If you’ve spent some time in casinos or hung around the bookies too much, you’ve probably heard this term before. It’s important to note that this is not just used in sports betting, but in gambling in general. In fact, its most famous application is to the classic casino game of roulette, and so I’ll use that to show, very simply, how the Martingale system works.
There are two big bets in casino roulette: black and red. Let’s saw you put $10 down on red, and up comes black. You’re down $10. To try to make this money back with the next bet, you throw down another $20, this time on black. If you hit this spin, you win your $20, covering your first loss and putting you ahead $10. If you lose, you are down $30, and the next bet will be $40. If you hit that, you make your losses back again, and then some.
So, talking about your basic betting units, losing the 1, 2, and 4 and then winning the next bet, an 8, still puts you ahead 1 unit. If we follow this sports betting systems strategy down the rabbit hole, we can see that however many times you lose, betting in this pattern will eventually put you ahead. So there it is, folks, the answer to all your wagering woes – you’ll always eventually profit with the Martingale, right?
Providing you have an unlimited bankroll, unlimited time, and there are no limits where you are betting, that is absolutely right. That means you can flip a coin for eternity, with infinite money, and end up with a profit from the Martingale eventually. You can see that this doesn’t help for any of us betting on anything today.
We are playing with a limited bankroll, with a limited amount of time or games to play, and there will eventually be a limit on the table or the book. A more effective strategy that takes into account our limited bankroll is a type of modified Martingale betting strategy. The first bet is 1 unit. After a loss, the second bet is 2 units. If we suffer another loss, the bet becomes 4 units. A win, of course, resets the system. After that, we pack it up and call it a day, or change games.
Like other sports betting systems, the Martingale system, explained above, basically works so that a bettor wins most of the time and gets clobbered once in a while. Many statisticians have attacked Martingale systems,[i] but do concede they do work better with positive expected value bets. I will say that we have had great luck with Martingale betting, and I do practice it regularly. I have found that when combining my solid research on statistical history, taking math from the Kelley Criterion, and betting in a 3 bet Martingale progression, I win consistently. Perhaps a statistician could argue that I have been lucky to not have been hurt by an early losing streak, I have never been hurt by a bad early losing streak in a Martingale system (knock on wood). If you like the feeling of winning a lot and practice reasonable money management, I would recommend this system, against the advice of all statisticians.
