Author: horse-racing-free-tips

Pick up any Roulette book and you’re bound to read about the Martingale system. It’s a simple system that’s been in use for eons. In fact, many other games besides Roulette use this system as well.

For the most part, the Martingale system was designed for even-money bets, but the premise can be applied to just about anything. Today, we’ll look at the Martingale betting system from an even-money Roulette perspective.

Technically, this system, which is a series of bet progressions, can go on forever, but that would be foolish. Normally, system bettors will limit their progressions to eight or fewer. And when we go over the progressions, you’ll see why.

Is betting the Martingale way foolish? Some say so. That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself. I’ve seen it work and I’ve seen it fail. But heck, everything fails. The ticket is to win more than you lose. And that’s why so many try the Martingale way. It’s not a way to quick riches, but it sure can be hard to lose it all sometimes.

I told you we’d look at this from a Roulette pair of eyes, so let’s imagine that you’ve just walked up to the Roulette table or loading one up online. We’ll keep this simple. You’re a $1 bettor. Easy enough right? Now, we’re going to play Red.

Your first wager on Red would be $1. If you win, your next wager on Red is also $1. In other words, you never bet more than a buck after a win. Now, when you lose, that’s another story.

In essence, you’ll be doubling your wager after every loss. For instance, let’s say you wagered $1 and lost. Your next wager on Red would be $2. Lose that and you’ll bet $4 next time. It’s an easy system to play, but you need to be careful. If you use a large progression chain and lose it all, you’ll be playing for ages to recoup the cash.

Here’s an example of an 8-step ladder.

Bet One: $1
Bet Two: $2
Bet Three: $4
Bet Four: $8
Bet Five: $16
Bet Six: $32
Bet Seven: $64
Bet Eight: $128

As you can see, when bet eight is on the table, there’s $128 in action. If bet eight loses, you’re out just over $250-all to win $1. And that’s why some think this is a foolish system.

However, let’s play the odds. The probability of getting 8 losses in a row on a close to 50/50 bet is very low. Still, it does happen.

Want to boost your odds? Wait for the other side to come out 2-3 times in a row then bet the opposite. It would then take 10-11 losers in a row to clean out the system.

Very common and popular system among newbies who like roulette, but not a very useful one. Sure, it seems simple and logical – you start with, let’s say, 10 bucks and you double it every time you lose in order to win it back.

Let’s look how the bets increase with every loss – 1) $10, 2) $20, 3) $40, 4) $80… 9) $2960! Okay, it’s very rare to lose 9 times in a row when playing roulette and betting on red/black, but let’s face the facts and more important – the ODDS. The chance of losing 9 times a row is somewhere near 1/500, meaning that chance of losing 3 grands in order to win back your $10 is around 1 in 500…

You may get lucky, of course, and probably you will first few times, but in the long run you lose and when you lose, you lose really big. Hey, I’ve seen roulette ball landing on black 13 (thirteen!) times in a row and I have heard stories of people getting 17 reds in a row. Now, if you take this initial $10 bucks and calculate, you can see that if you keep using Martingale and if you wait long enough, you will lose hundreds of thousands. For example, if you start with $5 and lose 17 times in a row, your last bet will be $327,680. Now – how sick is that?!?!

“If I had the money and the drinking capacity, I’d probably live at a roulette table and let my life go to hell,” said Michael Ventura once. I think he forgot to mention “Martingale Betting System”.

Some people use Anti-Martingale System, where you have to predict a win (6 blacks in a row, for example) and where you have to double every time you have won. If you’ve won three times in a row, start all over again. If you lose, start over with minimum bet (do not increase!).

GamblingRalf recommends Anti-Martingale System (if any system at all, and IF roulette at all…), because it’s not as nerve-wrecking as the others – you don’t have to place cosmic bets to win back your pocket change.