The Martingale Betting System 

Martingale betting increases your chances of winning short term. You can lose big when you lose. If you start with $1000 and place a $5 bet, your chances of making a profit are about 80%. You can win about $100 per hour with a craps or roulette game. Nice! But, losing is a common loss of around $500. Ouch.

Like most things in this life, the Martingale can be described as a tradeoff. For a good chance of winning, you will have to accept a painful loss if it happens. It's both a pro as well as a con.

The Martingale is dismissed by many other gambling writers. Wizard of Odds, for example, famously said that "all betting system are equally useless". This is true if your criteria are very narrow. For example, whether the system reduces house edge (which is what the Wizard uses). It's almost like saying that bicycles don't run as fast or aren't worth anything. Millions of bike-riders would agree with that statement. While the Martingale won’t lower the house edge, certain, it can provide entertainment. It also gives you an excellent chance at winning in the short term, which is far from being "worthless". Risky? Absolutely. Worthless? No.

What is the Martingale Betting System and how does it work?

Here's the way the Martingale works. First, you place your standard wager of $5 on an even money bet such as red in roulette, or Pass Line in craps. Each time you win, you will make the same bet for round 2. If you lose, you will double your wager for the next round. Keep doing this until you win. After losing several rounds, you will eventually win a round. Your net win will then be $5. In fact, each time you win, you'll get $5 more, regardless of previous losses.

Here's an example. You wager $5. You lose, so you bet $10. You lose again, so you bet $20. You lose again, so you bet $40. You lose again, so you bet $80. You lose again, so you bet $80. Then, you win. The net win in that series was $5. Now, you are ahead $5.

If you could double your stake when you lose, you would always be ahead. However, in real life, it's not possible to double your bet every time. First of all, eventually you will run out money and find yourself unable to increase your bet by more than half. If you start with $5, lose thirteen consecutive bets, which is what happens, you will need to fork over $40,000.960 for your next wager. Ouch.

Even if you had the money to wager, it might not be possible because of limitations imposed by casinos on how much you can bet. You wouldn't have to worry about it in Vegas, where you could bet as high as $1 million in the exclusive high limit areas at the tonier casinos. These rooms are not on the main casino floor. They're entirely separate and will be invisible to most people. It would be difficult to place more than $5000 simultaneously in other areas of the world and the US.

The risk of the Martingale is that you can lose too often to go broke. You won't have enough money for the next bet. Or you could get hit with the table limit. While the Martingale may work for the short-term, you'll be more likely to lose a lot of money if you continue playing too long. How much is too short? The better, the shorter you can make it. You have a roughly 80% chance to win in roulette or craps if you spend an hour at a live casino. Although you can play for longer periods of time, you will lose more often the longer you play.

For example, increase your chances of winning from 46% up to 82%

We now know the basics of how the system works. But how does this increase our chances to win? How long you play depends on several factors. These include the type of game you play, the amount you placed at your first bet, how big you are willing to risk (your "bankroll"), as well as how long you've been playing. Let's assume you are playing craps and have $5 to wager on the pass line. This will give you $1000 to play with. You'll only win about 46% of the times if you wager $5 (no Martingale), with an average win rate of $25. 54% of the times you'll lose with an average loss $17.

Let's try the Martingale again, but this time we'll double our bet after every lose. The chances of winning the one-hour session are now 82%. We win $100 on average (much more than the $25 from flat betting), while our average loss of $528 is when we lose. Bing! It's a tradeoff.

However, the Martingale can be very frustrating if you play for too long. You may lose multiple bets in one go and run out of money. The Martingale's chances of winning are 37% if you use the eight-hour session in the example. Flat-betting $5 every single time has 41% chance of success.

A smaller bankroll will also decrease your chances to win. When you lose a lot of money, it is important to have enough money to double your bets. We had 82% chance to win if we brought $1000 to our table in the example above. If we bring only $500, our chances of winning fall to 69%.

Craps is the best option

Martingale craps is the best game. It can be a betting on either the Pass line (or Don't Pass) or both. Some other games are less popular.

Roulette has a higher average house edge than other games, even single zero versions. A single-zero version with the half back rule has a lower house edge than craps. However it is a rare game where the table minimums are higher than craps.

Blackjack has good odds if you use a strategy. To play Martingale with blackjack, however, your bankroll must be four times the normal size. You might have to split hands or double down and you will need more money to do this. This extra money could be used to make the Martingale work better with single-zero and craps. With that extra money, you could survive a longer losing streak.

Baccarat is a game with a low house edge, but it can be played much faster than either craps or roulette. Therefore, your odds of losing are higher. There is a higher chance that you will lose if there are more rounds. You should also be cautious about playing online for real money, as online games can be played much faster than in brick-and-mortar casino.

It works if your bankroll is large.

We all know that the problem is with the Martingale. Once you lose several times in succession, you must make very big bets. But what if you are able to afford those huge bets. In these conditions, how would the Martingale perform? I decided to test it.

Assume that the gambler is willing and able to lose up $100k. He could place a total of 14 bets with $5 starting with, and ending with $40,960. This would leave him with an $81,915 loss if bet #14 was lost. Caesars Palace will accept bets upto $50k. What length of time could our gambler be safe playing with these betting limits. I decided that safe would mean that the gambler had a 95% chance to win and only a 55% chance of losing $82k. He could have played the Pass Line in craps for just 30 hours, and he would still be ahead by 95%. Wow!

You can't play the Martingale for too long even with a $100k bankroll. There is a high risk of getting tapped out.

Do you need to use the Martingale

Do you want to use the Martingale or not? It's up to you to decide. Here are some guidelines.

The Martingale might be right for you if

To increase your odds of winning, you are willing to lose more than normal in the event you lose.

For $1 bets of $1, you must have at minimum $200 and a maximum $1000 bankroll for $5 bets.

You will only be able to play for a few minutes.

You are willing to take the huge risk of losing your entire bankroll.

If you are:

Even though you have only read this article, you still believe that the Martingale will be a winner.

Minimum $200 is required to place $1 bets and minimum $1000 to place $5 bets.

You don't plan to play for more than a few hours, especially if your goal is to play American roulette, Baccarat, or other online games.

Chances with Martingale under different conditions

These figures are based upon hours played in land casinos. Internet play is quicker. You can increase your chances to win by playing a specific number of rounds and not a certain amount of hours. The Methodology table below shows how many rounds are required to play each game. Martingale Betting System