There is a very dangerous myth doing the rounds that it is possible to overcome all risks and to cruise effortlessly to eventual riches by means of a system that is known as Martingale.
Martingale is not by any means a new concept, indeed it was rather popular in 18th century France. However in the Internet age it has taken on a whole new life, with countless sites offering the benefits of this apparently foolproof system, sometimes at a price and at other times just out of the apparent goodness of somebody's heart.
The theory is this. The punter places a wager on a market, say 1, at evens. The price doesn't have to be evens, it just helps us for the purposes of this example if it is.
The outcome must inevitably be one of two eventualities. Either the bet will win, giving the punter a profit of 1 to place in his bank. Or, alternatively, the bet will lose in which case he then makes another bet, this time of 2, on another market. If it wins he will have made a profit of 2 on the bet, or 1 in total when the first loss is factored in.
If this bet is unsuccessful then the same bettor will place 4 on another evens market. Again, if it is successful, he will be 1 up overall. If unsuccessful the next stake will be 8, and so on and so forth.
EUROPEAN ROULETTE
The Martingale system can be applied to almost any kind of wager. It can be used at the casino (most purveyors of this "foolproof" system, for some odd reason, seem possessed of the notion that it works particularly well on European Roulette), at the games table (Heads or Tails is an especially straightforward market for using such a system) or at the online sportsbook.
On the surface it would appear to make sense. If one flips a coin often enough, it has to show a Head sometime - doesn't it?
Technically of course the answer is yes. But the Martingale theory ignores two very important, and very fundamental, considerations.
The first is that most punters will have finite resources at their disposal. After five unsuccessful flips of the coin your next stake will already be 32, having already flittered away 31. If your losing streak continues for another five flips, your next unsuccessful bet will leave you 2047 out of pocket. And don't forget, even if the coin has shown a Tail on the last ten occasions, the chances of it showing a Head at the next time of asking are still only 50%!
Secondly, most casinos and sportsbooks will have a limit as to how much one is able to stake on any particular wager. Once that limit has been reached, one cannot continue to apply the Martingale theory and must therefore take the resultant loss upon the chin.
So what are the chances of a coin showing a Tail ten times in a row? The answer, in theory, is 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50%. In other words 0.0009765%, or approximately 1 in 1000. When it does happen you will have lost 1023 in one painful swoop. How many one pound wins will you need to recover this? Get the idea?
So far so bad. But when one then factors in the house edge, which ensures that your chances of winning a 50/50 bet are actually less than 50%, the Martingale system reveals itself to be an absolute disaster.
LITTLE AND OFTEN
To put it simply - you will win little and often, then you will lose big. And the longer you play, the more statistically assured is your demise.
There are many systems being offered out there, but for as long as there is a house edge none that are based on mathematical probability will ever work for you in the long run. That, if you like, is a mathematical certainty.
The only systems that work in the final analysis involve either exploiting over-generous prices at sportsbooks (through value betting or arbitrage) to reverse the house edge or using bonuses and free bets intelligently. The matched betting system using the free bet offered by most bookmakers coupled with laying at betting exchanges guarantees you a locked-in profit. All Martingale guarantees is eventual bankruptcy.
