Your Guide to the $10 to $10K Ladder Challenge: Tips, Tricks and Strategies
By now, you’ve likely heard of the “$10 to $10K Ladder Challenge.” Whether the Twitter algorithm dropped it in front of you or one of your favorite handicappers has taken their shot at it, the ladder challenge has become increasingly popular in the sports betting community, particularly on social media over the past year.
The concept is straightforward: starting with a single $10 wager, you target a +100 (or close to it) bet for ten days. Each day, you roll over your original bet and the winnings into the new one, doubling your money each day that you win. The objective is that with ten bets over ten days, you turn your original $10 into $10,000. The day-by-day format looks like this:
- Day 1 - $10 ➡️ $20
- Day 2 - $20 ➡️ $40
- Day 3 - $40 ➡️ $80
- Day 4 - $80 ➡️ $160
- Day 5 - $160 ➡️ $320
- Day 6 - $320 ➡️ $640
- Day 7 - $640 ➡️ $1280
- Day 8 - $1280 ➡️ $2560
- Day 9 - $2560 ➡️ $5120
- Day 10 - $5120 ➡️ $10,240
Simple, right? Not quite. If it were so easy, we wouldn’t have sports to bet on because the sportsbooks would have run out of money! Hitting ten bets in a row of any kind is very difficult. Add in the pressure that comes with trying to find that perfect bet if you reach the final rungs of the ladder, and it can be an exhausting process.
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That’s where we at Dimers come in. By using the power of our predictive analytics, we help you find an edge in every one of your bets to turn a long-term profit. It’s easy to miss the important nuances and small factors that can mean the difference between a winning bet and a losing one, and if you’re attacking the ladder challenge, a losing bet means the end. Our goal at Dimers is to streamline that experience for you so that you never miss an advantage to gain over the sportsbooks.
The easiest advantage you can have over the books is playing with house money. Jumpstart your bankroll with some free cash, as DraftKings is giving new users $150 in bonus bets after placing just a $5 wager. That’s fifteen risk-free attempts at the ladder challenge! BetMGM is offering new users up to $1,000 back on their first wager if it loses. Be sure to check our Best Sportsbooks page for every offer you can capitalize on.
The Ladder Challenge Basics
We’ve explained the general concept of the Ladder Challenge, but let’s look at a few tips that can bolster your chances in the long run:
This is different from a regular “ladder.” You may have seen a handicapper bet on a player prop ladder, where varying bet amounts are placed on alternate lines for a player in a game. For example: $20 to score 20 points at +100, $10 to score 25 points at +200, $5 to score 30 points at +500 and so on. This can be a fun and profitable betting strategy as well but is an entirely different concept.
You don’t have to start with $10. It’s your challenge! Start with whatever amount you’re comfortable with. Unit sizes are crucial when betting on sports and every bettor’s unit size will vary. Starting with even $1 would net you $1,024 with a successful challenge. There’s no bet too small to play with.
MORE: 3 Things to Help You Turn a Profit When Betting
You can take a day (or days) off. Yes, it’s meant to be a ten day challenge, but that doesn’t mean you have to bet ten straight days. If you don’t like what you see, save your money for another day. Never force a bet you don’t love or that isn’t supported by data. Make sure you use our Best Props and Best Bets features to ensure you’re making wagers with an edge.
You can walk away with the profits. The nature of the ladder challenge means that at some point, everyone participating will be well above or below their standard unit size. Just halfway through the challenge, a normal $10 bettor would be placing wagers at 16x their standard wager. That can be significant money to some and there’s no shame in calling it early and pocketing all or a portion of your winnings.
It’s HARD. It’s called a challenge for a reason. Like all betting, it takes effort and patience and a willingness to lose. The point of the $10 starter is to minimize the financial strain of successive losses, but that can add up. It’s supposed to be fun. If it stops being fun, take a break.
The Methods
Now that we’ve covered the ladder challenge from top to bottom (ha), let’s look at two methods of climbing the ladder:
Straight wagers
Straight wagers are straightforward. Whether you’re using spreads, moneylines, props or totals, you want to find one bet, ideally with a strong probability and profitable edge. Our Best Props and Best Bets tools are ideal for finding these picks, as you can see below.
Best NBA Props – Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Isolating the props with the best edge over the books, we can see that our model projects Giannis to clear his 6.5 assists total by nearly 3, with a 9.4 projection. His near-even money line of -105 also comes with a 13.9% edge over the books, making this one of the best prop bets on the entire slate, and as such, an extremely solid ladder starter.
Parlay wagers
Same ladder concept, different approach. Newer bettors will often gravitate towards this method by targeting alternate lines with longer odds (Kevin Durant 15+ points at -600, for example) because using multiple “safer” legs usually instills more confidence in your wager. Longer odds don’t equally translate to safer bets, however, and you still need data to support your wagers.
A useful tool for this approach is our NBA Trends feature on Dimers. This will source player prop trends with high hit rates. The more frequent the hit rate, the more likely it will be that the odds are too juiced to be used as a straight wager. Combing 2-3 wagers with a very high hit rate (think around 85% or more) will bring the odds closer to even money (+100) and can be an effective way to bet the ladder challenge.
Top NBA Trends – Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Caleb Martin's Under 0.5 blocks has a 100% hit rate over his last 11 games. Combining that with Klay Thompson's 80% hit rate of at least one steal, and you get yourself a latter challenge start at +105 on DraftKings.
There you have it, your guide to the $10 to $10K Ladder Challenge. Feel free to follow the wagers above to kickstart your challenge or find your own starting point by utilizing the power of our cutting-edge predictive analytics. No matter which method you choose, Dimers has the resources you need to climb just a little bit higher.
Looking for an extra edge in your bets? Our predictive analytics model runs thousands of simulations for every game, identifies the Best Bets available at the best price and offers insights into hit probability and more. Take advantage of our completely free tools for MLB, NBA, MLS, Golf and beyond.
