Could this blackjack betting strategy actually work?

[Slick Vic]

The basic strategy on that site isn't even correct.

I've always wondered what someone would do when using the Martingale at blackjack. What if you're on your 10th straight loss and you end up with two 8s against a 6? Okay, so you split according to BS. Considering you're at the Ultimatebet casino and your starting initial bet was $.10, you've got $102.40 down on the felt now. One of your 8s gets dealt a 3. Double that split down. Your other 8 gets another 8. Split that. One of those 8s catches a 2. Double that. Finally, your other 8 gets a 5. You stand. You've now got $256 on the table. That's a hell of a lot of money you've put down just to chase that initial $.10! And suppose you lose when the dealer pulls a 21? You're now down $358.60.

All that for a dime?

 

[blackjackfan]

Well I'm telling you guys, it works. The odds of losing 10 hands in a row is 1 in 627. The trick is to play under 627 hands.

 

[bjtocki]

Can moderator please delete this thread and ban this spammer? Kinda sick of this :flame:

 

[ohbehave]

Well I'm telling you guys, it works. The odds of losing 10 hands in a row is 1 in 627. The trick is to play under 627 hands.

Thats funny... truly.

Does the 10 losing hands start with hand 627 or end with hand 627? I want to make sure 'cause it seems that would be important.

Btw, I call dibs on the above quote for my sig line.

 

[bjhack]

BTW, for newbies, his BJ training software Casino Verite is a must for any BJ player, it's like Photoshop among image editing software, no competition at all

This reply is probably off topic for this thread, but Norm (qfit) gives the best support for any software that I've seen, any genre.

 

[1357111317]

well i'm telling you guys, it works. The odds of losing 10 hands in a row is 1 in 627. The trick is to play under 627 hands.

pom?

 

[KOLAN]

Well I'm telling you guys, it works. The odds of losing 10 hands in a row is 1 in 627. The trick is to play under 627 hands.

Well I'm telling you guys, itis not works

 

[QFIT]

Well I'm telling you guys, it works. The odds of losing 10 hands in a row is 1 in 627. The trick is to play under 627 hands.

So, the trick to Russian Roulette is to only pull the trigger five times?

(Where's the Russian Roulette smiley?)

 

[mathman]

Well I'm telling you guys, it works. The odds of losing 10 hands in a row is 1 in 627. The trick is to play under 627 hands.

So what are the odds of winning ten in a row? I'm gonna have to start keeping track so I know when to raise the bet for those ten hands lol.....JtMM

 

[blackjackfan]

Well, I'm up more money today from the system. I keep stopping at around 400 hands or so and I am still up, but after reading this thread I am starting to think it might just be luck that I am not out of all my money right now. I'm going to take advice from the majority and quit while I'm ahead.

Thanks for those who took time to set me straight, and to those flaming me for spamming, you just need to relax I was trying to do no such thing, merely get input from players better than myself. So chill!

 

[mathman]

I'm going to take advice from the majority and quit while I'm ahead.

Smart guy. That's the only way to be a winner using the martingale. Quit. At least you didn't lose anything before you learned...JtMM

 

[blackjackfan]

Still though, if you brought $200 to the table and bet the minimum of 10 cents it would be quite some time before you hit a big enough losing streak to wipe you out. It seems like this system would work for short term gains.

 

[mathman]

Yes, that is why so many people fall into the martingale trap. They win for a while then finally they get hit, hard. You are not the first to be totally convinced that this works, there have been many before you. For a beginner gambler it is an easy thing to fall for plus many "systems" sell you on the idea that it really works. Be happy you made the right choice and got out when you were a winner. Put your efforts in to learning to play a perfect game and stay away from "systems"....JtMM

 

[Martin Gayle]

Still though, if you brought $200 to the table and bet the minimum of 10 cents it would be quite some time before you hit a big enough losing streak to wipe you out. It seems like this system would work for short term gains.

Please understand that this is NOT a winning system. There are many ways to hedge bets in a casino and NONE of them have proven to be a winner. If going to a casino and sitting there for hours to win 10cents is your bag then so be it. But realise it is a mathematical fact that you will be betting $200 to win 10cents at one time and you will lose.

 

[johndoe]

so, the trick to russian roulette is to only pull the trigger five times?

Best response of the thread.

 

[ohbehave]

Well I'm kind of sorry your not a spammer. But its good your making the smart decision to not use Martingale.

When I started out I was convinced that a certain progression system was going to make me rich. The casino would be my ATM. Walked into a casino and in something like 6 out of 8 sessions won. I won about $1600 pretty quick. Now I knew I was going to get rich.

But something inside me said to hold up. So I read and I practiced, hours and hours. Finally, like you, I realized the progression system was a losing system and if I was going to continue this endevour I would have to find some other way to beat the game.

Now I'm counting cards, winning the smart way and loving every time I step foot into a casino. But every day I constantly reevaluate what I'm doing, my strategies. Asking myself if I'm playing within my means. I want to look back on this in years to come and be able to say that I never let gambling get out of control.

 

[itakeyourmoney]

Well I'm telling you guys, it works. The odds of losing 10 hands in a row is 1 in 627. The trick is to play under 627 hands.

I'm curious as to how you came up with this number. If you were to calculate the odds of not winning 10 hands in a row (I find it's always safer when calculating for the Martingale to count pushes as losses; best to always err on the side of caution.) and it gives you a value of 1 in 627 (I'll need a better mathematician than myself to help me here) doesn't that mean that you'll lose all your money once in 627 series -- meaning you'll, on average, win 626 times before losing once -- which is still below what you'd need to double your money before losing it all.

But like I said, someone with a better understanding of math could hopefully explain to me why I'm wrong (if I am indeed wrong).

Either way, don't play the Martingale.

 

[adventureboy]

I'm curious as to how you came up with this number. If you were to calculate the odds of not winning 10 hands in a row (I find it's always safer when calculating for the Martingale to count pushes as losses; best to always err on the side of caution.) and it gives you a value of 1 in 627 (I'll need a better mathematician than myself to help me here) doesn't that mean that you'll lose all your money once in 627 series -- meaning you'll, on average, win 626 times before losing once -- which is still below what you'd need to double your money before losing it all.

But like I said, someone with a better understanding of math could hopefully explain to me why I'm wrong (if I am indeed wrong).

Either way, don't play the Martingale.

I don't say much here, but math is my specialty, so I will pipe in with a few numbers.

1) In it's simplest form, probability to lose 10 hands in a row is p= .52^10, or approximatley .0014. You could expect this to occur 1.4 times in 1000 hands of play.
2) In a little more complex form, what you really want to know is the probability of that probabilty occuring. For that we need to do a little more complex math using logarithims. Let's use a 99.9% confindence level, as 100% confindence is unachievable. When we make this calculation it tells us that we can be certian (to a 99.9% degree of certainty) that the event of 10 consecutive losses will occur at least once in 4775 hands.

Where math stops is that we have no idea where in that 4775 hands the streak will occur---maybe in the first 100 hands, or maybe in the last 100---there is no way to know. There could also be more than one streak in the 4775. This would not happen often, but certainly does. Three steaks of 10 in 4775 starts getting into some pretty rare territory, but will happen if you put enough hours in at the tables.

For the average player out there Martingale is a good way to take that once every 5 year trip to Vegas and turn a $1000 bankroll into a $1200 bankroll. Many people can initally make a small amount. Take your money and never go back, and you can call yourself a winner! For any type of play that is more serious, Martingale is the most poven way to get your clock cleaned! Stay Away!

 

[ihate17]

A little thought on the subject

I'm curious as to how you came up with this number. If you were to calculate the odds of not winning 10 hands in a row (I find it's always safer when calculating for the Martingale to count pushes as losses; best to always err on the side of caution.) and it gives you a value of 1 in 627 (I'll need a better mathematician than myself to help me here) doesn't that mean that you'll lose all your money once in 627 series -- meaning you'll, on average, win 626 times before losing once -- which is still below what you'd need to double your money before losing it all.

But like I said, someone with a better understanding of math could hopefully explain to me why I'm wrong (if I am indeed wrong).

Either way, don't play the Martingale.

I think the number is once in every 600 and something hands and not a series which is several hands. That works out to once in every 10 or so hours of blackjack dealt at 60 hands per hour.
One obvious problem is you have no way of knowing if this streak will begin on hand 1, hand 500, or hand 900. Another and in my opinion, a much larger problem is the arbitrary number of 10, In my 30+ years of blackjack I know I have lost over 20 hands in a row (not counting pushes) and one of those streaks had to reach 30 if you considered lost doubles and splits as more than one hand. Besides that, I would really be pressed to tell anyone a month where I did not have a streak of a dozen or more losses in a row (I put in around 35-40 hours per month.

The good news, for a cardcounter and not for a martingale player, is that the worst of my streaks came with lower bets. One was a series like this: Play 7-8 hands on a table, lose all, count tanks and I go to another table and the thing just repeats itself. It seems when the count is high, even if I do take a beating, there will be a win here and there and perhaps a few pushes. Martingale players will be increasing their bet not based on the count but based upon their losing the previous hand, a reason with no mathematical basis.

Finally, I do not see how you came up with doubling your money berfore losing it. You will not have 627 series but 627 hands. A martingale series might be one hand and it might be as many as your bankroll can afford and the casino limit will let you play. But to use your example of 10 bad hands in a row, let us say the average series is 3 hands and for 627 hands you win one unit per series, you have won 209 units. On hand 628 you begin to lose 10 in a row, when you lose that last hand of 512 units, your total loss will be 1,023 units on that progression, an amount much higher than if you had won the past 627 hands in a row. Remember though, a bad streak can start at any time.
Actually, martingale results should be better than my example. You should, after enough time, come out losing according to the house edge if you play perfect BS.

ihate17

 

[bjsim]

Results from WWW.BJSIM.COM

This will never work. Take a look at 1 million rounds simulation . Player one lost 22 hands in row in one occassion playing double deck with Basic Strategy.

(Dead link: http://www.bjsim.com/sample/BSCCC21M1.htm)

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