The Martingale Betting System

 
Here I’ll show you a strategy for Roulette called the Martingale Betting System, but I do not recommend that you play with this system for the reasons outlined below.
 

If you put the term ‘casino betting system’ into any search engine, you will receive thousands of responses, many of which are from people thinking they have found a fool-proof way to beat the casino. Some of them even have the cheek to try and charge you for it.

The truth is, they haven’t found a guaranteed way to win as such a thing doesn’t exist – the casino will almost always come out on top in the long run due to the casino games house edge.

The Martingale Betting System below is one of the most popular – although risky.

The Martingale Betting System Explained

This system originated, like many betting systems, in France in the 18th century.

It was designed for a simple game of heads or tails when flipping a coin and therefore works just as well for an even-money bet such as Odd/Even, Black/Red, or High/Low in Roulette or Pass/Don’t Pass in Craps.

It is a very simple system to learn and although gives the player a very high chance of winning, the amount of the win is equal only to the value of the initial bet they place, whereas, a loss can be much greater than this.

The betting system is simple – every time you lose a bet, double the stake. By the law of averages, a winning bet is unlikely to be too far away and each time you win, it wipes out all previous losses and gives a profit equal to the original bet.

However, if you do go on a losing streak, the amount you would need to bet starts rising very steeply and as there are no guarantees that a win will come up, the amount you would be risking is considerably higher than the amount you would be aiming to win.

How the Martingale Betting System Works

The Martingale System only works on low-value bets such as Hi/Medium/Low or Red/Black on Roulette.

An example of a Low bet is below – the lowest 12 numbers on a Roulette wheel:

1. This is a bet on low. You win if any number from 1-12 comes in:

2. This is a bet on middle. You win if any number from 13-24 comes in:

3. This is a bet on high. You win if any number from 25-36 comes in:</B

This is how you bet black:

This is how you bet red:

A lot of players using this system like to bet on occurrences that haven’t come in for a while, for example on the 3 way Low/Medium/High bet.

The objective is to write down each bet and see how the table you are betting on is running. What you need to do is every time you spin the wheel, record whether a low (L), middle (M), or high (H) number drops in. (We don’t recommend this as each spin is entirely random especially when playing online)

For example, if you are on a table and spin the wheel ten times and the following numbers drop-in: 04, 11, 36, 14, 20, 25, 02, 33, 13, 16, your table would look like this:

When you begin to play Roulette, do not place any bets at all. Patience is the key now. Keep spinning the wheel and recording what numbers drop in on your table. What you are waiting for is a consecutive run where 1 of the sections of numbers has not come in for 7 spins.

This is optional however as even if a number or bet hasn’t dropped in for 50 spins, there is just as much chance of it coming in next spins as there would be if it had dropped in 5 times in a row.

Example of the Martingale Betting System

If we start by betting €1 a game, it is only €1 that we will be looking to win. However, as you will see in a moment, we could stand to lose a lot more than this.

If we win our first bet, great, we are €1 up. We put this into our pocket and try again.

We now lose that bet, not the end of the world, we now double our bet to €2. We now win again so we have bet €3 to win €4, another €1 profit.

We now start again by betting €1, but this time, we are going to hit a losing streak.

If we fail to win in 5 spins, our total outlay will be €1, doubled to €2, doubled to €4, doubled to €8 doubled to €16 – a total outlay of €31. Not the end of the world, admittedly, but if we do win, we are only going to be up by €1 although those losses will be wiped out.

So if we place our next bet after losing 5 in a row – the stake would now be €32 – we would return €64 from a total outlay of €63 (the €31 from the first 5 bets plus the €32 from the 6th bet) so we are up by €1 again.

However, if that 6th bet continues our losing streak, the next bet would need to be €64, followed by €128, €256 and €512 if the streak continues for 9 spins.

This brings up 2 issues:

1. The obvious one is bankroll. Many players that are placing €1 bets won’t have a bankroll of €512 which would be needed to place the €256, for the €512 bet you would need a total of €1,023 when the other bets are taken into consideration.

2. On top of this, many Roulette and Craps tables have limits which may well prevent you from betting €512 in one spin meaning you won’t be able to try and get your losses back, and even if they do allow it, there is no guarantee that the bet will come in anyway and therefore your losses will be much higher.

Let’s take a look at what would happen if you start off with €1 but lose 15 spins in a row:

 
As you can see from the above table, starting at just €1 and therefore aiming to make a profit of just €1, if you lose 15 bets in a row, you would be down by €32,767.

Although the chances of losing 15 times in succession are slim, it is possible and does happen, and for the sake of trying to win €1, the prospect of losing over €30,000 – even if you do have that kind of bankroll and can find a table that will let you bet between €1 and €32,767 per spin – is crazy.

Conclusion

The Martingale System is popular with some players as you have a high chance of winning small but due to the large amounts you could potentially lose, we suggest you steer well clear of it – there are other betting systems, which can enhance your playing experience but without the prospect of losing huge amounts.

Related Articles:

Full list of Roulette betting systems
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How to play American Roulette
Anti-Martingale betting system
Beginner & advanced Roulette strategies