Martingale System - Should I try it?

[shadroch]

Try it if you want. If you are prepared to lose X amount of money, go for it. Its a losing system but so what. Its not like math is a science or anything.

[HowMany]

I say "Martingale is a great system if you hate money."

You need an advantage to win. Martingale does not give you an advantage. The house edge remains unchanged.

With Martingale you win small amounts often, and lose large amounts occasionally.

[lurppis]

If you have $256, and you REALLY NEED $257, Martingale is the system for you. Or, you know, borrow a dollar from a friend or something.

Most people, however, are not interested in minuscule profits, and try to use Martingale multiple times to make a large profit. If you do this, you've missed the point entirely, and will lose all your money.

[RS]

Absolutely. At 150 spins, it says, the chances I bust are 70%. Therefore, If I leave at say, 60 spins, I should be fine, right? That's only around a 28% RoR.

That doesn't even make sense.

[Most Interesting Man]

Everyone saying no to Martingale hasn't grasped the power of the system. Before you can use it to your advantage you need to know what benefits you get. Martingale gives you the ability to walk away a winner 90% of the time or more frequently, depending on your parameters. Now before I lose all my credibility here, it does not change the advantage of the base game you're playing because the other time you'll have a big loss that on average will be larger than your combined winnings.

So how do you turn the knowledge that you'll walk away a winner 90% of the time into advantage that can make you a couple bucks? I'll leave you with that for now.

[RS]

Time travel? I think we've gone over this.....several times.....

[shadroch]

Everyone saying no to Martingale hasn't grasped the power of the system. Before you can use it to your advantage you need to know what benefits you get. Martingale gives you the ability to walk away a winner 90% of the time or more frequently, depending on your parameters. Now before I lose all my credibility here, it does not change the advantage of the base game you're playing because the other time you'll have a big loss that on average will be larger than your combined winnings.

So how do you turn the knowledge that you'll walk away a winner 90% of the time into advantage that can make you a couple bucks? I'll leave you with that for now.

When you play one on one with a dealer, you will ,on average, receive 50% of the blackjacks dealt. When playing with three other players, you'll receive only about 20% of them.
Why doesn't everyone seize this fantastical opportunity?

[Most Interesting Man]

Ok no takers. Think out of the box a bit. One way you can you a martingale to your advantage is to make a bet with someone that you'll walk away from the casino a winner. Since the martingale gives you frequent small wins (unfortunately not enough for the occasional large loss to stand on its own) you can use that information to your advantage in a side bet. Your side bet would need to be large enough to overcome the money you'll be bleeding on the martingale itself.

By the way for all of you who keep trying to figure out AP moves that are not counting, thinking of all possible angles will help you in your endeavors.

I'm sure there are other ways to put a martingale to good use. Any takers now?

[Three]

In tournament play it can be useful.

[MidniteToker]

I tried it last night on blackjack, but I didn't know the count was extremely negative and ended up losing all my money losing 5 hands in a row. That's why roulette would be better.

Trying any kind of system (betting or otherwise) without a solid knowledge of the game you apply it to is sure to lead to bad results. In this case, trying to apply Martingale to blackjack and concluding after losing that "the count was extremely negative and ended up losing all my money" shows that you don't know nearly enough about blackjack or card counting to attack the game intelligently. Here's why: even in a good count, you're not going to win many more hands than if it's bad. It's not the number of winners that makes card counting work.

That's obviously not considering the fact that Martingale is a bunk system anyway, so even if you were right and a good count would make you win more hands, you'd still go broke in the long run with the system.