What Is The Maria Staking Plan?
The Maria Staking Plan has almost fallen into myth, having gained an enormous amount of attention over a ten month period. An online persona, known as Maria Santonix, managed to turn a bankroll of £3,000 into over £100,000 in less than a year. Maria bet only on horse racing, and stuck to a very strict set of bankroll management rules.
The aspect of the occurrence that many raise questions about is how Maria chose which horses to bet on. This has never been answered, with Maria only ever saying that she had unnamed connections in the horseracing industry. The factor that was revealed in great detail, however, is how she allocated her bets.
The plan Maria used to achieve the astonishing levels of success, almost unbelievable some would say, are now referred to as the Maria Staking Plan.
The Basics
The basics of the Maria Staking Plan are relatively easy to grasp, which is exactly what makes the plan so appealing. In short, the plan takes the starting bankroll and uses it as a baseline point, with all bets placed stated as a percentage of the total bankroll amount. This means that as the bankroll increases, so the betting amounts placed also increase.
This is useful, of course, because it means that a betting enthusiast will never be exceeding their means, by the very nature of the plan.
In terms of allocating betting amounts to a horse, this was done via a strict, predetermined set of rules. Maria simply had percentage amounts based around the odds of the bet in question. For example, bets with 5/2 odds (+250) or shorter were assigned a 1% betting amount. Bets with odds between 13/5 and 32/5 odds (+260 to +640) were assigned a 0.6% betting amount. Bets with odds between 13/2 to 10/1 odds (+650 to +1000) were assigned a 0.4% betting amount.
One key aspect is that although the betting percentages increased as the bankroll increased, Maria explained that the betting percentages did not decrease if the bankroll amount shrank. Only when the overall bankroll had fallen to less than 65% would she lower the betting percentages.
Does It Work?
First of all, keep in mind that Maria openly stated that the plan was based around a starting point of £3,000. Since the vast majority of betting enthusiasts will not have close to this much money as a starting point, there are many adapted versions available online.
In terms of the plan working, the short answer is that it certainly does. However, this comes with an enormous caveat. It works, assuming that you have a smart way of choosing winning horses in the first place.
Enormous criticism has been heaped on the Maria Staking Plan, given that many accuse it of drastically over simplifying the work that goes into creating working betting strategies.
Since it was never revealed how Maria chose her horses, many have called the staking plan nothing more than a foundation for a much bigger set of rules. Most of the necessary rules were never revealed, however.
