5. The 1-3-2-6 Staking Plan

The 1-3-2-6 Staking Plan is a staking gambit that assumes that it would be possible to win four times in a row reasonably often, but that it would be unwise to push your luck beyond that. It is probably the best staking plan to use when the chances of winning are 50/50, such as on a roulette table or with Asian Handicap soccer betting (if the match times allow it to be employed).

Its name is derived simply from the differing number of "Units" to be placed at each level of a 4-stage betting cycle. Note that a "Unit" can be worth anything you wish it to be, provided that it complies with the Betting House's minimum and maximum staking rules (for example, a Unit could be as low as 50 pence or perhaps as high as £50, dependent on the size of your Base Bank).

The strategic thinking that lies behind the 1-3-2-6 is that, where the chances of getting the call right are near enough "evens", it should be possible to win four times in a row often enough to have you winning overall.

When using the 1-3-2-6 Staking Plan for playing at the roulette table, the aim of winning four times in a row does not mean that the red itself (or the black, if that is what you prefer) must come up four times straight, but that you make four consecutive winning calls, no matter the colour for each individual bet. Some people therefore go for 2 reds then 2 blacks, whereas some others prefer alternating the call between red and black, starting with the alternative colour for each new cycle. Whatever you decide on, it is best to keep to it as a consistent plan so that the "Law of Averages" stays on your side.

When deciding on your colour selection sequence, bear in mind that if you always bet on just the red coming up, then on a one-zero European roulette table you can expect that on average you will be disappointed 513 times in every 1000 spins (which means you were right only 487 times). The same goes for the black of course. Not all spins will end up with the ball in a red or black slot, since 26 or so of the spins will on average see the ball end up in the white "zero" slot.

A full winning cycle of betting when employing the 1-3-2-6 Staking Plan consists of a 4-bet sequence where all the bets come through for you. You only carry through to the next stage in a cycle if you win at the current stage. In other words, the cycle is only carried through to the fourth (final) stage if the first three initial stages are successful. If at any point in the cycle you lose, then you must go back to the first stage stake and stick with that initial stake level until a win occurs.

Here is how the betting plan works, assuming that each Unit is worth ₤1 and that the Odds for whatever you are betting on are 1:1 (even money) for a 2-choice system only (such as "red" or "black" on a roulette table):

1. You start out with just ₤2 in your "betting funds" pocket.
2. Your first bet would be for an initial stake of just ₤1.
3. If the first bet wins, you then add the second ₤1 from your "betting funds" pocket to the ₤2 that would be on the table (made up of ₤1 winnings plus ₤1 initial stake money), making the second stake ₤3.
4. If the second bet wins, there would be ₤6 on the table (₤3 original stake plus ₤3 winnings), from which you take out ₤4 and put ₤2 of that money back into your "betting funds" pocket and ₤2 into your "profits" pocket, leaving just ₤2 as the stake for the third bet.
5. If the third bet wins, there would then be ₤4 on the table (₤2 original stake plus ₤2 winnings), to which you add ₤2 taken from your "profits" pocket, making the fourth stake ₤6 (and still with ₤2 in your "betting funds" pocket).
6. If that fourth bet wins, there would then be ₤12 on the table, which is all pure profit, since you still have ₤2 in your "betting funds" pocket.
7. You then pocket the profit and restart the sequence with a stake of ₤1.

Don't be tempted to increase the stakes level unless you have won at least 2 complete cycles (so you can then afford to lose without it hurting you too much).

If you lose the first bet, your loss is ₤1. A second stage loss would mean that you are ₤2 down. At the third stage (after winning bets at stages 1 & 2), even if the bet loses you will have earned a net profit of ₤2. A loss at the fourth stage (after winning bets at the first 3 stages) would leave you breaking even (meaning that the ₤2 you started with is still in your "betting funds" pocket).

The 1-3-2-6 is therefore a modification of the Paroli Staking Plan, in that instead of sticking to a fixed increase in the stake after each win, the stake is varied. You need 1 Unit as the initial starting stake and a 2nd Unit to add to the first stage winnings. Thereafter you are staking only the winnings as you progress through each winning stage of a 4-bet cycle.

The attraction of this Staking Plan is that you risk only ₤2 in going for ₤12 net profit. This means you can lose six full cycles (that means going right through to the 4th bet each time), and with just that one win on the 7th cycle you will get all your money back! Further, unlike the simple Paroli Staking Plan, you don't have to judge for yourself when to take the profit and pull out; simply following the built-in betting cycle rules does it automatically for you.

The beauty of the 1-3-2-6 is that you only have to use "winnings" to progress through to the end of a full winning cycle, so the maximum stake to be pulled from your Base Bank is only ever £2 per cycle (whether or not that cycle is a "full" cycle or a prematurely "terminated" cycle), no matter what stage you reach.

The drawback to the 1-3-2-6 is that on a bad day you may lose many cycles on the trot, and each of those losses may have left you with up to a 2 Unit deficit (meaning that you have been very unlucky indeed). But don't try to play catch up - just call it a night and head on home to bed! Some days Lady Luck is like that....

Overall, we think that the 1-3-2-6 system is a very skillfully crafted concept, added to which it is so straightforward to use. On top of that, dependent on the value of your "Unit" of course, it can also offer tremendous excitement once you progress through to the last round of each cycle. We hope you will enjoy using it.