Anybody who has seriously considered sports betting as a means of earning a living will have toyed with the idea of adopting a betting system.
A "system", in effect, is anything that entails taking a methodical approach to placing bets as opposed to the "leap in and hope" way of the more random, occasional bettor. This may involve limiting stakes to a certain percentage of one's bank, backing and laying or indeed a combination of strategies. At one time or another they have all been tried, with varying degrees of success.
At the extreme end of the scale there is the ill-conceived Martingale system, which works on the principle that as it is indisputable that you will always win eventually, all you need to do is to keep increasing your stake each time to incorporate all the losses previously incurred during the cycle. What happens in practice is that you win a small amount most of the time, then lose it all and a little bit more besides when you eventually hit a sequence of losses - as you inevitably will - that either leaves you with insufficient funds with which to place the enormous bet you will need to place to recover all your losing stakes, or requires you to place a wager of such a size that no book will accept it.
It always pays to remember that even when you have flipped twenty heads in a row, the chances of the next flip showing a tail are still only fifty-fifty!
Of course a carefully calculated approach to sports betting can be helpful. Some may say it is essential to long-term success that you are able to keep a cool head and to avoid the temptation to be reckless on the back of a hunch, an approach that can often does result in all one's previous hard work being negated.
RELIABLE INFORMATION
But the key to it all is to understand that whichever betting system you use needs to work in harmony with well-researched, reliable information from a trusted and capable source. When one bears in mind that the odds are already stacked against the bettor by virtue of the fact that the bookmaker retains a house edge and doesn't offer the "real" price, it is necessary to ensure that you have good data upon which to base your selections through your system of choice. Remember, no matter how clever or scientific your system may be it can never work unless at least some of the horse racing tips or other information that you act upon actually proves successful.
Thus the secret of success in sports betting, whichever system you choose, is to avail yourself of the services of a good tipster with a proven record of success.
Sports Betting Centre
Showing posts with label Martingale System. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martingale System. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 October 2014
Matched Betting and the Martingale Myth
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.
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.
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