The Martingale and Disregarding the "Long Term"

Clearly I am missing something here.

Everyone and their brother-in-law says that the Martingale System sucks because it doesn't work in the long run. The guys at wizardofodds.com say that betting-system-scam artists claim that the Martingale does work because no one ever plays a million hands like the computer simulators do that prove otherwise.

So how is that claim (that the Martingale does work in the short term) untrue? If I bring a large $ amount to the casino in order to win a small $ amount, where's the risk? Consider the following:

Bet: Red/Black at Roulette
Amount $ bet each time: x
Maximum number of times I expect to lose consecutively: four
$ amount brought to the casino: (x)(15) because (x+2x+4x+8x) = 15x

I understand that it is possible that the uncaring ball could land on the non-favored color ten times in a row, but I just don't see that happening. If you actually feared losing ten times in a row, why would you EVER gamble in ANY game? So the question is, does the Martingale work in the short term?

Bonus Question for those who care: With a game like roulette where each bet is wholly independent of previous bets, does that logic imply that hitting red twice in a row is as likely as hitting it 50 times in a row? Isn't that the source of the fear of the Martingale system?

So, you're going to go to the casino just once, play your 1 to 4 spins at the roulette table, and then head out the door to never return?

If so, good luck, but you probably won't need it. You are very likely to succeed.

But, if you're planning to repeat this process a few times, you'll start needing some luck to avoid the 4 losses in a row. And, if you repeat it more than a small handful of times, you'll encounter those losing streaks just often enough to insure you'll never be a winner overall.

Is this really all that confusing? I guess so, since we get these questions on a regular basis.

KenSmith said:

Is this really all that confusing? I guess so, since we get these questions on a regular basis.

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Maybe we should take the zengrifter approach and encourage martingale players! :devil:

ScottH said:

Maybe we should take the zengrifter approach and encourage martingale players! :devil:

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haha good idea. Someone has to pay for my free food.

You will lose 4 bets in a row on black once every 13 tries on a double zero wheel.
10 times in a row once every 613. You would have lost a total of $1023 on those 10 spins.

martingale

There are only two things that you need in order for the martingale system to work.
1. You need an unlimited bankroll (I have lost over 20 hands of blackjack in a row at least 3 times)

2. You need a casino that has no limits on their tables.

Without these two things Martingale will give you many very small winning sessions but there eventually (not long term talking 100's of hands not millions) you must be devistated by a single extended losing streak.

Finally, though casino folks may not be genius level thinkers, anyone who thinks that a martingale system can work in a casino, is saying that the people who set up these games know absolutely nothing about them and of course they are wrong. Casinos comp martingale and other progression players very well, while at the same time they try to stop people like card counters from playing.

Now I do not play your game because at a 5%+ house edge, I would only play against a biased wheel, but to give you an idea of variance, computer simulations show clearly that in a period of 1,400 hands of blackjack (or about 24 hours of play) you should have one streak of 10 or more straight loses.

ihate17

You're forgetting the ORE!

KenSmith said:

So, you're going to go to the casino just once, play your 1 to 4 spins at the roulette table, and then head out the door to never return?

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He just needs to make use of the Overnight Reset Effect. This is what keeps many short term sessions from adding up to the long term. This same thing is what people who quit while they're ahead use to determine when it's safe to go back and play some more. :laugh:

Canceler said:

He just needs to make use of the Overnight Reset Effect. This is what keeps many short term sessions from adding up to the long term. This same thing is what people who quit while they're ahead use to determine when it's safe to go back and play some more. :laugh:

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ha ha Canceler my friend pretty funny
here is a thought on the matter of quiting when one is ahead.
advantage players are always ahead in the long run. when ever an AP walks out of a casino he walks out a winner. an AP has no choice about leaving with respect to being ahead. an AP walks on his own terms. if one chooses to walk when a session is with in one standard deviation above ones expected value he walks away with not only his expected value but also some icing on the cake so to speak. none of us AP or ploppy can know what tomorrow shall bring. for all we know we may never play again. all we know is that tomorrow gives us another opportunity to ply our skills however humble they may be and that the new day may bring us yet another stroke of good luck. who of us that have had the pleasure of sitting at the tables haven't heard the ole refrain, "it's better to be lucky than good." and who of us who are AP's have not thought "uh huh and also it is better to be lucky and good". so those of us who end our pleasure on a high note may not do so with a magic reset button that makes our dear Lady Luck smile but do so with the hope and faith that she will smile upon us once again if not on this new day then at least on another day. but those of us who are still basking :gaga: in the rememberance of her smiles yesterday are giving her an opportunity to smile on us yet again on this new day knowing that she is the most fickle lady we shall ever have the pleasure of suiting for the charms there of.

very best regards,
mr fr0g

AP is one thing, the Martingale is another!

Canceler said:

AP is one thing, the Martingale is another!

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exactly. AP gives one the best chances of winning in the long run. Martingale is an option for low house advantage games that can afford one prospects of winning a little in the short run but not in the long run and becasue you have no way of knowing how things are likely to turn out in the short run the Martingale turns up a losing proposition. the Martingale has a double whammy against it. so does AP play (lest we forget it's gambling also) but with AP play we can configure our ROR so low that we'd just about have to have the mark of the beast on our foreheads to end up loser where as the Martingale doesn't afford one a reasonable way of managing ROR. as card counters we use a variant of Martingale like betting only thing is we tie our bets to our advantage and our return has much greater potential for being large in the short run (to some degree) and in the long run (with a high degree of likelyhood) than a pure Martingale player's.
Martingale has genuine short run possibilities for low house advantage table games. if one hit a lucky streak using the Martingale one could take and apply the proceeds to ones bank for genuine AP play in blackjack. the trick to get such a ploy to work would be to have your rate of AP blackjack ev higher than your rate of negative ev experienced with low house edge Martingale short run attack and the negative ev of the long run attack. i've never done the math on such a ploy to see if there is any hope of the combined attacks having a positive ev. and i suppose such a ploy would only have a short term advantage anyway for say a low banked AP since if the the ev of the AP blackjack was high enough to overcome the overall short term negative ev of the martingale play why would want to subtract the positive ev of the advantage AP blackjack game with the overall negative ev of the Martingale attack.
i believe Martingale has some use in tournament play blackjack. i've never read up on it but i once watched Hollywood Dave use the technique in a tournament to some degree of success.

best regards,
mr fr0g

Martingale is so obviously not workinng beause you dont have infinite amount of money. You only have x amount of money, it doesnt matter how much, lets just say its only $35, so we can only 'parlay' $5 $10 $20 (it doesnt matter how high you go as you will see, you always reach a limit)

So this is what can happen when you bet at any particular time:
$5 win = +5$
$5 lost, then $10 win = +$5
$5 lost, then $10 lost, then $20 win = +5$
$5 lost, then $10 lost, then $20 lost = -35$

Now you calculate the change of each occuring (in a FAIR game):
win = 50%
lost win = 50% * 50% = 25%
lost lost win = 50% * 50% * 50% = 12.5%
lost lost lost = 50% * 50% * 50% = 12.5%

Times that by the money you won:
.5 * 5 = $2.50
.25 * 5 = $1.25
.125 * 5 = $0.625
.125 * -35 = -$4.375
add them all up and you get ZERO. ie. no profit. In other words the EXPECTED VALUE IS ZERO.

So martinagle does NOT work in the long run, however, look at the % again. There is 50%+25%+12.5% = 87.5% of the time you are going to win!

What this means is that there is an 87.5% chance that you will win $5, but a 12.5% chance you will LOOSE EVERYTHING.

This is what they are saying my the short term. here i have parlayed 3 bets, and 87.5% of the time I am winning. Now consider someone who parleys 20 bets. Its something like 99.99999% of the time they are winning.

So martinagle CAN win in the long run IF YOU TAKE YOUR WINNINGS BEFORE YOU REACH DOUBLE YOUR MONEY. If you keep playing into 'the long run' you will hit that big loss.

I once knew a guy who got 'investors' into his 'investment company'. He promised 5% return in EVERY week. He took there $100,000 and martinagled it to about $105,000. He could do this obviouly 19 out of 20 times. He did it 8 times then stopped doing it. He took is 1% fees off them and walked away with $8,000 profit.

If he kept going he would have eventually blew $100,000. (Obviously he didnt parley all the way to $100,000 but did it in chunks of $10,000 I believe).

Here is an excerpt of an article about Martingale from Snyder, about a guy who lost almost $30,000 in less than 10 minutes. Read and heed.

..... If I were flipping a coin, with heads being a win, and tails a loss, the odds against me coming up tails 10 times in a row would be about 1000-to-1. That’s pretty unlikely, though far from impossible.

Blackjack, however, is less advantageous than a coin flip. In 100 hands, a basic strategy player will experience, on average, 43 wins, 48 losses and 9 pushes. Since a martingale bettor ignores pushes and lets his bet ride, we can ignore them in our analysis. For every 100 win/loss decisions, a basic strategy player will see about 53 losses and 47 wins.

With these win/loss proportions, the odds against losing 10 consecutive decisions are only about 500-to-1. Now 500-to-1 may seem nearly impossible to many people, but realistically, at any given time, a series of losses equivalent to yours is happening to dozens of players in Atlantic City, and to hundreds of people every day of the year in U.S. casinos. It’s happening right now to one out of every 500 people who are playing. How many tens of thousands of people are playing blackjack right now in U.S. casinos?

You must realize that if you had been flat-betting $10, instead of “doubling-up” to try to recapture your previous losses, you would only have lost $110 (and this includes both your pair split and your double down loss!), instead of being behind by $7,880 at the end of that first unfortunate string of losses. And your total loss at the end of the debacle would only have been $230, not $29,980.

The martingale is a systematic method of chasing your losses. There’s no other way to describe it. This is about the most foolish way to gamble. You violated the single most important rule for gamblers: If you can’t afford to lose it, don’t bet it.

Never bet more than 10% of your liquid net worth

Cancelor and Frog, your intelect is dazzling. I'm convinced that the Martingale is a loser in the long run. However, please everyone, humor me with this. What if we add the following rule to the Martingale? You never bet more than 10% of your liquid net worth. You start at $1 and always double your bet if you lose. When you get to $1K or $4K, (or whatever is 10% of your liquid net worth) you stop and go to work and invest well, and come back for your next bet once it equals less than 10% of your liquid net worth. Then the only way you can lose is if you die before making enough $$ to double your last bet. Or if there is no table with a high enough maximum bet. What is the highest maximum bet for blackjack that you know of?

You'll make way way more money card counting.

Cab720indy said:

You never bet more than 10% of your liquid net worth. You start at $1 and always double your bet if you lose. When you get to $1K or $4K, (or whatever is 10% of your liquid net worth) you stop and go to work and invest well, and come back for your next bet once it equals less than 10% of your liquid net worth.

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The short answer: You will go "less broke" more often.

Having a smaller bankroll means that you are more likely to go broke during a trip. And, since you are still playing at a disadvantage, you will eventually lose all of the money you gamble with in the long run. The only difference is that you will have to siphon more money from your savings account instead of losing it all at once. Essentially, you will be gambling paycheck-to-paycheck.

Let’s take a look at what might happen using this system:

1) Player goes to Vegas with $500 and loses it all using a worthless progression system.

2) Player returns home and goes back to work. Three months later he has saved the $1,000 he needs to “get even.”

3) Player goes to Vegas, makes his $1,000 bet and loses on the first hand.

4) Player returns home (early!) and goes back to work. Six months later he has saved the $2,000 he needs to make his next bet.

5) Player returns to Vegas and makes his $2,000 bet. He is dealt a pair of eights. Technically he is not able to split but he digs into his wallet anyway. He gets a 3 on the first hand but cannot double. He hits to 19. He gets a ten on the second eight and stands. The dealer hits to 20.

6) The player returns home and goes back to work. One year later he has saved the $4,000 he needs to make his next bet.

7) The player returns to Vegas and bets his $4,000 on the first hand. He is dealt a magnificent 20! Just as he is about to celebrate he sees the dealer fumble with the hole card. He catches a glimpse of the Queen just as it is being tucked under the ace upcard. The dealer asks if anyone wants insurance. The player cannot afford another $2,000 bet and losses it all because he is under funded.

Not only was the player forced end his vacations early (for the past 2 years!), he had to make bad decisions and not follow correct basic strategy which increased his disadvantage!

-Sonny-

Sonny said:

The short answer: You will go "less broke" more often.

Having a smaller bankroll means that you are more likely to go broke during a trip. And, since you are still playing at a disadvantage, you will eventually lose all of the money you gamble with in the long run. The only difference is that you will have to siphon more money from your savings account instead of losing it all at once. Essentially, you will be gambling paycheck-to-paycheck.

Let’s take a look at what might happen using this system:

1) Player goes to Vegas with $500 and loses it all using a worthless progression system.

2) Player returns home and goes back to work. Three months later he has saved the $1,000 he needs to “get even.”

3) Player goes to Vegas, makes his $1,000 bet and loses on the first hand.

4) Player returns home (early!) and goes back to work. Six months later he has saved the $2,000 he needs to make his next bet.

5) Player returns to Vegas and makes his $2,000 bet. He is dealt a pair of eights. Technically he is not able to split but he digs into his wallet anyway. He gets a 3 on the first hand but cannot double. He hits to 19. He gets a ten on the second eight and stands. The dealer hits to 20.

6) The player returns home and goes back to work. One year later he has saved the $4,000 he needs to make his next bet.

7) The player returns to Vegas and bets his $4,000 on the first hand. He is dealt a magnificent 20! Just as he is about to celebrate he sees the dealer fumble with the hole card. He catches a glimpse of the Queen just as it is being tucked under the ace upcard. The dealer asks if anyone wants insurance. The player cannot afford another $2,000 bet and losses it all because he is under funded.

Not only was the player forced end his vacations early (for the past 2 years!), he had to make bad decisions and not follow correct basic strategy which increased his disadvantage!

-Sonny-

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Not possible! Because there is only one player in the world who gets dealt cards that bad... and I don't play progressions.

You will loose the same percentage of hands no matter what.

If Player A bets 1 hand a day, he will loose the same percentage of hands as Player B who bets 1 hand a year. If you use progression systems, you will bet big rarely but those big bets will still loose, even if they occur rarely. If you use martingale, even if you bet big only once every 2000 hands after that big bet occurs many times you will loose!

Since computers exist, many people demonstrated these systems don't work, casinos spend billions to build their casinos, do you think they don't have a few hundreds dollars to spend on a software that will test every progression systems to make sure their game can't be beaten? Do you think YOU can beat one of the world's biggest industry? Think again.

Posted by ortango- "With these win/loss proportions, the odds against losing 10 consecutive decisions are only about 500-to-1. Now 500-to-1 may seem nearly impossible to many people, but realistically, at any given time, a series of losses equivalent to yours is happening to dozens of players in Atlantic City, and to hundreds of people every day of the year in U.S. casinos. It’s happening right now to one out of every 500 people who are playing. How many tens of thousands of people are playing blackjack right now in U.S. casinos?"


Only 10 consecutive hands?
Last summer in Las Vegas, I proceeded to lose an unbelievable 23 hands in a row, using perfect basic strategy. (This was 23 consecutive losses spread out over 3 different tables....so yes, it CAN happen). Thankfully I was betting the $15 minimum on every hand, so I was only down a total of $345. If I had been using a Martingale I would have been down (theoretically, as there are no table limits this high) $125,828,005. My next bet would have had to be $251,656,010 (to be ahead $15).

Not a huge fan of the Martingale System....buutttttt seing how this is on a blackjack site I came across an interesting question. If backcounting (or there are several people backcounting different tables as a team) and waited until a +3 or greater shoe to step in and place the minimun bet of 5$. The "strategy" would be to not double, split, take insurance or add any other money to the table on your hand. (just like playing colors on roulette, except you actually have an advantage) You're only focused on earning 5 at a time. If you lose the hand. bet 5 again to get even. If lose again in +3 count or greater, Martingale the SOB until count goes below +3. Keep backcounting or getting the call-in from your team and keep wonging in and only playing +3 shoes. How well or not well do you think this would work? Even if you had a large bankroll and had to head to bigger stakes. Just a question that I came across and am curious to see what others think. Could someone test this on Blackjack Verite for me? Or is it too obvious that it "doesn't work"?

Rspeirsmlb said:

Not a huge fan of the Martingale System....buutttttt seing how this is on a blackjack site I came across an interesting question. If backcounting (or there are several people backcounting different tables as a team) and waited until a +3 or greater shoe to step in and place the minimun bet of 5$. The "strategy" would be to not double, split, take insurance or add any other money to the table on your hand. (just like playing colors on roulette, except you actually have an advantage) You're only focused on earning 5 at a time. If you lose the hand. bet 5 again to get even. If lose again in +3 count or greater, Martingale the SOB until count goes below +3. Keep backcounting or getting the call-in from your team and keep wonging in and only playing +3 shoes. How well or not well do you think this would work? Even if you had a large bankroll and had to head to bigger stakes. Just a question that I came across and am curious to see what others think. Could someone test this on Blackjack Verite for me? Or is it too obvious that it "doesn't work"?

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It would win money in the long run but betting proportionally would make more money. If you have a 1-2% advantage then you will get 1-2% of everything you wager in the long run.

Edit: You would have to play Basic Strategy and everything...