The Martingale System is the most commonly used betting system by casino games players, and many believe that it’s the only way that you can indeed beat the casino. To use the Martingale System then games that offer even money bets (or as close as possible to it, counting in the house edge) should be used, and games like blackjack, roulette and baccarat are where you’ll see the Martingale put into practice. Using color bets in roulette as an example, you’ll see that the system is very simple to use. Starting with a $1 bet on red, should you win, you stop and then start the cycle again, and should you lose you double your bet to $2, should you lose that bet you double again to $4 and so forth. Sounds simple, however there are flaws in the system.
The Problems with the Martingale System
Every casino has table limits, and when you go on a bad run, which will happen, should you hit that limit then you lose everything. Staying with the roulette example, then it is quite feasible that when betting on black, a run of 5 to 10 reds drop in, or even more, in fact the record number of consecutive same color spins is 26, and happened in Monte Carlo. Should you have been using the Martingale system then, and starting with $1, you would have needed to place a bet of $33,554,432 just to cover your losses. Firstly, that would be way over the table limit, and secondly, not many of roulette players can afford that type of wager!
There is also the mental factor to consider in this strategy. While we are using a $1 example, many casinos will have a minimum of $5 on even money bets, meaning that your bet to cover losses after even a small bad run could be fairly high. Many players would not consider risking a few thousand dollars and simply walk away, therefore the system would have failed.
Martingale System Summary
Whilst you cannot beat the casino using the Martingale system, it is a little bit of fun and many players use it after setting themselves a maximum amount of losses. It’s good to use in online casinos as the table limits are much smaller than in land based casinos, and therefore you are able to start very small, and continue with the system without fear of losing too much money.
