bookie.
