Martingle Betting System

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Martingle Betting System

#1  Postby quas » Feb 10, 2019 7:02 pm

This is a betting system practiced successfully by a professional gambler.

The Double Martingale System.

It sounded exotic. We read the description of it and it seemed pretty legitimate :

Bet $1. If you win, you've just won a dollar and you're done with this cycle. Start over.

If you lose, then you bet $3. If you win that you have won 3, lost 1, for a grand total of winning $2. That's $1 per hand played.

If you lose again you bet $7. If you win that you've won 7, lost 4, for a grand total of winning $3. Still $1 per hand played.

In fact, as the progression escalated to 15, 31, 63, 127, 255 and beyond, you would always end up winning $1 per hand played. And you had to win eventually, right? It was genius.


But Wikipedia says that's a shit betting strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system) wrote:However, the gambler's expected value does indeed remain zero (or less than zero) because the small probability that he will suffer a catastrophic loss exactly balances with his expected gain. (In a casino, the expected value is negative, due to the house's edge.) The likelihood of catastrophic loss may not even be very small. The bet size rises exponentially. This, combined with the fact that strings of consecutive losses actually occur more often than common intuition suggests, can bankrupt a gambler quickly.


If WIkipedia is right, how is it people have gotten rich betting using the Martingle system?
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem
those who think alike than those who think differently. -Nietzsche
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#2  Postby Cito di Pense » Feb 10, 2019 7:29 pm

Maybe they got lucky. That's how people win at gambling. End of story. The trick is knowing to quit after you win 3 bucks.
Хлопнут без некролога. -- Серге́й Па́влович Королёв

Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#3  Postby Thommo » Feb 10, 2019 7:35 pm

quas wrote:This is a betting system practiced successfully by a professional gambler.

The Double Martingale System.

It sounded exotic. We read the description of it and it seemed pretty legitimate :

Bet $1. If you win, you've just won a dollar and you're done with this cycle. Start over.

If you lose, then you bet $3. If you win that you have won 3, lost 1, for a grand total of winning $2. That's $1 per hand played.

If you lose again you bet $7. If you win that you've won 7, lost 4, for a grand total of winning $3. Still $1 per hand played.

In fact, as the progression escalated to 15, 31, 63, 127, 255 and beyond, you would always end up winning $1 per hand played. And you had to win eventually, right? It was genius.


But Wikipedia says that's a shit betting strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system) wrote:However, the gambler's expected value does indeed remain zero (or less than zero) because the small probability that he will suffer a catastrophic loss exactly balances with his expected gain. (In a casino, the expected value is negative, due to the house's edge.) The likelihood of catastrophic loss may not even be very small. The bet size rises exponentially. This, combined with the fact that strings of consecutive losses actually occur more often than common intuition suggests, can bankrupt a gambler quickly.


If WIkipedia is right, how is it people have gotten rich betting using the Martingle system?


They haven't.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#4  Postby quas » Feb 10, 2019 7:42 pm

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem
those who think alike than those who think differently. -Nietzsche
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#5  Postby Cito di Pense » Feb 10, 2019 7:45 pm



I know, I know. You saw it right there on the internet. It must be a true story.
Хлопнут без некролога. -- Серге́й Па́влович Королёв

Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#6  Postby Thommo » Feb 10, 2019 7:47 pm



Yes, he's certainly one of the ones who hasn't.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#7  Postby Fallible » Feb 10, 2019 7:50 pm

Hoo boy.
She battled through in every kind of tribulation,
She revelled in adventure and imagination.
She never listened to no hater, liar,
Breaking boundaries and chasing fire.
Oh, my my! Oh my, she flies!
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#8  Postby Thommo » Feb 10, 2019 7:51 pm

Incidentally, there absolutely are betting systems that work (e.g. card counting blackjack, there have also been more dubious, but reliable incidents in recent years like edge carding or mobile phone analysis of roulette wheels to predict a quadrant). The Martingale just isn't one of them.

If you do count cards, the difficulty is preventing the casinos from banning you. They tend not to like people who win.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#9  Postby quas » Feb 10, 2019 7:53 pm

Cito di Pense wrote:


I know, I know. You saw it right there on the internet. It must be a true story.


He's rich, as chronicled in Neil Strauss' book.
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem
those who think alike than those who think differently. -Nietzsche
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#10  Postby Cito di Pense » Feb 10, 2019 7:55 pm

quas wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:


I know, I know. You saw it right there on the internet. It must be a true story.


He's rich, as chronicled in Neil Strauss' book.


Chronicled? Didn't you mean comical?
Хлопнут без некролога. -- Серге́й Па́влович Королёв

Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#11  Postby Fallible » Feb 10, 2019 7:55 pm

Thommo wrote:Incidentally, there absolutely are betting systems that work (e.g. card counting blackjack, there have also been more dubious, but reliable incidents in recent years like edge carding or mobile phone analysis of roulette wheels to predict a quadrant). The Martingale just isn't one of them.

If you do count cards, the difficulty is preventing the casinos from banning you. They tend not to like people who win.


Yep. Casinos and betting shops have self-exclusion policies which one can sign up to (and have more holes than Swiss cheese), but if you really want banning, win too much too often.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#12  Postby Thommo » Feb 10, 2019 8:03 pm

Fallible wrote:
Thommo wrote:Incidentally, there absolutely are betting systems that work (e.g. card counting blackjack, there have also been more dubious, but reliable incidents in recent years like edge carding or mobile phone analysis of roulette wheels to predict a quadrant). The Martingale just isn't one of them.

If you do count cards, the difficulty is preventing the casinos from banning you. They tend not to like people who win.


Yep. Casinos and betting shops have self-exclusion policies which one can sign up to (and have more holes than Swiss cheese), but if you really want banning, win too much too often.


They are shamefully bad at not enforcing their self-exclusion policies and allowing people to bypass them. It was in the news a few months ago. Deregulated gambling in this country has gone too far and needs to be dialed back a few notches.

If people really want to gamble, they should just trade leveraged stocks on the NYSE. Doesn't have a house edge (as long as you're not employing a broker or fund manager), doesn't have a stamp duty like FTSE shares. You can still utterly ruin yourself, it's just likely to take a bit longer.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#13  Postby Thommo » Feb 10, 2019 8:06 pm

quas wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:


I know, I know. You saw it right there on the internet. It must be a true story.


He's rich, as chronicled in Neil Strauss' book.


Made his money playing poker, I heard. Not with a Martingale.

And as the blog says he refuses to reveal his successful strategies (it does not, unlike you, claim he got rich with the Martingale), although based on what we've seen here and his involvement with "the game", I'm guessing it's about bullshitting the gullible (which is a pretty good strategy at poker, so long as you study the genuine mathematics and odds to become proficient first - unlike in the films the real game is very much about playing the odds and knowing when it is a good bet and when it is not, bluffing and the "fancy" stuff is just a small part).
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#14  Postby zulumoose » Feb 10, 2019 8:13 pm

There's nothing to stop someone becoming rich by playing a system like that, just as there's nothing to stop someone else becoming broke, playing the same system the same way. The house would be quite happy if every one of their customers played that system, because on average they would still go home poorer than they were when they arrived.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#15  Postby Fallible » Feb 10, 2019 8:17 pm

Thommo wrote:
Fallible wrote:
Thommo wrote:Incidentally, there absolutely are betting systems that work (e.g. card counting blackjack, there have also been more dubious, but reliable incidents in recent years like edge carding or mobile phone analysis of roulette wheels to predict a quadrant). The Martingale just isn't one of them.

If you do count cards, the difficulty is preventing the casinos from banning you. They tend not to like people who win.


Yep. Casinos and betting shops have self-exclusion policies which one can sign up to (and have more holes than Swiss cheese), but if you really want banning, win too much too often.


They are shamefully bad at not enforcing their self-exclusion policies and allowing people to bypass them. It was in the news a few months ago. Deregulated gambling in this country has gone too far and needs to be dialed back a few notches.


As you know, I patch up the casualties of the very badly regulated gambling industry in this country. Or try to. They will, of course, only do what they absolutely have to do, no more. My problem is not with gambling, but with the exploitation of the vulnerable which takes place day in, day out. They don't make their profits from people putting on a £5 footie bet of a Saturday. They make them from people pouring their entire wages into £100 a spin machines or online casinos, and then begging, stealing and borrowing to get it back. Which of course they mostly don't. A large part of my time is spent explaining to intelligent people that these places are there because they're profitable, and they're profitable because do it for long enough and you lose. Cigarette advertising is banned now. There are strict rules on alcohol advertising. Yet every time you turn around, you're confronted by a barrage of gaudy, infuriatingly persistent gambling ads, any time of day, every ad break, and now sponsoring programmes that have nothing at all to do with gambling. It's criminal. People are being driven to their deaths.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#16  Postby Thommo » Feb 10, 2019 8:26 pm

Fallible wrote:As you know, I patch up the casualties of the very badly regulated gambling industry in this country. Or try to. They will, of course, only do what they absolutely have to do, no more. My problem is not with gambling, but with the exploitation of the vulnerable which takes place day in, day out. They don't make their profits from people putting on a £5 footie bet of a Saturday. They make them from people pouring their entire wages into £100 a spin machines or online casinos, and then begging, stealing and borrowing to get it back. Which of course they mostly don't. A large part of my time is spent explaining to intelligent people that these places are there because they're profitable, and they're profitable because do it for long enough and you lose. Cigarette advertising is banned now. There are strict rules on alcohol advertising. Yet every time you turn around, you're confronted by a barrage of gaudy, infuriatingly persistent gambling ads, any time of day, every ad break, and now sponsoring programmes that have nothing at all to do with gambling. It's criminal. People are being driven to their deaths.


I know, it's something of a national disgrace. It drives me mad.

Anecdotally I remember as a younger man/teenager how many of my friends insisted they won money playing the fruities. I used to take great delight in walking them over and pointing at the (legally mandated) tab attached to each machine that displayed the average win percentage. It varied between 75% and 85% in those days. Appallingly massive house edge, yet every one of them was convinced they won more than they lost - because they remembered the big wins and not the 20 moderate losses that came in between.

The lack of speed (thanks to lobbyists) on FOBT maximum stake reform has been absurd, and I'm sure I'm teaching granny to suck eggs, but it's just the tip of the iceberg.

I think this is one of the MPs I remember hearing about in the news. The whole thing is a farce, it would be funny if it wasn't costing people their homes, families and lives:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Da ... g_industry

ETA: Lest I sound puritanical, I'm not, I've been known to have the odd night out at the casino, where I'm willing to spend a night out's pennies on that as my entertainment. I've put a tenner on the superbowl winner several times. But there's gambling and there's problem gambling, and then there's people profiting from specifically targetting the problem gamblers - they are scum.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#17  Postby Matt_B » Feb 10, 2019 8:33 pm

The thing about Martingale is that everyone who uses it is successful, right until they hit the catastrophic losing streak that bankrupts them.

Genuinely successful gambling strategies are always going to involve the player having an "edge", i.e. odds that are somewhat more favourable in reality compared to what's on offer, and are as such going to be closely guarded secrets.

As such, saying that you're one of the lucky few who uses Martingale but hasn't yet gone bust is likely a cover story.
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#18  Postby felltoearth » Feb 10, 2019 9:26 pm

quas wrote:
Cito di Pense wrote:


I know, I know. You saw it right there on the internet. It must be a true story.


He's rich, as chronicled in Neil Strauss' book.


The top commenter asks the real question...

Ask yourself this question: Why, if Tynan can make all of this money on a whim with his magical formula, is he trying to make a few PENNIES per click through by hawking some low rent online casino on his site? The graphic at the top of the page right now says "Buy this ad for $150 a month".
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#19  Postby romansh » Feb 10, 2019 11:00 pm

I am reminded of discussions with my father in law. His system was to watch a roulette wheel for a long time and then bet on the number that has not come up and then bet on that number. Keep telling him telling him … if he is going to bet on that sort of foolishness, he may as well bet against that number. The wheel might not be true.
"That's right!" shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
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Re: Martingle Betting System

#20  Postby Hermit » Feb 11, 2019 12:10 am

quas wrote:This is a betting system practiced successfully by a professional gambler.

The Double Martingale System.

It sounded exotic. We read the description of it and it seemed pretty legitimate :

Bet $1. If you win, you've just won a dollar and you're done with this cycle. Start over.

If you lose, then you bet $3. If you win that you have won 3, lost 1, for a grand total of winning $2. That's $1 per hand played.

If you lose again you bet $7. If you win that you've won 7, lost 4, for a grand total of winning $3. Still $1 per hand played.

In fact, as the progression escalated to 15, 31, 63, 127, 255 and beyond, you would always end up winning $1 per hand played. And you had to win eventually, right? It was genius.


But Wikipedia says that's a shit betting strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system) wrote:However, the gambler's expected value does indeed remain zero (or less than zero) because the small probability that he will suffer a catastrophic loss exactly balances with his expected gain. (In a casino, the expected value is negative, due to the house's edge.) The likelihood of catastrophic loss may not even be very small. The bet size rises exponentially. This, combined with the fact that strings of consecutive losses actually occur more often than common intuition suggests, can bankrupt a gambler quickly.


If WIkipedia is right, how is it people have gotten rich betting using the Martingle system?

They get rich by being lucky, not by using the Martingle system because the Martingle system does nothing to change the odds, which are never better than even and almost always stacked against them, in their favour. On the most simple level, have a look at the toss of a coin. Say, it lands heads. Win or lose, what are the odds that it lands heads on the next toss? Hint: Coins have no memory.

The longer you persist in betting on the result you think is more likely, the more likely the chance that a string of opposite results long enough to send you broke occurs. The Martingle system does nothing to reduce the odds of that happening.
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