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Gambling Progressions: The Parlay
by Mickey Day
The Parlay is the easiest way to play with the house's money. Whether you are
a 25 cent crapshooter, a $10 blackjack player or a $25,000 per handbaccarat
whale, the parlay has a place in your arsenal of betting strategies.
Simply win any one bet, and then let the original bet plus all or part of the
winnings ride on the next bet. Any successful parlay, therefore, consists of
winning at least two bets in a row.
Parlays are the most flexible of the gambling progressions because they can
be incorporated into any system of money management or bet escalation, and since
parlays use winnings as their engine of escalation, the possibility of large
loss, as in the Martingales, is greatly reduced. A successful two stage parlay
at even money will turn $5 into $20, since the original $5 beomes $10 with the
first win, and $20 with the second win. If the bettor wants to test his luck
again, the $5 beomes $40 if he wins a third time. There are surely at least
hundreds of different possibilities and combinations to consider here, but let's
look at the 2-stage basic parlay.
Firstly, a parlay begins with the risking of one basic unit. If your gambling
session money is $500, this unit of 1%-2% of session money per bet should be
your basic unit. If you win, your parlay begins with letting your $10 ride.
If you win again, you have $20 in front of you- triple the amount at initial
risk plus your original $5. Your second stage is completed, and you begin again
with $5. Easy, right? But what if you lose?
Asking for three wins in a row on a regular basis is not unrealistic, but clearly
difficult. The odds against 3 wins in a row on even-chance bets are 7-1. Two
wins in a row, the basic parlay, is subject to odds of only 3-1, and should
be easier to accomplish. Our job now is to fashion a gambling progression using
a two stage parlay system that won't force us to escalate our bets to the house
limit to win $5, a la the Martingales.
We bet $5. We lose. We bet another $5, and lose. We bet another $5 and win.
We parlay our win to $10, and lose, and are in the hole for $15. We bet $8 and
win. We parlay our $8 win to $16, and win. We have won a parlay series, have
lost three bets and won two, and are up a dollar on the house. We begin again
with our original $5. The entire six -bet series here is:
$5- $8- $12- $18- $25- $35 SERIES RISK=$103
Start with $5, and if you lose, repeat the bet until it wins. After a win, parlay
the $5 to win double your bet, or $10. If you win at that level , begin again
at $5. If the parlay loses, move up the progression to $8, bet it until you
win, then parlay the $8. If you win, then go back to $5. If you lose the $8
parlay, bet $12, and so on until you get a win, and then parlay that win. Your
bankroll will allow you two to three complete series losses. If you are successful
with a parlay at any level, collect your winnings and begin again at $5. You
will find that half your wins will come at the $5 level, and 25% at the $8 level.
Quit when you are satisfied with your winnings, or when you have turned over
your session money once and are about even, or if you have lost half your session
money. For those with shorter bankrolls, you may wish to try the following parlay
progressions, following the same rules:
$7- $8- $10- $13- $18- $25 SERIES RISK=$81
OR: $4- $5- $6- $8- $11- $15 SERIES RISK=$49
For those with a greater tolerance for risk and larger session bankrolls of
$1500 or more, a 9 stage parlay progression should produce an excellent profit
vs. loss ratio:
$5- $10- $15- $25- $35- $50- $75- $100 SERIES RISK=$315.
This nine bet series produces a reasonable average profit at any point where
a parlay is made. If it were possible, I'd construct a nine stage parlay for
smaller bankrolls that would render a similar return, but the laws of mathematics
dictate that rewards be directly related to level of risk. Here we see how a
50% increase in the number of stages a parlay may contain, as in the initial
six stage progression described above, will cost roughly three times as much
to play.
The parlay progressions mentioned here don't even begin to touch the possibilities
of their use or their composition. If you want to try your hand at constructing
a parlay progression of your own, begin with your total gambling bankroll, divide
it by 10, and then divide that amount by 5 sessions. If your total funds earmarked
for gambling is $3000, you would have enough money for 10 bankrolls of $300,
at about $60 a session. With such a small amount, you will want to play at the
$1 or $2 tables, to stretch your funds. An excellent choice would be to simply
interpolate the nine stage sytem as above and play as follows: $1- $2- $3- $4-
$5- $7- $10- $15- $20 SERIES RISK=$67. Whatever your game of choice may be,
the parlay progressions are some of the safest and most effective systems ever
invented. Please feel free to invent your own, and good luck!
***************
Mickey Day is the author of "Master Craps with Einstein" and "Plug-In
Parlay Systems," available at the gambling bookstores in Las Vegas. Call
800-322-2447 to order.
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