Martingale strategy

The Martingale strategy originates from 18th century France so is one of the oldest gambling strategy. The concept of the strategy is very simple being designed for a coin toss game. The gambler makes a bet on heads or tail of a coin. The coin is thrown and if the gambler wins he doubles his money. If he loses he must continue betting by doubling his wager every time he loses. In theory he will win at some point recovering all loses but the profit always is equal to the first wager. The strategy has big disadvantages: you need important amounts of money to bet because doubling the wager on every loss you can end up out of money before you win. In the same time, when you win, the profit can’t be bigger than the first bet made.

The strategy survived through centuries and always had lots of fans. Now this strategy is played in popular casino games like roulette, craps or blackjack.

Martingale gamblers developed variations to this strategy from which most popular are Anti-Martingale strategy and Split Martingale.

In Anti-Martingale strategy the gambler increases his wager after he wins and reduces bets after he loses. Is considered that in this manner he will win more if he is having a winning strike and will lose less if he is having a losing strike.

Split Martingale is also known as “Labouchere”, “Cross-Out" or "Cancellation” and has many variations. Split Martingale is used in roulette on even money propositions like even/odd, red/black, 1-18/19-36. The system is based on a series of numbers that the gambler chooses and uses for deciding the betting units. The sum of the numbers chosen will represent the amount of money that the player wants to win. For example if the player wants to win $15 from the series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the first bet will be the first plus the last number: 1 + 5 = 6. If he wins on the first bet he crosses out 1 and 5 moving to the new first and last numbers: 2 + 4 = 6. If he wins one more time the last bet will be the 3, the last number remained in the series. If he loses one bet he will put back the amount in the end of the series and continues until finishes the series meaning he won the amount designated or until the player remains out of money.

Labouchere has a variation called “Reverse Labouchere” which uses the same series of numbers but this time the line represent the amount that player afford to lose. In case of winning a bet the player adds the amount wagered to the end of the line. In case of losing the player deletes the numbers composing the wager from the series and continues with the shorter line. If the player remains out of numbers to bet (the player lost the amount designated) he starts the system again. In case of a winning strike the system ends when the maximum wager of the table is reached or breaks the casino (the table runs out of chips).

Like all casino betting strategies, Martingale systems can help you win money but in the same time can make you lose huge amounts. So do not wager more than you can afford to lose and remember to enjoy gambling.