re: Roulette - Martingale System

I think doing this on the craps table on the don't pass bet would be more successful.

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Continue to double down until you win the hand then return to $10 and start again.

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That's the classic Martingale and the problem with it is that you can't double forever. The casino has a much bigger bankroll than you do, after all. Eventually you will hit a streak long enough that you go broke.

This is a problem with counting cards in blackjack too if you are an individual player. Teams can get away with more, but for individuals the edge that counting provides isn't really enough to overcome the bankroll size difference.

I was curious about this and put it in to practice on a $5 table. I had $715 and it would take 7 losses in a row to bust out.

Say you go 50 spins without losing your bankroll, there’s no guarantee that you will be up X amount. It all varies based on win/loss streaks within those 50 spins. You will hit hot streaks where you will be up $50 in 15 spins, then there will be cold streaks where you’ll have a handful of 3-5 loss streaks before winning where you’ll only be up say $15 in 15 spins.

In the end, I played for about 6 hours over a couple days (I would get bored) and ended up winning around $600. There were 2 times where I made it to the 7th spin with $320 on the table.

If you’re interested in trying it out, you can always go to one of the fast roulette machines that sometimes have $1-3 bets. It’ll be a bit cheaper and the spins are faster, so you won’t have to invest as much time.

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Its not a good play after doing the math.

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It's NEVER a good play after doing the math. That's how casinos work.

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Another way to look at it. You were basically two coin flips away from walking away with nothing.

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Not technically true because I had won on previous spins and had some profit in the bank already, but to be more acurate, I was two coin flips away from losing everything I walked in with.

Well using this system to win a few bucks a time or two is a pretty decent play. Highly unlikely you'd lose 7x consecutively in 10 or so spins so you'd make a few bucks there.

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Well using this system to win a few bucks a time or two is a pretty decent play. Highly unlikely you'd lose 7x consecutively in 10 or so spins so you'd make a few bucks there.

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This statement right here is why casinos are a multi-billion dollar industry.

The best case with $10 hands over 10 spins is that you've won every spin and walked with $100. Remember, you're not doubling your bet in response to winning; winning just means your next bet is $10. Winning 10 hands in a row is WAY less likely than losing 7 in a row and your BEST outcome if that happens (with $10 hands playing a Martingale) is only $100.

If you are playing 10 hands and Martingale out to table maximum on a $10 initial bet (assuming $1k table max), that's 7 hands and you've just lost about $1250 (depending on whether you started losing on hand 1,2,3, or 4). If that happens to you just ONE time, you've gotta win over 120 more $10 hands than you lose in the long run just to erase that one bad streak. Do you know what casinos are REALLY good at doing? Making sure their games will not allow players to win 120 hands more than they lose in the long run.

The Martingale system is fatally wounded simply by the difference in bankrolls that you and the casino hold. Once the casino throws in table maximums, the Martingale system is not only fatally wounded, but its organs are pulled out of its body and shown to it one by one as it's dying a quick, brutish, horrible death.

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There is only one way to have the odds at roulette and it involves a team game with someone actiling like a drunk betting the green squares (35/1, so he can afford to lose) and you betting odd/even or red/black. You actually have the odds in your favor.

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Lolwut?

To answer your original question in simpler math terms:

If the maximum loss is 255 dollars/units then you can bet up to 8 times. The probability of losing eight bets in a row is (19/37)8=.004835. So, you have 99.52% of winning one dollar/unit, and 0.48% of losing 255 dollars/units. Those are not odds any sharp would ever take.