Martingale Online Roulette Strategy Does Not Work

Someone once remarked that the only way to leave the roulette table as a millionaire is to start as a billionaire. Though this statement was made in jest, there is much merit in it. The payouts in all casino games are so designed that at the end of the day the casino will make money. There will be many players who lose and some who win. They may even win big on occasion. But this can be attributed solely to luck and not to any skill or system. Yet, systems claiming to bust the bank abound, particularly in roulette. One of the most common ones is the Martingale doubling strategy. This article explains why the Martingale strategy seems plausible and why it can never work.

The Martingale doubling strategy has been designed for bets that pay even money. In online roulette the most common even money bets are Red and Black. The strategy is best explained by an example with an initial wager of $1. Suppose you start with a $1 bet on Red. You will get back $2 if Red is called and will win $1 after deducting the investment in the wager. Anytime you win the cycle ends and you start the next cycle again with a $1 bet. If you lose then you double the wager and bet $2 on Red. Your total investment becomes $3. If you win on this spin you will get $4 and again win $1. If you lose again you double the bet to $4 on Red increasing your total investment to $7. If Red is called in this spin you get back $8 and again win $1 over the three spins. No matter how many spins it takes, at the end of the cycle you will win only $1.

The basis of the Martingale strategy is that your bet will win at some stage and when that happens, you will win an amount equal to your initial wager. Theoretically the online roulette wheel can spin indefinitely without Red being called, but let us discount that probability. Let us assume that Red is called after seven spins of Black. After seven spins and starting with a $1 bet, your cumulative investment becomes $127 and you have to wager $128 in the eighth spin, making your investment $255. If Red is called in the eighth spin you win $1. This is far from an attractive proposition.

If you bank on winning in at most eight spins and want to win at least $10, you have to set aside a bankroll of $2,550 and face a top bet of $1,280. The critical and unsurmountable problem is that all online casinos impose a limit on the maximum bet. Supposing this is $1,000 and you start with a $10 bet you are restricted to a cycle of seven spins. You cannot continue with the Martingale doubling strategy after seven straight losses.

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