Would the martingale betting system work on a 50% bet??

Say you and your friends are flipping a coin if its heads you win tails you lose. You double your bet on every lose starting at $5. With a bankroll of $10,000. Poor description, but I know the martingale betting system is a complete bust against games with the odds not in your favor, but what about even odds?

Also what if the odds were extremely slightly in the other persons favor say your doing the martingale on a bet with a 49.9% chance of winning...

Please answer those questions with knowledge or a online simulator link that allows you to type in the houses edge %... I can't find a martingale simulator that doesn't involve roulette which is a terrible game to play.

On a side note.... Please concentrate on those questions first lol... What I want to do/try is martingale a local casino at craps with 100x odds, with a constant $5 bet no matter what , but doubling the odds on a loss. So say the point is a 6... I would bet 6,12,24,48,96...if the point was a 10 i would bet 10,20,40,80,160 & so on.... So if I lost 3 times in a row... I would bet 48 behind the point being a 6 or 80 if the point was a 4 or 10. I've got a large size bankroll that is play money... Just curious on trying to find a simulator for this one...

Please friendly comments only tired of seeing rude comments on this forum... These are all what if, and just ideas! Curious to see what is said! Thank you!

Please keep in mind this is betting the don't pass not the pass line. I also want to wait till the pass line is hit twice.. I know this doesnt matter, but it makes me feel better lol

I hope this isn't rude but it sounds like you already know the answer here. We could debate the merits of the martingale in a world with infinite money, and a casino that books infinite bets, etc. The reality of your situation is that you will win a small amount of money most of the time. Occasionally you will hit a bad streak and run up against the table max. In the long run your loss will approximate the house edge * total of wagers. Hope this helps, have fun and I hope you win.

So you will martingale until you hit table limits? What would the table limits be btw? Well regardless, you will get many comments about how this will not work. I have done a lot of reading here which is all it really takes to realize that any system you try to come up with will get smacked down with math. Personally, I'm not at that level with statistics but you should know that the people here know what they are talking about. I'm sure you could even find a thread that essentially states your same question. I had been trying to come up with a system for baccarat, where the banker actually has an edge over player, but after finding this site I came to the conclusion that the only really system I could come up with is something I am comfortable with playing with my bankroll.

A martingale won't work if you have a 50% chance of winning, because you have a finite bankroll. If you and your opponent both have an infinite bankroll, your money will follow a random walk that will strangely lead to larger and larger wins and loses (approaching infinite size), but always return to even. Technically, I believe the limit should be 0 (no gain or loss in the long-term).

But since you have a finite bankroll (a barrier condition / absorption state), even with 50% chance of winning you are increasingly likely over time to hit a run of losses that causes you to lose everything. So, in the long-term you will lose.

If you have only a 49.9% chance of winning, you will lose in the long-term if your bankroll is smaller than your opponents (the casino). I don't need a simulator, I have the gambler's ruin formula.

tl,dr? Don't do it!

On the don'ts...

10/20/40/80 lay.

If you're at the $80 lay, you've already lost 10+20+40=$70. Plus your flats.

An $80 lay wins $40.

But that's not even the problem.


Your true-odds bet (the lay) ends up winning $0 because it pays true.

The problem is the flat $5 don't pass line bet. This has a house edge.

Quote: roudy12345

Say you and your friends are flipping a coin if its heads you win tails you lose. You double your bet on every lose starting at $5. With a bankroll of $10,000. Poor description, but I know the martingale betting system is a complete bust against games with the odds not in your favor, but what about even odds?

The main question here is: At which bankroll do you consider to stop playing ? If you never stop playing you will either play for all eternity or go broke. Math tells us that for a fair game you described, you will always go broke before you reach eternity.

(you should trust math more than intuition if it comes to funny things like infinity)

Quote:

Also what if the odds were extremely slightly in the other persons favor say your doing the martingale on a bet with a 49.9% chance of winning...

You still go broke, because you will perform worse than the 50% case.

You have a finite bankroll and you want to use Marty against a casino with an infinite bankroll.
You will have a lot of small wins in short-run until you have a long losing streak and your finite bankroll get wiped out.

Let's assume that your betting unit is $6. Then your Marty sequence will be
6,12,24,48,96,192,384,768,1536,3072,6144

Note that you will not be able to continue after 11 losing hands. The probability of that would be
0.048828125% assuming it is a 50/50 game and it is expected to happen in every 2048 trials.

Why not take all your play money bet on one bet right away. Win, try your system. Lose, don't bother.