Why The Martingale System Sucks

Background

Many people, including me, have at one point or another thought they came up with some kind of betting system that could give them an advantage over the casino. Although there are many, I will focus on what’s called the Martingale System. It generally applies to the game roulette. The idea is, if you bet a reasonably small amount, say 1 dollar, on red and lose it, you can simply continue betting double the previously lost bet until you win. So if you do this and lose 4 times in a row (that is, you lost 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15) but win the 5th time (while betting 16), you’ll be a dollar richer. Now imagine if you had enough money with you to compensate for, say, 12 consecutive losses. I mean, who loses 12 times in a row? Flawless right?

Explanation

Although it is true you can very easily make money using this technique, it’s even easier to lose all of your money. In other words, this system may result in a steady profit increase over time (unlike flat betting, that is, simply betting the same amount each time), but it can all be lost in just a few unlucky bets (also unlike flat betting).

Obviously you’ll inevitably lose if you keep playing. But what if you quit playing after a short period of time? In terms of probability, you’re actually more likely to lose all your money earlier on than you are after you’ve increased your bankroll. So the risk is always there, even if you’re goal is to just make a dollar. Think about it. Yes it’s very probable that you’ll make a dollar. But not making the dollar, although unlikely, would result in losing an amount substantially greater than the dollar. Mathematically, it all balances out. To better understand how this works, visit http://wizardofodds.com/gambling/betting-systems.html.

Experiment

Lastly, I’d like to present my little experiment. I wrote a java program that simulates 10,000 spins of the roulette wheel where there's about a 47% chance of winning. Each with a bankroll of 20,480 dollars, the Martingale System is compared to flat betting. The Martingale System works like normal, but with an initial bet of 10 dollars and initially has enough bankroll to support 12 consecutive losses (hence the 20,480 dollar bankroll). Whenever there isn’t enough bankroll to support a bet, it simply goes back to 10 (if available). The flat betting approach simply bets 10 dollars for as long as possible. The following is an example of the experiment:

As you can see in this particular trial, the Martingale System peeked at over 60,000 dollars! Flat betting resulted in a steady loss in bankroll. But don’t get too excited…

Ha! In your face Martingale System supporters! The second trial tested, with the same conditions, shows that the Martingale System resulted in losing the entire bankroll in less than 100 spins! Because the Martingale System can be so unpredictable, I took the data from 10 trials and average them together, the results are as follows.

The Martingale System isn’t looking too promising in this light, now let’s see 100 iterations.

Finally, 1,000,000 iterations:

Draw your own conclusions. But basically, for a given spin, the graph shows what you’re bankroll is likely to be at that point using either system. Interesting huh?