Level Betting Strategy Odds

If a player starts with 40 betting units, and bets 1 unit every hand, playing only basic strategy, what are the odds that he/she will win at least .25 betting units one time (for a total of 40.25 or higher) and walk away a winner? Could this be replicated over and over with every deck or by switching tables?

The odds of success in each session are quite high. But you'll still have an occasional session where you lose all 40 units before getting up at all, and you'll lose money in total over time.

Quote: Chubbyhubby

If a player starts with 40 betting units, and bets 1 unit every hand, playing only basic strategy, what are the odds that he/she will win at least .25 betting units one time (for a total of 40.25 or higher) and walk away a winner? Could this be replicated over and over with every deck or by switching tables?

Using a Risk of Ruin calculator for your parameters does not return very useful data.
Your bet unit is way higher than your win goal and it turns a normal distribution into a fit with a lot of error.

This can easily be simulated.
I get 97.4% chance of success.
At times you were up .5 units, that because of the 1.5 BJ payout.
Most times a full 1 unit and even more rare 2 units or more due to double down hands and splits winning at the end.
The average win is slightly less than 1 unit.
So even if you won 974 times out of 1000 you would still find yourself in the red because 26 times you lost 40 units.

Yes, a 97.4% chance of winning is high, but just trying to double a 40 unit bankroll you would need to win at least 41 times in a row.
0.974^41 = 0.339560553

You have about a 1 in 3 chance of success.
Unless you are really a lucky guy, or gal, that is Not that good.

Sally

Thanks so much for your reply Mustangsally. I've wondered about this for a long time. As a follow up, could this system work in a game where the house edge is less? For example, Bovada's single-deck game has a house edge of 0.19%. It would be pretty easy to play a lot of hands. Would a house edge that low allow for a happy ending after 1,000 sessions?

Also, wouldn't a lower house edge yield a higher average win unit? Perhaps 1+?