Gambling Strategy: What Is the Best Way of Winning the $10 to $10K Challenge?

What is the best way to complete the $10 to $10K Challenge?

Let’s be blunt here. Winning the $10 to $10K betting challenge is really hard. If you’re thinking about embarking on your own journey up the ladder, it’s worth your time to strategize first.

We asked Dimers.com data analyst Gregory Tabor to run some equations for us, based on a variety of different methods and approaches that we’ve seen to complete the challenge. 

But before we get into the nitty gritty of what our calculations uncovered, it’s important to remember that betting is, in fact, a numbers game. While you may see odds when you login to your sportsbook app, those odds have an implied percentage figure assigned to it; something professional bettors will use as part of their models (like the prediction models you see at Dimers.com) to marry up their data projections against the odds of the ‘books to find the edge. For example: a straight bet that equates to odds of +100 has an implied percentage probability of 50%. In other words, when you’re betting even money, there’s half a chance you’ll win, and half a chance you lose. It should also be mentioned that sportsbooks build in a 5% hold into their markets -  i.e: making the odds worse in order to turn a profit, regardless of whether a prop market hits on the over on under. That's why in standard markets where only one of two things can happen (such as an over or under), both options will be listed at odds of -110. 

Scenario 1: The Four-leg +100 Parlay

Let’s look at the method we’ve seen deployed recently by Calling Our Shot and others in the past week, who have elected to pool together four short-priced legs into a parlay to get to odds of +100. The average odds for a four-leg parlay to get to the magical even-money sum is -526. Isolated, that leg has an 84.03% chance of hitting. Sounds like a lock, right?

Well, when you start putting together multiple legs that all have a 16% chance of losing, you’re increasing your risk that something could go wrong. Using this method, over the span of 10 days to reach $10,000, our calculations say that you’ll only hit the target in 1 out of every 8049 attempts. This is factoring a standard 5% bookmaker hold.

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Scenario 2: The Two-leg +100 Parlay

Another popular method is creating a two leg parlay at odds of around -250 (71% chance of hitting in isolation) to get to +100 and continuing to roll from there. Our calculations show this is a much smarter option, cashing the $10,000 in 1 out of every 2300 tries. Essentially, less legs equals less risk.

Scenario 3: The Straight +100 Bet

Okay, so we now know that the less legs we put into our challenge, the less chance we have of something going wrong - so this is for you old school gamblers out there that look at a parlay like it’s some kind of scarlet letter. Betting singles in this challenge is actually your best chance of ascending to greatness.

Based upon our data, hitting just 10 single bets over the course of 10 consecutive days would see you hitting the $10,000 mark in 1 out of every 1700 attempts. 

Scenario 4: Start With $20

Now that we’ve established that betting single bets is the most effective way of hitting the $10k ladder challenge, let’s throw in another variable. What if instead of the $10 to $10k challenge, it was the $20 to $10k challenge?

Our calculations show that by just removing one day from the 10-day challenge, you dramatically increase your chances of winning.

If a bettor was to start with a bankroll of $20, betting a single bet at odds of +100, you would cash the challenge in 1 out of every 806 attempts.