Pregressive betting?

Progressive betting?

I was reading something about a 'progressive betting' (I think thats what its called, maybe not) strategy the other day and I started thinking about it. I haven't read much on this topic by the way. Please excuse me if I'm being ignorant about this at all.

This is an example of what I was thinking:
Playing blackjack(or any game?), I suppose with BS but I don't know if you'd even need that.
Your standard bet can be anything, I'll say $5 for this example.
You bet $5 first up.
If you win that hand, you bet $5 again, but if you lose you double your bet, so $10.
You just keep doing that, if you win, you bet the standard bet the next hand($5), if you lose, you bet double what you just lost.
In the long run all losing bets, including losing streaks, are actually acumulated back in a bigger win, for example: Starting with $100, Bet $5+lose=$95, bet $10+lose=$85, bet $20+lose=$65, bet $40+win=$105. I just though about pushes, but I suppose just leave the same bet on the table in the event of a push/draw.

I just thought it interesting, because I think theoretically, if your bankroll is big enough and the table limits allow(to cover big losing streaks), you could theoretically win doing this, or am I missing something? It seems to me that every winning hand you win your standard bet, and every loss just makes a win take a little longer.
One bad thing: you'd be vulnerable to getting kicked out on a big losing streak and losing money. Example: if you lose nine bets in a row, you'd be down 2555(5+10+20.....+1280), and if the casino knew what you were doing, they could kick you out and you'd be stuffed. Actually, you could just come back in later, or at another casino and bet your $2560, couldn't you. Silly me.

What is wrong with this strategy? Am I insane?
(

I think the main thing that discourages this being used, unless there is an error in my reasoning that someone can point out, is that quite quickly this could have you down $10235 after just 11 losing hands in a row. So you'd need $10240 to bet the next hand, then $20k if you lost again, then $40k, $80k.
I bet someone has tried this and then had a losing streak and had to back out with a loss because their bankroll failed them.
The thing is, as far as I can work out, you'd win around 1/3 of all hands. If you did, thats ussually about 20 hands an hour right? so 20x $5= $100 an hour.
But are you prepared to lay down $10k+ to win $5?

EDIT:

I just thought about Blackjacks. Assuming it pays 3:2, a Blackjack on a standard bet after a win would see a an extra $2.50. No big deal, a little bonus.
But I think your long term per hour win expectation would be much higher, because if you got a blackjack after a few losses in a row you could get 3:2 on $1k+, which would blow away my $100/hour, even if it happened very rarely.

I think you'd realistically need a huge bankroll and a no limits table to do this, but I still cant think of anything that would stop this from working, except a never ending losing streak.

Out of interest, what is the longest losing streak you have had/witnessed?

Don't play it

This "system" is called the Martingale and it is very old.
From time to time, it rears it's ugly head.
It is a sure LOSER.
You will have many "small" wins, only to be wiped out, by the "BIG" loss.

Lets say you have a $5 to $1,000 table limit.
You lose 7 in a row.....
You now have to bet $640................to win FIVE dollars.
You do it and lose...
You have now lost 8 hands in a row (that will happen 1 in 356 times, on average)
You now need to bet $1,280...again,........ to win FIVE dollars.
But, you can't bet that much, as the table limit is $1,000.

I hope you can see, it is a Very Bad way to bet.

Aussiecounter,

There have been several discussions on the Martingale negative progression here on the forum. But Midnite summed it up pretty conclusively. I will add this though...if you use this, the casinos are going to LOVE you! In fact, they'll love you using just about any kind of progressive betting...WHY? Because with any progression you are going to give them a bigger shot at your bankroll simply because you will be betting more. Sooner or later, they know the percentages are in their favor and they will win! They'd rather win .3% of $100,000 wagered than .3% of $10,000.

Thanks Midnite.

Like I said, I haven't looked into it that deeply. I had heard of the Martingale, but hadn't actually seen it explained, so I didn't know what it was.

I agree with your post mostly, but I'd have to disagree with you on one point. Its not a sure loser theoretically.

Realistically I know you'd never find a game with a maximum limit high enough in comparison to the minimum, so I for one would never try this "system".

But I have to say, and I'm totally convinced in this, that if you could find a game to apply this "system", and you had a pair of balls big enough, that this is the only "system" that would work to make money. Any other system that claims to work would just be using the same basic principle.
What is your (or anyone's) opinion on this? (If you found a $5 min-$100K max table for example, and you had a $100K bankroll). (Actually, make it a no limit table.)

My opinion: If I had a 100K bankroll and found a 100K maximum table, I'd not be playing for $5 profits. If you look back in our archived messages, you'll see where I've posted results of simulated runs using Negative and Positive progressions as well and hybrid progressions. In all of them one thing becomes obvious: While not common, streaks of 17 losses in a row (and more) are not unheard of. Streaks of 10 and 11 are relatively common. 4 and 5 hand streaks are very common.

While they can be "exciting", betting progressions really gives the player no mathematical advantage.

Mike, I know this is a fanciful situation to start with and its obviously one of the reasons that there are limits on tables, but you are not playing for a $5 profit( in this fantasy world of no limit tables).
You are playing for a very roughly estimated $100 an hour, which is not even taking into consideration getting a Blackjack at the end of a long losing streak. For example if you lost 11 hands in a row you'd have a 10K bet on the table next hand. If you got a Blackjack you'd win back your losses + $5 but you'd also get a bonus $5000. Now I know this would happen very, very rarely, but you'd get blackjack occasionally after a shorter losing streak.

By the way, I'm not at all thinking about using this system or any other at any point in time, I'm just theorising.
I'm practicing counting and hope to one day put it into use, if I can find out if one of the Casinos I can get to have half-way decent rules/conditions.
I have one Casino about 40 miles/60 km away, one 220 miles/350km and after that its over 500 miles.

I guess I'm anal about "practical" Aussie. I do understand that you are talking about the Ivory Tower casino where there are no restrictions other than your own bankroll. I say this because there are so many new players who come in here and read these theories. When discussing them, one has to pretty careful about using terms like "unbeatable" or "guaranteed" <LOL>

With any negative progression where you double your bet on a loss, you are chancing the doubled bet to recover your loss and stand to gain only your original bet. If that bet is $5, then you stand to win $5 on each winning hand. It would take 20 wins per hour to net $100.
It's possible. I think the breakdown is 44% player...48% dealer...8% pushes. At 45 hands per hour...a reasonable dealer....you could get in enough to play 45 hands based on the percentages and win your $100 if you didn't loose more than you "should."

Let's say that you can. And, let's say that you don't hit a horrible loosing streak that exponentially has you risking a huge recovery bet (5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560). Of course, there is no guarantee that there is not going to be a loosing streak that exceeds that number. I stippulated that because the largest table maximum that I have seen that was in place on a $5 table was $2,000USD and that was at Plaza on Fremont. So, you could loose 9 in a row I believe before your progression would be killed for lack of a high enough maximum.

You sound like you've played enough blackjack to have witnessed the frequency of runs on a 6-deck table. I have seen them happen usually at least once per shift where the dealer will win 7 or 8 in a row. You don't have to extend that very far to reach 9 or 10 in a row. At $100 per hour, you would stand to net $800. Just ONE 9 hand run by the dealer would result in a loss of $1280. You would be down $480 for that shift <sigh>. But wait, what if you had a split or double on that 1280 bet? Especially a split which you might really need to make to give you a chance at winning the hand. And lost it?

I guess my point is that you are risking a LOT of money for a relatively small gain and have incurred a pretty darn high risk of ruin though I do not know how to calculate that figure.

Yeah Mike I know what you mean. I had a bit of a look into this AFTER I posted. Its been covered. I know what you mean regarding the "unbeatable"/"guaranteed" claims. Its ok to talk about theoreticals, but its really a waste of time if you think about it.

I just had a thought; the table limit or more to the point the min-max bet thing wouldn't matter too much. If you are at a 5-500 table or whatever, when you start a losing streak you could just move to another higher limit table after 7 losses, I dont think it really matters. You could even move to a different casino. Then go back to a $5 min table after you win.