Jackie Baltimore
Senior Editor, Poker Intensity
Over the years gamblers have come up with a never ending series of "methods" of manipulating their betting strategies that seem, at least in their minds, to save them money. These "money management" schemes may offer a slight edge, and some offer better results than others, but ultimately they are all still subject to the laws of probability. All the fancy money management systems combined aren\'t going to make you a penny if you\'re betting an apple will fall upwards when released. They may give you a slight edge, but it may not be enough to offset a bad bet.
• The Martingale. If anybody tells you they have a money management system, the odds are pretty good they\'re talking about the Martingale. It\'s been around ever since the concept was perfected by Paul Pierre Levy, a French mathematician back in the early 1900\'s (he died in 1971 at the age of 85). The system seems to make sense mathematically. Basically, if you flip a coin and win the bet every time it comes up heads (and lose on a tails toss) the trick is to double your bet every time you lose. If, say, you lose the first $5 bet, you then bet $10. If you win, you\'ll then get back everything you\'ve lost until that moment. If you lose, you then bet $20, then $40 and so forth. The minute you win, you drop back down and start with a small bet again. Using that kind of math, you would end up with the following progression on your first 10 bets:
|
Bet Number
|
Amount
|
Losses
|
Winning
|
Profit
|
|
1
|
5
|
5
|
10
|
5
|
|
2
|
10
|
15
|
20
|
5
|
|
3
|
20
|
35
|
40
|
5
|
|
4
|
40
|
75
|
80
|
5
|
|
5
|
80
|
155
|
160
|
5
|
|
6
|
160
|
315
|
320
|
5
|
|
7
|
320
|
635
|
640
|
5
|
|
8
|
640
|
1275
|
1280
|
5
|
|
9
|
1280
|
2555
|
2560
|
5
|
|
10
|
2560
|
5115
|
5120
|
5
|
Basically, as long as you continue to lose, your bet increases progressively by the amount shown in the Amount column. The Losses column shows how much you\'ve won altogether. If you happen to win at any given time, the Winning column shows how much you would win (twice the basic bet). In the end, you will eventually win back your original investment (in this case $5).
Will it work? Technically, yes. Eventually you\'re going to win back what you started with. But some of the inherent problems with the system are pretty obvious. Unless you have an incredible bankroll, eventually you are going to run out of money (quickly), and lose it all. You also are limiting your possible winnings to whatever your initial bet was, so unless you bet a lot, it\'s a lot of work for nothing. If you started with a dollar bet, you\'d be going through a lot of work to make a single dollar. If, on the other hand, you started with a $50, eventually you\'d win back $50. But to do so, you need to ad a zero to every number in the chart above, and hope you aren\'t stuck flipping tails 5 times in a row, and getting stuck paying out $1550 just to stay in the game.
Another problem with the system is the fact that you can\'t continue to raise indefinitely. Most table games have top limits, so, if you were playing blackjack, say, at a $5 table (with a $50 max), you better hope you win one of the first 3 hands, or you can plan on giving the casino $35 quick bucks. That\'s why casinos have top limits on their tables. They realize a person playing a Martingale will eventually win.
People who use a Martingale in a casino typically use it to bet on odds and evens or black and reds on a roulette wheel. At first it may feel like heaven. If you win a few, it seems like easy money. But look at the board above the spinner, the one that tells you how the wheel has played the past 20 times. How many runs of 8 or 9 repeated reds or blacks are there? If you were betting $5 a pop, you would have to have an extra $2555 stuffed in your back pocket in order to eventually win back your original $5 bet. Is it really worth it? Maybe, if you have more money than you know what to do with.
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