Understanding the false lure of the so called “can’t-lose” Martingale roulette system

This following clip is the perfect example of one of the most known Roulette proverbs - if you wish to win at Roulette, you should pile some luck, as there is no system for it, and being smart is simply overrated :)

An old man, who had spent his life looking

for a winning formula (martingale), spent

the last days of his life putting it into practice,

and his last pennies to see it fail.

The martingale is as elusive as the soul.

— Alexander Dumas, Les Mille et Un Fantomes (One Thousand And One Ghosts), 1849

Last week we have celebrated our 100th post, so you may refer to this week edition as “Online Roulette 101”, if you wish. You don’t? You know exactly how much we care about your thoughts and feelings…

The term Martingale refers to a harness, originally used for horses and later with dogs (and on Thomas when he misbehaves in front of his wife’s friends). In our industry, it’s the name for a common betting system based on a very simple concept –  Double your risk every time you lose. Here’s how it works:

A roulette wheel has 18 blacks, 18 reds and our beloved single green: zero. That’s 37 spots all together. Each spot has a winning potential of 2.7%, which miraculously, also happens to be our house advantage, or edge. This is a very important little percentage: It makes it possible for you to earn a salary. That and your superb qualifications and unbelievable good looks, of course.

So when your players bet $5 on, say, red, they have an 18-in-37 chance to double their money and a 19-in-37 chance of losing it. The Martingale system says the player should bet again, except make it $10 this time. What’s going on here?

The reason this seems appealing to those placing the bets is that they think when they’ve lost once, it’s unlikely that they’ll lose several more times. So if they keep increasing their betting total, they can recover what they’ve lost.

Think about it (Yes, yes — think? While at work? Hilarious). Suppose a player loses twice, then wins. He lost $5, then $10, then won $20. That nets him $5. Obviously, he may lose more than twice before he wins, but eventually the player should be able to recover. So is it a loss-proof system?

Well, let’s just say that we are having this discussion right now and the gambling industry is still around. So a good guess would be that you can’t actually beat the house.

John Grochowski, a respected gambling writer, has recently published yet another short article about why players should stick to constant straight bets. It all comes down to the same fact all over again: when you’re up against statistics, you need to quit while you are ahead of the curve. As with any other curve, you may run out of money before you hit that winning bet (or hit the table limit, which is basically the same). Those who find this system appealing underestimate the very real probability of a series of losses.

CLICK HERE for the complete text, but bear in mind that he refers to an American wheel, which has 2 green zeros and as such, a boosted 5.26% edge.Yeah, go figure.

When people knowingly play the same game with an even higher house advantage, it must be the end of the world: