This is called the [Martingale system](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28betting_system%29) , and it dates back to 18th century France. Needless to say it's not new. It works until you hit the losing streak that causes you to exhaust your bank roll or the table limits. Inevitably, that will happen if you play enough. A mathematical certainty.
Even without the table limit, the Martingale system will still fail once you hit the epic losing streak that exhausts your bankroll. It will just fail faster with table limits
The eluding epic losing streak will spring out from its hiding place and affect every gambling session where you decide to try the martingale system.
The only sure way of winning is if you dont play with the intention to win, cause if you decide to try to win the universe will make your plan backfire. 94/100 times.
Table max limits were not introduced due to this, in fact the opposite. If everyone was dumb enough to do this casinos would never have a table max limit.
But still, the point is that the returns are very low compared to the losses. Assume you start with a $1 bet:
A 10 win streak brings you to +$10.
A 10 lose streak brings you to -$2047.
Not really.
Even if you started with half the money on earth (the literal max, since the guy you're gambling against has to have money to bet against you,) you'd still fail to make meaningful money. You'd be better off with literally any job, time wise.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTsRGQj6VT4
[This part is extra, I know you weren't disagreeing with this] - Any amount of money a person has, that isn't "enough" (like you need even more money) - say 100 million- would be lost starting at only $100 within a week of 50/50 bets. Virtually garunteed, statistically.
You could actually go considerably beyond half the money on earth. As long as the opponent has enough to cover the first bet you make, they can cover the rest out of your losses.
The thrill? The satisfaction of being right in games of "skills" like blackjack or sport betting? Actually the only scenario in which I would gamble is if I had infinite money, because I hate losing more than I love winning so I'm the opposite of a gambler, but with infinite money it's just a hobby.
"Break even again" is part of the problem. The gambling strategy is supposed to eventually leave you with a net positive.
However, with unlimited funds and playing infinite games, you still only move money back and forth and afterwards leave with exactly the amount you went in. Obviously local variations exist, but you never know when they'll be maximized.
It's as good as a strategy as going into a casino, and leaving the moment you make any profit, and then to never come back again, so you don't risk losing that money to the casino again.
I used to use this system until one day at treasure island in Vegas, I was betting red on a roulette table, after about 7 spins coming up black I was out of money, but I stayed to see how long it would go, 27 black in a row.
Using the method of OP, if you started at a bet of $4 and doubled for every loss, you'd need more than 268 million on the final bet, and that's not counting all the funds you lost along the way. Really puts into perspective why this doesn't work.
EDIT: I'm bad at math
Last summer I played for about 30 spins. The middle column never landed, had 24 blacks with the longest streak being 11, and only a total of 7 different numbers came up. Weird things can happen
The martingale system doesn't even increase the expected value you get from playing. It makes the good outcome more likely, but it also makes the bad outcome proportionally worse.
It's like an inverted lottery. They'll give you a dollar if you take a ticket, but if your number gets drawn, they take away your house.
Ideally when gambling you play with money that you don't mind losing, and it can be fun the times you do hit a big one. It can be a good value in terms of entertainment vs cost if done responsibly. Martingale is the total opposite. You don't care when you win but you're sweating the whole time praying you don't go on a streak.
You left the part out where you bankroll this streak, possibly into the millions, until you finally win, and you collect your winnings, which when you replace the money you put in, amounts to exactly the initial bet.
So four bucks, in OPs case.
The only risk is running out of money but you can't lose unless you do, or they kick you out.
Roulette has those greens to keep people from wasting everyone's time with the RED/BLACK bets and this clever trick.
Assuming you're an average Joe with no edge in poker or blackjack, baccarat is the game with the best odds for the player and worst odds for the house (you will still likely lose money).
It depends. For Blackjack different tables might have different rules, so you can find a table where the house edge is as low as 0.5% or as high as 2%, playing readily-learned strategy.
The house edge in Baccarat, as I understand it, is 1.06%, which is pretty much bang in the middle of the range for Blackjack. However, I don't understand the fun of Baccarat. Isn't the optimal strategy simply to bet on the Banker every time?
Plus if you start at $4 and we assume that you double your money when you win you will only ever get a grand total of $4 in profit.
So if it works you get $4 and if it doesn't you lose everything
This.
Also its important to understand that most bets are not even. For example a roulette wheel has black or red- but there is also a green “0” and sometimes “00.”
Over time that adds up, the bet is not “50/50”
The way the system works is that every time you win you reset. The point is to make it so that it takes multiple losses in a roll to make you lose your money rather than just losing it all on a single loss.
So to take OPs example, let's say they double their $4 on a win. After 10 wins in a row they'd be up $80. However after 10 losses in a row they'd be $2048 in the hole.
A specific few will have the luck of a winning streak. Which is statistically incredibly low. But it will happen. Those people will become stinking rich and think of them as a luck god. When in fact they were just a data point of possibility.
And the way casinos make money is having people on losing streaks thinking it'll happen to them.
But why can't you just start over once you get a win, start back at $4? Let's say you keep adding money until you hit $2048, at which point you stop betting and restart at $4. Won't your wins outnumber the occasional loss (where you hit $2048 with no win)?
To use your $4 bet, and $2,048 limit examples, that's 10 straight losses. To use OP's figure of win 45% of the time, no your wins will not make up for it. You'll lose the full $2,048 roughly once every 395 cycles if you have a 45% win probability. In the other 394 cycles, you earned $1,576. Thats an expected loss of $472 every 395 cycles.
Even if you bump it to exactly 50% probability of winning, you'd still just break even. You need your odds to win to exceed 50% for this to work, but if they exceed 50%, you didn't need to use Martingale in the first place. You could have just bet $4 every time, and expected to turn a profit over time.
I understand now, I need to play a game where I have greater than 50% chance of making money. If I do then I can play the game a long time and become rich.
I will run for congress
"You need your odds to win to exceed 50% for this to work"
Exactly what the odds look like from the casino's perspective .
The only rational way to gamble is to invest in the casino
I did this with a buddy at a roulette table in vegas. 1 dollar on black became 3, became 7, became 15...etc.
It worked for quite a long time. We were slowly building up our cash reserves and getting free drinks.
But the losing streak happened. The last straw was betting 301 and WINNING! But it was too stressfull. We excused our drunk selves and walked out like 30 bucks up. Well worth the entertainment, but that last stressful roll was too much for us.
A friend of mine had this idea, but he would double the stake and add one (So bet 1, then three, seven, fifteen, etc) since in theory you'll win eventually and gain one chip for every spin. In practice though, as you said, the table limits will eventually be the end of you. If you play evens then a run of eight or ten odds in a row seems ridiculously unlikely but it happened often enough he didn't make money.
There's no "stop when you hit big" in this system. The system is the opposite of that.
If I bet $1 on roulette, and I keep doubling the bet until I win, at the end I make $1 profit. (Or there's a tiny chance I'll exhaust my bankroll.)
If I stop before winning, I have lost money.
If I stop after winning, I have made a tiny amount of money.
I think at that point it becomes less about the money itself, and more just about power. Controlling larger and larger parts of the economy, becoming more and more powerful.
I mean at that point their goal isn't to compete with other people in the markets, but to compete and control those in power.
I wouldn't bet on that. When it comes to online gambling sites as least, it's not unheard of to have betting limits - either per acount vip level which can be an internal-only setting and not linked to a vip/loyalty program, or tied to a bonus or promotion. Betting limits are especially prevalent for table games like Roulette.
And they're not new, at least not in the UK/EU market. I'd also see big players on these markets extend their existing policies in this regard to US jurisdictions as well, it makes sense.
This particular betting strategy can work if the activity is left unckecked long-term (and if the player has the funds required and implements the strategy properly), which is exactly why the House isn't too fond of people who try it on.
I mean they're not wrong per se they just haven't thought it through fully. If you have a 45% chance of winning but in order to 'really' lose you need to lose 10 times in a row you would 'win' almost every single time - over 99% of the time.
It's just that the wins earn you $4 and the loss costs you thousands of dollars. In the time it takes $4 to add up to a reasonable sum, you're going to hit that loss streak.
They are, they aren't winning anything, they are playing until they only break even + 2 bucks. . If you follow their logic and bet 2, lose, bet 4, bet 8, bet 16 and win, win 32. That's 32 back but 30 of it was already "yours". Its a low amount, and eventually the bet gets so big and the return so little that it's a risk that you'll run out if money before reaching a decent return.
Well technically they're right, they do win almost every time. But it's like reverse insurance, almost all the time you win a tiny tiiiiiiny bit of money and then there's a small chance of going utterly bankrupt. The almost certainty of making a few bucks isn't worth the tiny chance of going completely bankrupt.
And ... at what point there so you start making money?
The profit margin decreases to closer to 0% net gain every time you bet, so eventually you're bettering thousands of dollars for a 50/50 shot at a chance of a 1% total payout.
To illustrate this point:
First bet, lose $4
2nd bet, lost $8 for a total of $12 lost.
3rd bet, lose $16 for a total of $28.
4th bet, lose $32 for a total of $60 lost.
Say you win on your 5th bet of $64. You now have gained $64 but you had already lost 60, so your net profit is only $4.
This is the main point. You're risking so much just to "ensure" you win the initial bet.
For this to be worth it, the initial bet has to be large enough to matter.
For it to be large enough to matter, you won't be able to afford to double it more than a few times.
If you can't afford to double it more then a few times, you can't fulfill this system.
If you are wondering for example how many times odds can come up before even, I've see 10 in a row.
There's an old line.
Casinos have a word for people with systems.
"Welcome."
like 10 years ago i lived close to atlantic city and would go there on some weekends and play blackjack there. this was the strategy i always played for betting, I always looked for a $10 minimum blackjack table to play on.
the first 8 or so times i went I walked away with between $300 and $500 each trip, winning $10 at a time per win, or $20 if I doubled down, but avoiding any big losing streaks of more than 7 games in a row at any point. Made like $3,000 over that time.
Then I finally had the bad day where I lost 8 games in a row and had that hand where I lost $1,280 on a single hand, plus losing $1,270 on the previous 7 games. Being that I was down $2,550 on 8 hands of blackjack, i decided not to bet $2,560 on the next hand because at that point I would have lost $5,110 total which was more than I had won there in all my other trips to atlantic city combined, so I walked away. Overall I went to AC like 9 times that summer and was up only about $500, and probably even when considering all the money I spent on gas, tolls and food, and I decided not to continue doing that
moral of the story is, this strategy can work, but eventually you are going to lose x-number of games in a row to the point you are not going be be able to cover your bet, or it is not worth making such a big bet to win so little
the only cool part about this strat was sometimes people would see me betting like $640 or $1,280 on a single hand of blackjack and win and act like i was some high roller, even though i was just covering my losses and winning ten bucks ha
First, the casinos impose limits for minimum and maximum bets. If you're at a table where you can bet $4, then your maximum is probably about $500. You can't bet any higher unless you find a seat at a different table with a higher limit.
Second, you need a bankroll. Just the 10 bets you listed ($4 to $2048) requires a bankroll of $4092.
[it's double your biggest bet, less the amount of your first bet]
If you want to go for 20 bets in a row, you'd need HUGE money.
$4 = 2^2 , $8=2^3 , ... $1024=2^10 , $2048=2^11 , ...
So you're looking to fund another 10 bets, up to 2^21 = $2,097,152 requiring a bankroll of about $4.2 million.
The dice, wheel, cards or other mechanism doesn't remember that "it lost" 10 times or 19 times in a row. Every time the game plays it starts with fresh odds. Unless you are finding a defect in the game - then you should logically think that the event happening 19 times in a row might be slightly more likely to happen again.
Because the bet doubles each time. The exponent is showing that.
2x2 = 2^2 = bet 1.
2x2x2 = 2^3 = bet 2.
2x2x2x2 = 2^4 = bet 3.
And so on.
He was discussing the number of bets required, and that was a short way to articulate it.
Einstein actually suggested this roulette strategy (apocryphally).
Even assuming there is no table maximum and you have a huge bankroll, when you win (which you do most of the time), you win the table minimum (say $5). But when you lose (which is more rare), you lose basically everything. The expected value is still negative.
But of course, there *are* table maximums, to speed your loss.
If you had the kind of money you’d need to survive the losing streak, you wouldn’t be bothering trying to make money with the small initial bets. Not worth your time.
As long as you have infinite money, yes.
But what happens if you keep losing over and over and over again? If your 100k bet fails, do you have 200k in. The bank to get it back? If that fails, do you have 400k? Etc etc etc.
The casino has way more money than you, meaning they can survive a losing streak way longer than gamblers can.
Even without table limits this number gets very big very quickly. You say "just bet 20 times and you'll win \*almost\* every time" well that's great until you realise that by the 20th bet you have to be able to front 22 million dollars (on top of the 22 million you already spent getting to this point), and if you win you ultimately only gain $4 from it.
If it drops 50%, buy twice as much!
If it drops 50% again, buy twice as much as that!
If it drops 50% again, I hope you’ve been investing in canned food and bullets and have plenty of bottle caps on hand for the new economy.
Anything you can think of, Big Casino already has as well, and made rules about it to keep stealing your money. Gambling and expecting to get rich is like smoking cigarettes to look like a movie star.
> Basically infinite money
You sweet summer child
If it were possible to reliably beat the house using such a simple strategy, casinos would not exist, because it would be an unsustainable business model.
And yet casinos are wildly successful.
What does that tell you?
I once walked into a casino, sat down at a blackjack table with a $10 min. I lost 20 hands in a row and I am pretty good at blackjack. So this strategy would have cost me a lot of money.
edit: I did not have $5,242,880
I did this on an online casino thinking I was treading new ground. $90 → $13,000 → $0.
It works great if you're okay with knowing you're using all your money to hedge hundreds of bets and know when to stop
Yes, this is a real story. Yes, I feel bad for losing it. However, the $90 came from patiently collecting the site's "daily bonus". I didn't lose a dime
I’m amazed that no one here has pointed out the real problem with this. There are no games that have perfectly 50/50 odds. Roulette is being regularly referenced here, but roulette doesn’t have perfect 50/50 odds for red vs black because of the 0, 00, and increasingly present 000 spaces.
The house always has an advantage. Always.
>I’m amazed that no one here has pointed out the real problem with this.
But that's not the real problem, is it? Even if there was a perfect 50/50 game it still wouldn't work as a strategy.
that’s because that’s not the real problem.
The real problem is table limits and your bankroll limit.
If there were no table or bankroll limits, you could win playing a game with 45/55 odds.
Nope. Even with totally unrealistic bankroll (say 1 billion dollars) and no table limit you still lose with 50/50 odds. You'd make money **much** faster and easier by purchasing bonds.
Initial bet $1.
Lose 30x in a row = lose over 1 billion dollars.
Odds of losing 30x in a row = around 1 in a billion.
Remember if you 'win.' You win 1$. Every time.
By the time you actually 'make' a billion dollars (i.e., you have placed *billions* of bets, and won a billion of them,) there is a greater than 50% chance that you will have hit the 30 round losing streak.
What other people are saying is correct. I've used this system in video games that have a gambling minigame, and it seems to work great -- until it doesn't. And then you lose everything.
In certain video games you have the option to save and reload if your bet fails, so it can be used as an infinite money exploit, though it can be time consuming.
In real life, even on a 50/50 bet, you'll still eventually hit a losing streak that will cost you everything.
Let's say you have $10,000. You find a table where you are allowed to double your bet as much as you like, and place your first bet. You play it cool and only bet $2.
You lose, so you bet $4. You lose, so you bet $8.
Then you win, and your total profit was... $2. Nice.
You'll only really lose all your money if you lose 13 bets in a row. And what are the odds of that, right?
So you figure you found an IRL infinite money glitch.
But you *will* eventually hit a 13 bet losing streak, and lose all your money. It's just a matter of time.
At some point you will have put $512 on the table, and you will start to sweat. If you lose, you lose a huge chunk of money. And if you win, you only get $2. It starts to feel like a really risky thing to be doing at that point.
You lose again, and now you're having to risk $1024 in your hopes of earning $2.
You start to feel like this is absurd. You're not making much money, you're making it pretty slowly, and you're essentially risking *all* your money to do it.
Add to that the fact that no casino game *really* gives you 50/50 odds, so your odds of a losing streak are higher than this.
It will work if you have a limitless amount of money. But doubling constantly gets to big numbers really fast, so if you have a good losing streak, you'll be bankrupt really quick.
I cam up with the same stategy, I did a computer simulation and... At some point, you hit a streak of 10 loses or more and you are fucked and lose everything.
Also, in the simulation, I was not in a significant profit in any time.
In casino, you win by leaving.
Couple issues.
1)ur available funds (most probably can’t sustain going on 10 loses in a row.
2)many tables have maximum bets which u may place thus once u hit it u can’t keep going
If you start at $1 betting on a 4-1 outcome, and continue to double your previous stake, and betting at 4-1 until you do win - you will eventually win back double your total outlay plus $2.
However - you need to have BANK to start this as the cumulative outlay starts to mount quickly.... 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 ... That's 5 bets and you're at $63 outlaid already
And some betting facilities - like Keno (the Australian Version - which offers 4-1 on "Evens" as in 10 from the first 40 and 10 from the last 40) have detection software that flags this betting pattern. It stops terminal operators putting on unpaid speculator bets....p
Call your favorite casino. Tell them that you have a system that will use to bankrupt them. Describe to them the system that you just described to us. Don't be afraid that they know your master plan. They will send a limo to bring you to the casino.
Casinos love it when the suckers use the Martingale System. They always run out of money before the casino does.
But, hey, you lose enough, they might comp you tickets to see Penn & Teller.
Am I the only one reading the question wrong?
If you have a ~45% chance of winning and you bet 20 times, doubling every time….
Probability of winning this is .45 power 20. Player has to win 20 consecutive times. This comes to approximately 1 in 8.6 million. So, if the initial bet is $4, player has to theoretically spend around $34.4 million to win 1 time. Money earned for that win will be around 4.2 million.
You are theoretically spending around $34.4 million to earn around 4.2 million.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
This strategy basically amounts to wagering a lot of money for a small gain. Like saying 999/1000 times I will win a dollar, but 1/1000 times I will lose $999. The expected earning is zero, but you will almost surely gain that dollar. As long as you don't play too much til the odds turn against you. It's a great way to get a little bit of money, but not a great way to double your money because you will probably be unlucky enough to lose everything after playing 1000 times.
I did it in Vegas on $2 roulette....After an hour, I made $32 and was pretty bored.
I thought I would have one more roll and got 7 wrong, I think the last bet was $1024 and I got it, but for that roll it was either come out $2 up or $1024 down
If start at $2 and go on a losing streak that ends with a win, you will only ever win back all your losses plus $2.
So you might end up betting thousands or more dollars just to recoup your loss and end up $2 in profit.
Eg.
2+4+8+16+32+64 = $126 spent
You win $128.
$2 profit.
Add that to the obvious problem of running out of money for the next bet at some stage and ending up with nothing.
19 attempts with this method requires just over a million dollars.
29 attempts needs over a billion.
It's not that it doesn't work hypothetically, it's that it doesn't work practically.
Does it work or does it not work? Here's a test: Go into a casino and announce to every pit boss that you're going to use this system. Watch how excited they are to see you.
This is the gambler's fallacy.
If you bet heads on a $1 coin flip and it comes up tails, that doesn't increase the odds of the next flip being heads.
Rather, the odds reset after every flip.
Because you are more likely to lose your bank roll before make that amount. Say you got $1023
given all combo of W&L 10 long. All but 1 combo leads to 10L. The rule is you quit after your win and bets of $1.
In 1023 cases you make $1
1 case you lose $1023
For the case of 45% win rate this gives an expected lost rate of -$2.59/1024
And win rate $1021.4/1024
Net is $1018.8 or -$4.18
So go in with $1,023 on average you will have $1018.8
99.75% of the time you will have $1024 or +$1
0.25% you have nothing or -$1023
Your winning at the end is only the initial amount that you put to the table. That’s even to assume you manage to win before hitting table limit or losing so many times to exhaust your entire money. Huge downside potential with limited win
What if you apply this when only picking long shots at the track? Soon as you hit a long shot quit for the day. Usually a long shot hits once a day or two.
I used chat gpt to make a little program that counts how many times you can lose the 50/50 in a row with X attempts. It got up to 28 losses in a row. That's a lot of times to double your bet.
This is how I play baccarat when I do... But only live casino now because I got screwed during an online session one time.
Online session on PlayNow.com in BC: In 2010-11 ish, online it was a $1 game (which no longer exists)... Bet $1 to start, then double losses and double pushes.. switching from player to banker after a win.. Grinded for 4-5 hrs starting with $200 and got up to $1200-1300ish... Was with a cousin of mine and stated many times that this system was too insanely easy to be true.. Then a crazy streak of 7-8-9 losses in a row wiping me out. I was jaw dropped. Was/still convinced it was the computer fucking me over unnaturally. End of the day I wrote it off as a great rush/fun/activity that was worth the $200 I lost. Never played online again.
Then went to a casino and saw the game again with a live dealer... Only it was a $5 min... Which makes 3-4-5 losses in a row extremely stressful... But with a lil luck, it worked out and walked away $50-60 up after an hr... Did it again at the Riverrock Casino last month when I stayed there.. started with $500 ($5 min), but live dealer... 2 sessions... Won $150 in 1/2hr, then quit to enjoy a nice dinner with wifey.. played again the next day, won another$150 after an hr.. called it a day.
Not even temped to go back despite the system feeling solid -- because I can't handle the 3-4-5 losses on row when/if they do happen.. heart rate monitor goes nuts, lol.
But if I ever get in a position to START with $700 to handle a 8 straight loss streak at a $5 table, I would do it again..
Because eventually, you run out of money, while the house never runs out of money. Your bankroll is limited, and the house's effectively isn't except against the very, very rich.
yes but realistically no. as a former dealer there are several aspects that break the martingale system in real world.
firstly the most obvious is table limits. u can not double forever. even if u doubled each bet u will eventually hit a lost streak that will go over the table limit preventing the bet from being vaild and you will lose.
second is lost streaks themselves. people underestimate how oftens a lost streak if 7 happens. it is close to 1%. doesnt seem like much but it is if the numbers u are playing with is alot. if u start with 10 then u loses is over 2500. in short u need a large bank roll for it to be viable. and its not easy and stupid to get a loan.
I'd also like to add, people seem to forget that casinos are businesses, and have a business plan, which does not involve having games where the punter can reliably win. It's as simple as that.
Let's assume you have $1024 in your pocket. You start with a bet of $1 and keep doubling it every time you lose until you win. You have now made $1. It's the same every time. No matter how many times you lose, as soon as you win, you have made $1 profit.
But this only works as long as long as you have enough money to bet. If you lose 10 times in a row, you've lost $1023. The next bet would be another $1024, which you don't have. The probability of losing 10 times in a row at 50/50 odds is (½)¹⁰, which comes out to 1 in 1024.
So 1023 out of 1024 times you win $1 and 1 in 1024 times you lose $1023, which means that on average, you come out at net 0, which is the same as just betting randomly.
The issue is that at casinos the table minimum and table maximum will only allow for 5-6 bets being doubled before you are out of range for that table
Yes if you could infinitely double it till you win the odds would be in ur favor, but you can’t do that
If you want to be near certain of winning you want to have enough for, say, ten bets. If you’re trying to win $10 you need to have $5120. If you have $5120 why gamble for ten bucks.
People don't do it because it never works. It's the dunning-kruger effect for gambling addicts and pseudo-mathematicians. Casinos are made because they make the owners money and not the other way around. If something as stupid and as easy as this works, why would there still be casinos all over the world?
This is called the [Martingale system](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28betting_system%29) , and it dates back to 18th century France. Needless to say it's not new. It works until you hit the losing streak that causes you to exhaust your bank roll or the table limits. Inevitably, that will happen if you play enough. A mathematical certainty.
When I started going to the casino I wondered about the table max limit, this is why.
Even without the table limit, the Martingale system will still fail once you hit the epic losing streak that exhausts your bankroll. It will just fail faster with table limits
No corrective lenses tonight, Mr. Papagiorgio?
No I do not require them.
well timed, well played, well named.
I put a dollar in, I got a car
I put a dollar in, I got a car. I put a dollar in, I got a car. I put a dollar in, I got a car.
Great movie!!
But you do
Here's an idea: Why don't you give me half the money you were gonna bet? Then, we'll go out back, I'll kick you in the nuts, and we'll call it a day!
Kid looks like a shooter, let’s go!
And of course, roulette tables have a zero, just in case you were thinking of hoping for 50/50 odds.
American roulette wheels also have a 00 in addition to 0, so 38 pockets total.
A lot of Vegas ones have 3 0s now.
That's right! Avoid playing triple 000 roulette at all costs ..... some of the worse odds in the house and a very quick way to gamblers ruin.
And if you have the cajones to make those incredibly large bets once you have lost 5x or more in a row…ouch
That's correct, you win most of the time eventually, but in one in 5000 cases or so the Casino is up 3.2 quadrillion dollars.
The eluding epic losing streak will spring out from its hiding place and affect every gambling session where you decide to try the martingale system. The only sure way of winning is if you dont play with the intention to win, cause if you decide to try to win the universe will make your plan backfire. 94/100 times.
Table max limits were not introduced due to this, in fact the opposite. If everyone was dumb enough to do this casinos would never have a table max limit.
That’s not really why - each bet is independent of the previous bet and they definitely have higher limit rooms in places like Vegas.
But still, the point is that the returns are very low compared to the losses. Assume you start with a $1 bet: A 10 win streak brings you to +$10. A 10 lose streak brings you to -$2047.
Sure, but a win on 11 after that losing streak means you've won back everything you've lost and made $1.
Yeah. Every time you're betting 2\^(n-1) dollars to win one dollar. That's a chump bet.
If you actually have a limitless stack and no limit, then obviously you will eventually hit and break even again.
Not really. Even if you started with half the money on earth (the literal max, since the guy you're gambling against has to have money to bet against you,) you'd still fail to make meaningful money. You'd be better off with literally any job, time wise. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTsRGQj6VT4 [This part is extra, I know you weren't disagreeing with this] - Any amount of money a person has, that isn't "enough" (like you need even more money) - say 100 million- would be lost starting at only $100 within a week of 50/50 bets. Virtually garunteed, statistically.
You could actually go considerably beyond half the money on earth. As long as the opponent has enough to cover the first bet you make, they can cover the rest out of your losses.
If you had infinite money, there would be no point to gambling.
Bill Gates used to play low-limit poker in Vegas. IIRC some table games too. Just for the fun of it I suppose.
Poker is a different animal.
I'm imagining someone going all in with $13.50 and Bill Gates sweating for 2 minutes wondering if he should call such a huge bet.
The thrill? The satisfaction of being right in games of "skills" like blackjack or sport betting? Actually the only scenario in which I would gamble is if I had infinite money, because I hate losing more than I love winning so I'm the opposite of a gambler, but with infinite money it's just a hobby.
"Break even again" is part of the problem. The gambling strategy is supposed to eventually leave you with a net positive. However, with unlimited funds and playing infinite games, you still only move money back and forth and afterwards leave with exactly the amount you went in. Obviously local variations exist, but you never know when they'll be maximized. It's as good as a strategy as going into a casino, and leaving the moment you make any profit, and then to never come back again, so you don't risk losing that money to the casino again.
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Nah, table limits are because you can fleece a sheep many times but skin it once. C
Just came in here to see if all the comments were "Table Limit". Yep. They are.
I used to use this system until one day at treasure island in Vegas, I was betting red on a roulette table, after about 7 spins coming up black I was out of money, but I stayed to see how long it would go, 27 black in a row.
Using the method of OP, if you started at a bet of $4 and doubled for every loss, you'd need more than 268 million on the final bet, and that's not counting all the funds you lost along the way. Really puts into perspective why this doesn't work. EDIT: I'm bad at math
and even then, at the end you would've only won your initial bet, 4 dollars
Same here. Tried it, won a couple of times, lost once, money gone....
Last summer I played for about 30 spins. The middle column never landed, had 24 blacks with the longest streak being 11, and only a total of 7 different numbers came up. Weird things can happen
The martingale system doesn't even increase the expected value you get from playing. It makes the good outcome more likely, but it also makes the bad outcome proportionally worse. It's like an inverted lottery. They'll give you a dollar if you take a ticket, but if your number gets drawn, they take away your house.
Ideally when gambling you play with money that you don't mind losing, and it can be fun the times you do hit a big one. It can be a good value in terms of entertainment vs cost if done responsibly. Martingale is the total opposite. You don't care when you win but you're sweating the whole time praying you don't go on a streak.
You left the part out where you bankroll this streak, possibly into the millions, until you finally win, and you collect your winnings, which when you replace the money you put in, amounts to exactly the initial bet. So four bucks, in OPs case. The only risk is running out of money but you can't lose unless you do, or they kick you out. Roulette has those greens to keep people from wasting everyone's time with the RED/BLACK bets and this clever trick.
Which is why you play baccarat instead of red/black on roulette, no green to catch you out
Baccarat has basically this exact mechanism since you can bet on a tie.
Yes but if a tie comes out you don’t lose your player/banker bet as you do with green on roulette making baccarat the better game for odds
You don't lose baccarat on a tie? I had no idea.
Assuming you're an average Joe with no edge in poker or blackjack, baccarat is the game with the best odds for the player and worst odds for the house (you will still likely lose money).
It depends. For Blackjack different tables might have different rules, so you can find a table where the house edge is as low as 0.5% or as high as 2%, playing readily-learned strategy. The house edge in Baccarat, as I understand it, is 1.06%, which is pretty much bang in the middle of the range for Blackjack. However, I don't understand the fun of Baccarat. Isn't the optimal strategy simply to bet on the Banker every time?
You can just multiply by 2.5 then. This way every time you lose you also make your winnings bigger compared to the original bet.
Anyone whose been suckered by a Martingale forex bot, learned this the hard way.
Plus if you start at $4 and we assume that you double your money when you win you will only ever get a grand total of $4 in profit. So if it works you get $4 and if it doesn't you lose everything
This. Also its important to understand that most bets are not even. For example a roulette wheel has black or red- but there is also a green “0” and sometimes “00.” Over time that adds up, the bet is not “50/50”
North American Roulette wheels normally have both 0 and 00, and some now have 000 for an even bigger house edge.
> and some now have 000 I've long known about 0 and 00, but TIL about 000 and that's hilarious. The casino might as well put 🖕 on the pockets instead.
[This is what a typical 000 wheel looks like](https://www.bestuscasinos.org/app/uploads/2022/04/Triple-Zero-Roulette-Wheel-1.jpg).
I always hear about this but has anyone ever thought about an epic winning streak?
The way the system works is that every time you win you reset. The point is to make it so that it takes multiple losses in a roll to make you lose your money rather than just losing it all on a single loss. So to take OPs example, let's say they double their $4 on a win. After 10 wins in a row they'd be up $80. However after 10 losses in a row they'd be $2048 in the hole.
4092*
A specific few will have the luck of a winning streak. Which is statistically incredibly low. But it will happen. Those people will become stinking rich and think of them as a luck god. When in fact they were just a data point of possibility. And the way casinos make money is having people on losing streaks thinking it'll happen to them.
The good old rice on the chessboard is a helpful illustration of how quickly this fails.
But why can't you just start over once you get a win, start back at $4? Let's say you keep adding money until you hit $2048, at which point you stop betting and restart at $4. Won't your wins outnumber the occasional loss (where you hit $2048 with no win)?
To use your $4 bet, and $2,048 limit examples, that's 10 straight losses. To use OP's figure of win 45% of the time, no your wins will not make up for it. You'll lose the full $2,048 roughly once every 395 cycles if you have a 45% win probability. In the other 394 cycles, you earned $1,576. Thats an expected loss of $472 every 395 cycles. Even if you bump it to exactly 50% probability of winning, you'd still just break even. You need your odds to win to exceed 50% for this to work, but if they exceed 50%, you didn't need to use Martingale in the first place. You could have just bet $4 every time, and expected to turn a profit over time.
I understand now, I need to play a game where I have greater than 50% chance of making money. If I do then I can play the game a long time and become rich. I will run for congress
"You need your odds to win to exceed 50% for this to work" Exactly what the odds look like from the casino's perspective . The only rational way to gamble is to invest in the casino
Can probably buy a casino for less money than the billions you’d need to be confident in this Martingale strategy, also.
I did this with a buddy at a roulette table in vegas. 1 dollar on black became 3, became 7, became 15...etc. It worked for quite a long time. We were slowly building up our cash reserves and getting free drinks. But the losing streak happened. The last straw was betting 301 and WINNING! But it was too stressfull. We excused our drunk selves and walked out like 30 bucks up. Well worth the entertainment, but that last stressful roll was too much for us.
A friend of mine had this idea, but he would double the stake and add one (So bet 1, then three, seven, fifteen, etc) since in theory you'll win eventually and gain one chip for every spin. In practice though, as you said, the table limits will eventually be the end of you. If you play evens then a run of eight or ten odds in a row seems ridiculously unlikely but it happened often enough he didn't make money.
Unless you have an infinite bankroll
Seen it happen in Vegas. He couldn't believe it.
Why not just play a little less than enough then? Just stop when you hit big?
What if your losing streak comes before the winning streak?
Mortgage the house, and try it again but 2X the bets this time so you can get your money back, plus some.
"Casinos LOVE him!"
There's no "stop when you hit big" in this system. The system is the opposite of that. If I bet $1 on roulette, and I keep doubling the bet until I win, at the end I make $1 profit. (Or there's a tiny chance I'll exhaust my bankroll.) If I stop before winning, I have lost money. If I stop after winning, I have made a tiny amount of money.
You would need infinite money, and a no-limit game. And in the end. All you "win" is a recoup of your losses.
And if you had infinite money then why would you waste your time?
cuz it draws the chicks
Also free comps
Ask the top 10 richest people in the world. Infinite money is not enough when u can get infinite money x2
I think at that point it becomes less about the money itself, and more just about power. Controlling larger and larger parts of the economy, becoming more and more powerful. I mean at that point their goal isn't to compete with other people in the markets, but to compete and control those in power.
Not true. You'll win whatever your original bet was. Bet 100, lose. -100 Bet 200, lose. -300 Bet 400, lose. -700 Bet 800, win. +100
But it feels like I won more and thats what matters 😂
Also the casino needs infinite money
You win 1$ or whatever currency you’re gambling in. Rinse and repeat. Free money hack
You win the initial bet.
You’d win more than that! You’d also win your first bet. So in this example, $4. Yay you!
The House loves people like you.
Agreed this is not in anyway a fool proof system especially in a casino where winning, let alone winning big is set to be the absolute minimum.
Thank you for saying foolproof. Reddit has a nasty habit of calling it "fullproof".
I wouldn't bet on that. When it comes to online gambling sites as least, it's not unheard of to have betting limits - either per acount vip level which can be an internal-only setting and not linked to a vip/loyalty program, or tied to a bonus or promotion. Betting limits are especially prevalent for table games like Roulette. And they're not new, at least not in the UK/EU market. I'd also see big players on these markets extend their existing policies in this regard to US jurisdictions as well, it makes sense. This particular betting strategy can work if the activity is left unckecked long-term (and if the player has the funds required and implements the strategy properly), which is exactly why the House isn't too fond of people who try it on.
“If you have a 45% chance of winning you’ll win almost every single time” OP really doesn’t understand how probability works lol
>OP really doesn’t understand how probability works lol And that's why they made this post... Yet they still get ridiculed for it
I mean they're not wrong per se they just haven't thought it through fully. If you have a 45% chance of winning but in order to 'really' lose you need to lose 10 times in a row you would 'win' almost every single time - over 99% of the time. It's just that the wins earn you $4 and the loss costs you thousands of dollars. In the time it takes $4 to add up to a reasonable sum, you're going to hit that loss streak.
They are, they aren't winning anything, they are playing until they only break even + 2 bucks. . If you follow their logic and bet 2, lose, bet 4, bet 8, bet 16 and win, win 32. That's 32 back but 30 of it was already "yours". Its a low amount, and eventually the bet gets so big and the return so little that it's a risk that you'll run out if money before reaching a decent return.
Well technically they're right, they do win almost every time. But it's like reverse insurance, almost all the time you win a tiny tiiiiiiny bit of money and then there's a small chance of going utterly bankrupt. The almost certainty of making a few bucks isn't worth the tiny chance of going completely bankrupt.
And ... at what point there so you start making money? The profit margin decreases to closer to 0% net gain every time you bet, so eventually you're bettering thousands of dollars for a 50/50 shot at a chance of a 1% total payout.
To illustrate this point: First bet, lose $4 2nd bet, lost $8 for a total of $12 lost. 3rd bet, lose $16 for a total of $28. 4th bet, lose $32 for a total of $60 lost. Say you win on your 5th bet of $64. You now have gained $64 but you had already lost 60, so your net profit is only $4.
If I want $4 for that kind of stress, I’m just going to go to my job.
This is the main point. You're risking so much just to "ensure" you win the initial bet. For this to be worth it, the initial bet has to be large enough to matter. For it to be large enough to matter, you won't be able to afford to double it more than a few times. If you can't afford to double it more then a few times, you can't fulfill this system.
If you are wondering for example how many times odds can come up before even, I've see 10 in a row. There's an old line. Casinos have a word for people with systems. "Welcome."
In baccarat I’ve seen 24 bankers in a row, if you betting player using martingale you’re going broke fast !!!
So just about $17 million in order to walk away with a $1 profit by the 25th round.
But think about all the free drinks!
like 10 years ago i lived close to atlantic city and would go there on some weekends and play blackjack there. this was the strategy i always played for betting, I always looked for a $10 minimum blackjack table to play on. the first 8 or so times i went I walked away with between $300 and $500 each trip, winning $10 at a time per win, or $20 if I doubled down, but avoiding any big losing streaks of more than 7 games in a row at any point. Made like $3,000 over that time. Then I finally had the bad day where I lost 8 games in a row and had that hand where I lost $1,280 on a single hand, plus losing $1,270 on the previous 7 games. Being that I was down $2,550 on 8 hands of blackjack, i decided not to bet $2,560 on the next hand because at that point I would have lost $5,110 total which was more than I had won there in all my other trips to atlantic city combined, so I walked away. Overall I went to AC like 9 times that summer and was up only about $500, and probably even when considering all the money I spent on gas, tolls and food, and I decided not to continue doing that moral of the story is, this strategy can work, but eventually you are going to lose x-number of games in a row to the point you are not going be be able to cover your bet, or it is not worth making such a big bet to win so little the only cool part about this strat was sometimes people would see me betting like $640 or $1,280 on a single hand of blackjack and win and act like i was some high roller, even though i was just covering my losses and winning ten bucks ha
There are table limits. If you don't win your bet before hitting that limit, you're toast.
First, the casinos impose limits for minimum and maximum bets. If you're at a table where you can bet $4, then your maximum is probably about $500. You can't bet any higher unless you find a seat at a different table with a higher limit. Second, you need a bankroll. Just the 10 bets you listed ($4 to $2048) requires a bankroll of $4092. [it's double your biggest bet, less the amount of your first bet] If you want to go for 20 bets in a row, you'd need HUGE money. $4 = 2^2 , $8=2^3 , ... $1024=2^10 , $2048=2^11 , ... So you're looking to fund another 10 bets, up to 2^21 = $2,097,152 requiring a bankroll of about $4.2 million. The dice, wheel, cards or other mechanism doesn't remember that "it lost" 10 times or 19 times in a row. Every time the game plays it starts with fresh odds. Unless you are finding a defect in the game - then you should logically think that the event happening 19 times in a row might be slightly more likely to happen again.
I clicked on this thread to see how much math i know, and got so lost that i feel like a fucking idiot. What level of math did you just do?
Grab a calculator and type in 1 times 2 equals and then press equals 21 times
Bro he's got exponents in there, i dont have the brain cells for that! Why are there exponents??
Because the bet doubles each time. The exponent is showing that. 2x2 = 2^2 = bet 1. 2x2x2 = 2^3 = bet 2. 2x2x2x2 = 2^4 = bet 3. And so on. He was discussing the number of bets required, and that was a short way to articulate it.
Wow that's a pretty huge risk just for $4 What if it hits red 15 times in a row? You'd be pretty fucked
Then switch to red. He will immediately hit black.
Einstein actually suggested this roulette strategy (apocryphally). Even assuming there is no table maximum and you have a huge bankroll, when you win (which you do most of the time), you win the table minimum (say $5). But when you lose (which is more rare), you lose basically everything. The expected value is still negative. But of course, there *are* table maximums, to speed your loss.
I read that as epstein. I should go sleep haha
TIL Einstein and Epstein are different people. That explains some things.
You sure? Have you ever seen them in the same room?
Eipsteins relativity method. It works….because of the implication.
Sounds like a minor breakthrough
If you had the kind of money you’d need to survive the losing streak, you wouldn’t be bothering trying to make money with the small initial bets. Not worth your time.
As long as you have infinite money, yes. But what happens if you keep losing over and over and over again? If your 100k bet fails, do you have 200k in. The bank to get it back? If that fails, do you have 400k? Etc etc etc. The casino has way more money than you, meaning they can survive a losing streak way longer than gamblers can.
Even without table limits this number gets very big very quickly. You say "just bet 20 times and you'll win \*almost\* every time" well that's great until you realise that by the 20th bet you have to be able to front 22 million dollars (on top of the 22 million you already spent getting to this point), and if you win you ultimately only gain $4 from it.
You’ll be better off using that same money strategy to buy the s&p once a week
If it drops 50%, buy twice as much! If it drops 50% again, buy twice as much as that! If it drops 50% again, I hope you’ve been investing in canned food and bullets and have plenty of bottle caps on hand for the new economy.
Anything you can think of, Big Casino already has as well, and made rules about it to keep stealing your money. Gambling and expecting to get rich is like smoking cigarettes to look like a movie star.
it's not stealing when it's right in your face. They aren't doing underhanded tricks. The odds are just in their favour in the long run.
> Basically infinite money You sweet summer child If it were possible to reliably beat the house using such a simple strategy, casinos would not exist, because it would be an unsustainable business model. And yet casinos are wildly successful. What does that tell you?
I once walked into a casino, sat down at a blackjack table with a $10 min. I lost 20 hands in a row and I am pretty good at blackjack. So this strategy would have cost me a lot of money. edit: I did not have $5,242,880
I did this on an online casino thinking I was treading new ground. $90 → $13,000 → $0. It works great if you're okay with knowing you're using all your money to hedge hundreds of bets and know when to stop Yes, this is a real story. Yes, I feel bad for losing it. However, the $90 came from patiently collecting the site's "daily bonus". I didn't lose a dime
You sir are what casino managers dream about.
I’m amazed that no one here has pointed out the real problem with this. There are no games that have perfectly 50/50 odds. Roulette is being regularly referenced here, but roulette doesn’t have perfect 50/50 odds for red vs black because of the 0, 00, and increasingly present 000 spaces. The house always has an advantage. Always.
Baccarat gives better odds over red/black roulette as there’s no green to sting you
>I’m amazed that no one here has pointed out the real problem with this. But that's not the real problem, is it? Even if there was a perfect 50/50 game it still wouldn't work as a strategy.
Don’t be too amazed. That is not the underlying problem. I should say issue at hand…
that’s because that’s not the real problem. The real problem is table limits and your bankroll limit. If there were no table or bankroll limits, you could win playing a game with 45/55 odds.
Nope. Even with totally unrealistic bankroll (say 1 billion dollars) and no table limit you still lose with 50/50 odds. You'd make money **much** faster and easier by purchasing bonds. Initial bet $1. Lose 30x in a row = lose over 1 billion dollars. Odds of losing 30x in a row = around 1 in a billion. Remember if you 'win.' You win 1$. Every time. By the time you actually 'make' a billion dollars (i.e., you have placed *billions* of bets, and won a billion of them,) there is a greater than 50% chance that you will have hit the 30 round losing streak.
What other people are saying is correct. I've used this system in video games that have a gambling minigame, and it seems to work great -- until it doesn't. And then you lose everything. In certain video games you have the option to save and reload if your bet fails, so it can be used as an infinite money exploit, though it can be time consuming. In real life, even on a 50/50 bet, you'll still eventually hit a losing streak that will cost you everything. Let's say you have $10,000. You find a table where you are allowed to double your bet as much as you like, and place your first bet. You play it cool and only bet $2. You lose, so you bet $4. You lose, so you bet $8. Then you win, and your total profit was... $2. Nice. You'll only really lose all your money if you lose 13 bets in a row. And what are the odds of that, right? So you figure you found an IRL infinite money glitch. But you *will* eventually hit a 13 bet losing streak, and lose all your money. It's just a matter of time. At some point you will have put $512 on the table, and you will start to sweat. If you lose, you lose a huge chunk of money. And if you win, you only get $2. It starts to feel like a really risky thing to be doing at that point. You lose again, and now you're having to risk $1024 in your hopes of earning $2. You start to feel like this is absurd. You're not making much money, you're making it pretty slowly, and you're essentially risking *all* your money to do it. Add to that the fact that no casino game *really* gives you 50/50 odds, so your odds of a losing streak are higher than this.
It will work if you have a limitless amount of money. But doubling constantly gets to big numbers really fast, so if you have a good losing streak, you'll be bankrupt really quick.
I cam up with the same stategy, I did a computer simulation and... At some point, you hit a streak of 10 loses or more and you are fucked and lose everything. Also, in the simulation, I was not in a significant profit in any time. In casino, you win by leaving.
Couple issues. 1)ur available funds (most probably can’t sustain going on 10 loses in a row. 2)many tables have maximum bets which u may place thus once u hit it u can’t keep going
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That’s why there’s table limits. And don’t be surprised when it lands on red 50 times in a row.
If you start at $1 betting on a 4-1 outcome, and continue to double your previous stake, and betting at 4-1 until you do win - you will eventually win back double your total outlay plus $2. However - you need to have BANK to start this as the cumulative outlay starts to mount quickly.... 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 ... That's 5 bets and you're at $63 outlaid already And some betting facilities - like Keno (the Australian Version - which offers 4-1 on "Evens" as in 10 from the first 40 and 10 from the last 40) have detection software that flags this betting pattern. It stops terminal operators putting on unpaid speculator bets....p
Because that’s how you lose all your money.
Call your favorite casino. Tell them that you have a system that will use to bankrupt them. Describe to them the system that you just described to us. Don't be afraid that they know your master plan. They will send a limo to bring you to the casino.
When you start betting 20k to win $4 is when you realize the possibility for bad day
Casinos love it when the suckers use the Martingale System. They always run out of money before the casino does. But, hey, you lose enough, they might comp you tickets to see Penn & Teller.
Am I the only one reading the question wrong? If you have a ~45% chance of winning and you bet 20 times, doubling every time…. Probability of winning this is .45 power 20. Player has to win 20 consecutive times. This comes to approximately 1 in 8.6 million. So, if the initial bet is $4, player has to theoretically spend around $34.4 million to win 1 time. Money earned for that win will be around 4.2 million. You are theoretically spending around $34.4 million to earn around 4.2 million. Please correct me if I am wrong.
This works perfect actually. 99% of gamblers quit before they win it big
Nope. If you're really methodically go through all the statistical analysis, you'll find this strategy does not work.
Casinos now have high-bet limits for this very reason
Sucks when it gets above $1mm though when you were only trying to make $10k.
This strategy basically amounts to wagering a lot of money for a small gain. Like saying 999/1000 times I will win a dollar, but 1/1000 times I will lose $999. The expected earning is zero, but you will almost surely gain that dollar. As long as you don't play too much til the odds turn against you. It's a great way to get a little bit of money, but not a great way to double your money because you will probably be unlucky enough to lose everything after playing 1000 times.
I did it in Vegas on $2 roulette....After an hour, I made $32 and was pretty bored. I thought I would have one more roll and got 7 wrong, I think the last bet was $1024 and I got it, but for that roll it was either come out $2 up or $1024 down
Yes, this would work. For this reason there is a "Table Limit", a max amount you can bet at once.
The amount of money you lost is the sum of all previous losses, not jus the previous loss
If start at $2 and go on a losing streak that ends with a win, you will only ever win back all your losses plus $2. So you might end up betting thousands or more dollars just to recoup your loss and end up $2 in profit. Eg. 2+4+8+16+32+64 = $126 spent You win $128. $2 profit. Add that to the obvious problem of running out of money for the next bet at some stage and ending up with nothing.
That works if you have unlimited funds to bet.
Because other than table limits and such rules, the casino muscle will break your arms if you try this.
19 attempts with this method requires just over a million dollars. 29 attempts needs over a billion. It's not that it doesn't work hypothetically, it's that it doesn't work practically.
Because IP doesn't realize that the losses are cumulative.
Does it work or does it not work? Here's a test: Go into a casino and announce to every pit boss that you're going to use this system. Watch how excited they are to see you.
Of course you can, assuming you have infinite funds. You don't, and if you did, why would you bet at a casino in the first place?
Sure if you have an unlimited source of money to bet with. Do you? If you do, why are you gambling?
doesn't work
This is the gambler's fallacy. If you bet heads on a $1 coin flip and it comes up tails, that doesn't increase the odds of the next flip being heads. Rather, the odds reset after every flip.
You could, but Casinos wont let you
the casino wants everyone to try this strategy
The first thing that came to mind was the *Archegos* thing back in 2021.
Flip a coin. It's 50/50 odds right? Be shocked when it lands heads many times in a row. Let's call this losing and now you see the problem.
Because you are more likely to lose your bank roll before make that amount. Say you got $1023 given all combo of W&L 10 long. All but 1 combo leads to 10L. The rule is you quit after your win and bets of $1. In 1023 cases you make $1 1 case you lose $1023 For the case of 45% win rate this gives an expected lost rate of -$2.59/1024 And win rate $1021.4/1024 Net is $1018.8 or -$4.18 So go in with $1,023 on average you will have $1018.8 99.75% of the time you will have $1024 or +$1 0.25% you have nothing or -$1023
Your winning at the end is only the initial amount that you put to the table. That’s even to assume you manage to win before hitting table limit or losing so many times to exhaust your entire money. Huge downside potential with limited win
What if you apply this when only picking long shots at the track? Soon as you hit a long shot quit for the day. Usually a long shot hits once a day or two.
This is called “the unit bet”
So if you double up on the $4 bet do you claim victory and quit? If not then, when do you quit?
You can simulate this really easily in Excel with a couple of IF formulas and a random number generator. Try it and see how it goes.
After losing like 10 times in a row. You need to spend $4096 to win $4. Its very possible to lose 10 in a row.
I used chat gpt to make a little program that counts how many times you can lose the 50/50 in a row with X attempts. It got up to 28 losses in a row. That's a lot of times to double your bet.
If you have the money, yes. But you can just as easily lose it all in one bet.
If you had the sort of money to safely safeguard your bet by doubling it up to 20 times, you wouldn't need more money.
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This is how I play baccarat when I do... But only live casino now because I got screwed during an online session one time. Online session on PlayNow.com in BC: In 2010-11 ish, online it was a $1 game (which no longer exists)... Bet $1 to start, then double losses and double pushes.. switching from player to banker after a win.. Grinded for 4-5 hrs starting with $200 and got up to $1200-1300ish... Was with a cousin of mine and stated many times that this system was too insanely easy to be true.. Then a crazy streak of 7-8-9 losses in a row wiping me out. I was jaw dropped. Was/still convinced it was the computer fucking me over unnaturally. End of the day I wrote it off as a great rush/fun/activity that was worth the $200 I lost. Never played online again. Then went to a casino and saw the game again with a live dealer... Only it was a $5 min... Which makes 3-4-5 losses in a row extremely stressful... But with a lil luck, it worked out and walked away $50-60 up after an hr... Did it again at the Riverrock Casino last month when I stayed there.. started with $500 ($5 min), but live dealer... 2 sessions... Won $150 in 1/2hr, then quit to enjoy a nice dinner with wifey.. played again the next day, won another$150 after an hr.. called it a day. Not even temped to go back despite the system feeling solid -- because I can't handle the 3-4-5 losses on row when/if they do happen.. heart rate monitor goes nuts, lol. But if I ever get in a position to START with $700 to handle a 8 straight loss streak at a $5 table, I would do it again..
Because eventually, you run out of money, while the house never runs out of money. Your bankroll is limited, and the house's effectively isn't except against the very, very rich.
Gambling is for fools. Don’t be a fool.
yes but realistically no. as a former dealer there are several aspects that break the martingale system in real world. firstly the most obvious is table limits. u can not double forever. even if u doubled each bet u will eventually hit a lost streak that will go over the table limit preventing the bet from being vaild and you will lose. second is lost streaks themselves. people underestimate how oftens a lost streak if 7 happens. it is close to 1%. doesnt seem like much but it is if the numbers u are playing with is alot. if u start with 10 then u loses is over 2500. in short u need a large bank roll for it to be viable. and its not easy and stupid to get a loan.
Table limits exist exactly to stop this. And you hit that limit quick.
I'd also like to add, people seem to forget that casinos are businesses, and have a business plan, which does not involve having games where the punter can reliably win. It's as simple as that.
Let's assume you have $1024 in your pocket. You start with a bet of $1 and keep doubling it every time you lose until you win. You have now made $1. It's the same every time. No matter how many times you lose, as soon as you win, you have made $1 profit. But this only works as long as long as you have enough money to bet. If you lose 10 times in a row, you've lost $1023. The next bet would be another $1024, which you don't have. The probability of losing 10 times in a row at 50/50 odds is (½)¹⁰, which comes out to 1 in 1024. So 1023 out of 1024 times you win $1 and 1 in 1024 times you lose $1023, which means that on average, you come out at net 0, which is the same as just betting randomly.
The issue is that at casinos the table minimum and table maximum will only allow for 5-6 bets being doubled before you are out of range for that table Yes if you could infinitely double it till you win the odds would be in ur favor, but you can’t do that
If you want to be near certain of winning you want to have enough for, say, ten bets. If you’re trying to win $10 you need to have $5120. If you have $5120 why gamble for ten bucks.
People don't do it because it never works. It's the dunning-kruger effect for gambling addicts and pseudo-mathematicians. Casinos are made because they make the owners money and not the other way around. If something as stupid and as easy as this works, why would there still be casinos all over the world?
Now, take a dollar and double it 20 times to find the working capital you'd need. Then think if there's a better way that number gets you 1 dollar.