One of the key methods to increase your chances of success in sports betting is to use an effective betting strategy. One of these systems, which has grown popular over the years, is the Maria Lay Staking Plan, an innovative bankroll management method used by a bettor to increase her £3,000 initial bankroll to over £100,000 within 10 months.
While it is often hailed as a betting strategy, the Maria Staking Plan is a bankroll management system bettors can use to maximize their chances of success. The technique originated from a young lady named “Maria Santonix,” who revealed it in a thread she posted on a betting forum.
Like any other bankroll management system, the Maria Staking Plan apportions a specific percentage of your bankroll to your wager. This percentage depends on the odds attached to the bet selection. Essentially, all your stakes are divided into 3 groups as follows:
The features of a betting tactic can help you understand what it has to offer and whether or not it is worth your while. Hence, here are some key features of the Maria staking plan you need to know about.
The most significant feature of the Maria staking plan is its potential for incurring fewer losses. Sports betting can quickly get out of control for a punter that doesn’t practice proper bankroll management. And before you know it, such individuals will soon incur significant losses, including money meant for essentials. The Maria staking plan helps avoid such situations.
By assigning a certain percentage on each bet, the strategy helps punters control their betting activities by decreasing their staked amount after every loss. And any increase in bet amount will be in tandem with an increase in bankroll based on the percentage.
Another key feature of the Maria staking plan is its limited cap on winnings from each bet you place. With a maximum of 1% stake on each bet, a punter’s maximum profits are lower than staking 10%, 15%, or more.
The limited cap on gain here is essential because it helps prevent punters from making emotional decisions. Any punter on a winning streak will often be tempted to increase their bets to win more. However, this is a recipe for disaster, as sports betting is inherently unpredictable. By limiting their bets and gains, the Maria staking plan helps punters to stay calm and make rational decisions for long-term profitability.
One vital thing to remember about Maria staking is that the strategy works with specific odds. It assigns a certain bankroll percentage to each bet depending on the odds offered on the market. As a result, this tactic may be challenging to use in sports betting with variable odds.
Another highlight of this betting strategy that every punter needs to note is that she achieved a high hit rate of 85% over the period she implemented it. Ultimately, she succeeded with this strategy of growing an initial bankroll of £3,000 to over £100,000 because she won more bets than lost.
As such, it stands to reason that if you are not winning more bets than you lose, you will ultimately lose a significant amount from your entire bankroll. So, you will also need a high strike rate for yours.
Having explained the basics of building a successful game on the Maria Plan and effectively managing your bankroll, let’s examine a hypothetical example to understand how things work. The table below shows how the Maria bet on horse racing works, assuming you lay 5 wagers on the first day and your starting bank is $2000.
| Wager Number | Odds | Bank Total | Wager % | Wager Size & Liability | Cumulative Profit/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3.4 | $2,000 | 1% | $20 ($22) | Profit (+$20) |
| 2 | 5.0 | $2,020 | 0.6% | $12.12 ($35.87) | Profit (+$32.12) |
| 3 | 10.2 | $2032.12 | 0.4% | $8.13 ($32.96) | Profit (+$40.25) |
| 4 | 2.0 | $2040.25 | 1% | 20.40 ($35.38) | Loss (+$4.87) |
| 5 | 6.6 | $2004.87 | 0.6% | 12.03 ($25.28) | Profit (+$16.9) |
As you can see, your first day using the Lay Maria Staking Plan ended with a cumulative profit of $16.9, taking your total bankroll from $2000 to 2016.9. Therefore, if you first lay a bet the next day that has 2.0 odds, your stake amount will be 1% of 2016.9, according to the second rule of the staking plan discussed above.
As mentioned, the Maria Staking Plan betting system was primarily tested by exclusively laying horse wagers. However, you can also use the plan for regular back bets, only that you have to reverse the back odds to lay odds. For instance, backing a horse at the odds of 1.20 equals laying the same horse at 6.0 odds. You’ll use 0.6% of your bankroll to place that back bet.
Below is an example to demonstrate the above explanation if your starting bankroll for this staking plan is £3000.
After knowing how much of your bankroll to lay on each wager, the second rule of the staking plan is “compounding” or “ratcheting” your bankroll daily. If your bankroll increases after you have laid all your wagers in a day, your stakes for each bet must increase the next day. So, for instance, if your bankroll goes up from £3000 to £3500, then a 1% stake of your total bank is now £35 instead of £30.
Your stakes are not recalculated if you sustain losses and reduce your total bank. However, if the loss is heavy that it takes off up to 35% of your bankroll, you need to recalculate your stakes based on the remaining 65%. For instance, if you sustain a loss leaving you with £1950 out of your original £3000 (a 35% loss), a 1% bet of your total bank is now 0.01 x £1950, which equals £19.5 instead of £30.
The Maria Staking Plan Strategy is controversial in the betting world; hence, it is received with mixed feelings. While many bettors believe it’s a powerful tool to manage their bankroll for maximizing winnings, there are several other naysayers to go along. Therefore, let’s examine its pros and cons below.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
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PROS
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CONS
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Sadly, there is no straight answer to this question as the effectiveness of the Maria staking plan depends on each individual and their specific implementation. One of the most significant benefits of this strategy is that it helps bettors regulate their stake amounts based on losses and profits. It allows the bettors to gradually grow their bankroll rather than risking a considerable amount on a single wager.
There is no doubt that Maria staking is an effective strategy in bankroll management, but we cannot say the same for profitability. With this strategy, you need to win more than you lose. And nothing in the plan will tell you what bets and markets to place. You must do that by doing your due diligence to find value bets with high winning chances.
While the Maria stake plan won’t get you rich quickly, it can keep you profitable in the long run or, at the very least, prevent you from incurring significant losses. Its effectiveness depends on you finding the right winning bets. This bankroll management will be effective if you are confident in picking winners over the long run.
It all started on September 2, 2005, when a person named “Maria Santonix” posted a thread about her unique staking plan on a Polish horse racing forum called “Expert Betting Advice.” Like many other strategies that disappear in a few weeks, the Maria Staking Plan strategy initially looked like a hoax. However, the plan gained massive popularity when she demonstrated it in real-time on the same forum, turning her £3,000 initial bankroll into over £100,000 in about 10 months.
Many controversies surrounded the Maria staking plan, but the major one is that “Maria Santonix” is just a pseudonym and that the bettor was a man named Adrian Massey, who owned a famous horse racing site at the time.
While the Betting Expert Advice forum no longer exists, you can still access the original thread of the demonstration of the Maria Staking Plan from some online sources. You can also download the spreadsheet to keep precise records if you plan using the staking plan.
Overall, the Lay Maria Staking Plan requires a high win rate to make a significant profit but doesn’t tell you which horse or team to bet on to achieve such a rate. Therefore, it is essential to have a vast pro bet knowledge of the sports you are betting on. If you are confident in making winning picks over a long period for the plan to work for you, the staking plan will help you significantly reduce losses. It will also help you grow your bankroll fast by maximizing your winning streaks.
