I was sitting in my local casino yesterday, when I watched a fellow gambler next to me lose over $2000 during just 4 hands of blackjack. I was feeling sick just watching. The fact that I had won about a hundred dollars or so during those same four rounds of cards almost made me feel worse. The player next to me was trying a slight variation of the “Martingale Technique” – which has been proven over many years to be doomed for failure.

So, what is the “Martingale Technique”? Summed up, this is a betting strategy where you double your bet every time you lose. On roulette, you might decide to play the colour “red” on every spin. You start betting on Red with $1. If you win, your next bet is $1. If you lose, you double your bet and play $2. If you win that bet, your next bet is $1. If you lose, you double your bet and play $4. And so the system continues. The technique can be applied to ANY casino table game. In theory, it’s a perfect betting strategy that gives you a high likelihood of winning, assuming that you have sufficient money to double up the betting amount until you win.

However, in practice it’s a doomed technique. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) very few gamblers have an “unlimited bankroll”; 2) the casinos protect themselves from Martingale players by having maximum “table limits” for each game.

Let’s say you’re at a blackjack table with a minimum $50 bet, and maximum $2000 bet (as my fellow gambler was). The fellow gambler began with a $150 bet, which lost. He then bet $300 on the next hand, which lost. He then bet $600 on the next hand, which lost. I then (incredulously) watched him bet $1200 on the next hand, which lost. So after those four hands, he was $2250 DOWN! And because that exhausted his bankroll, he was also OUT! Now, being down $2250 is a real bummer (I’m glad it was him, not me). But let’s hypothetically say that he had unlimited bankroll. What would his next bet have been? Would it have been $2400? NO. He couldn’t have placed a bet for that amount because the MAXIMUM TABLE LIMIT was $2000. And that’s where things would have come unstuck. If he’d played the $2000 hand and won, then he’d still be down $250. If he lost, he’d be down $4250. With a MAXIMUM TABLE LIMIT of $2000 he’d never be able to win his money back at that table using the Martingale Technique.

From my own personal experience, the table limits (sometimes called “spreads”) at most casino games tend to allow for about 6-7 Martingale-style bets to be made before the maximum table limit is reached. That might seem reasonable, but actually this betting style carries a high “risk of ruin”. Let’s consider roulette: getting 20 red numbers in a row is pretty uncommon, but getting 5, 6 or even 8 reds in a row is a fairly frequent occurrence. It might happen once an hour or two on any given day. If you’re playing roulette using the Martingale system, and run out of “table limit” at bet 6 on red, then you could have real problems. And because 7 red numbers can come in a row, and will frequently, there will be times when you will LOSE. And those times when you’ve lost 7 increased bets in a row will be painful!

This is where I believe the Martingale Technique is one of the most dangerous betting systems: you can lose all your money VERY fast (as my fellow gambler did) if the game’s results are not the outcomes you projected.

So, if this system is so lousy, why do many players follow it (and lose)? I’m not sure – maybe they haven’t been reading this Beat the Casinos blog! You have, so learn from the advice here and make sure that YOU don’t attempt the doomed Martingale Technique in your local (or online) casino.