Martingale Roulette: What Is It And Does Martingale Work?

If you believe the urban myth, Martingale roulette is invented by a gambler/mathematician named “Martingale” during the 19^th century. The truth is, roulette Martingale is actually a combination of betting strategies that first appeared during 18^th century France. Believe it or not, Martingale strategy roulette was designed to use in “heads/tails” games. The idea was simple:

• There are only two possibilities (head or tails)
• Pick one and keep betting on it. Each time you lose, double the bet amount until you win.
• The probability law says that your pick will win sooner or later, there are only two possibilities after all. And when you win, you will win enough to cover all of your losses, because you kept doubling the bet amount.

It is almost “guaranteed”, right? Martingale strategy is not exclusive to roulette: This progressive betting system can be used in any game. For example, there is a Martingale baccarat strategy. Some players use it even for blackjack and its variants (including Canadian Blackjack): There are some Spanish 21 (check Spanish 21 vs Blackjack to see the differences between the two games), and Spanish 21 card counting tactics out there that are based on the same progressive betting rules. In other words, gamblers use the Martingale system for any casino game out there because a) it is simple, and, b) it simply works. Come chose any game from our online casino games guide and try to see if the martingale system works for you or if you want, we have some roulette algorithms around if you want to be up to date.

Right?

Well, no. Turns out, that raising the bet size exponentially is not a good idea if you don’t have deep pockets. And by deep, we mean really deep: unlike the 666 roulette strategy, Roulette Martingale requires a very big budget to work and even then, it is not that good. But we will explain this in more detail and the answer does martingale work roulette question below. For now, let’s continue by analyzing the Martingale strategy roulette and give actual examples of it.

Ok, we explained the basics of Martingale theory roulette above: Basically, after every loss, you will double the bet amount. However, this is not the only rule: You also need to use specific bet types for roulette Martingale to work. So, we have two rules:

• After losing a bet, double the bet amount. Keep doing this until you score a win.
• Always place your money on outside bets.

So, why outside bets? If you are not familiar with the term, outside bets in roulette are odd/even, red/black, 1/18, and 19/36. Mathematically, these bets offer the highest odds: Your chance of winning an outside bet is nearly 48% (in the European variant). You can, of course, use inside bets too: Roulette Martingale system can work with any bet type. However, since your chances of winning an inside bet is very low when compared to outside bets, scoring a win will take much longer – sticking with the outside bets is a much better idea.

Well, we are ready to start using the Martingale system roulette: Let’s give an actual example and find out how it works. In this example, we will start playing with 1 EUR and place it on a red/black bet. You can apply the same principle to any bet amount and any outside bet.

Well, we are sure you get the idea: The bet type (red/black) never changes but we keep doubling the bet amount. Basically, we multiply the last amount with 2 and use the result as our current bet. Have you ever heard the tale of the rice grain and the chessboard? The bet amount will grow very quickly and this is the main problem with Martingale strategy roulette. To give you an idea, we will place 8.192 EUR on the table after 14 bets.

Martingale system roulette is not as complex as the 1324 Baccarat Strategy Review, for example. Such strategies require increasing and decreasing bet amounts according to the win/loss ratio. Martingale roulette is much simpler: Just keep doubling the bet amount until you score a win. In this regard, it is similar to the Baccarat attack strategy. It is not important that the bet amount reaches very high figures in a short amount of time: You will win sooner or later if you keep playing the same bet, and your payout will be big enough to cover all your losses. So, just keep doubling the bet amount: You will be rich at the end!

Thing is, this is just “gambler’s fallacy”: Martingale online roulette system does not work. Moreover, it can be quite dangerous.

Nope, it does not. There are two reasons for this:

Let’s explain these reasons in detail. The expected outcome of any casino game is “negative” in the long run, that’s how casinos work and make money. (Check our “are online casinos rigged?” guide for more info about this.) This means the casino will always win in the long run: The house edge percentage will stay the same. Martingale strategy roulette does not change this fact – it just says “you will win sooner or later”. While this is technically true, there is no way of knowing when you will start winning, exactly. Let’s say you have only 1.000 EUR to spend on roulette. This is a good budget, right? If you start playing with 1 EUR and use roulette Martingale, you must score a win in 10 spins. Otherwise, you will blow all of your bankroll – the bet amount will reach 1.023 EUR at the tenth game. Sure, if you score a win at the ninth spin, for example, you will cover your losses and make a little profit, but Martingale roulette does not guarantee to win at a specific game/spin. It just says “you will win sooner or later” – this can happen in the third or hundredth spin, there is no way of knowing.

In any case, let’s say you have time and enough budget to last until you score a win. Are you sure it will be worth the effort? Outside bets pay 1:1 – this is a low figure. Let’s say you started to play with 1 EUR, lost 10 games in a row, and placed 1.023 EUR for the 11^th game. And let’s say you win it. Do you know what your profit will be? 1 EUR. Yes, 1 EUR for all that effort – Martingale system roulette is simply not worth it.

The main alternative to Martingale roulette is a “controlled” Martingale system. Let’s explain a bit: Usually known as “anti-Martingale” strategy, this betting tactic requires decreasing the bet amount after losing a certain amount of money and increasing it again after scoring a win. Anti-Martingale is a common name, by the way, this type of “controlled increase” strategies are known with other names too. While they don’t have the penalty of exponentially increasing bet amounts, they still don’t work. Once again, all these alternatives are based on the “you will win sooner or later” idea and do not change any actual roulette odds. We recommend staying away from all roulette Martingale variants: None of them work.

You definitely can – check out our baccarat system guide, for example, we explained how you can use odds in your favor in it. Or, take a look at our any other roulette guides: We analyzed every other roulette strategy out there and found out they work or not. There are much better strategies than Martingale roulette and you can really increase your odds in this game. Don’t take the risk of blowing all of your bankroll and stay away from roulette Martingale – focus on other roulette strategies that work.

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