Martingale and Roulette: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The strategy is as easy as it is to say “Martingale.” It requires you to split your stake into equal portions or “units”, like in flat betting.

• You start off with one unit. You place it on a bet with a 50% chance of winning, or as close as possible.
• Among roulette bets, you have six choices: odd, even, red, black, 1 through 18 (low), and 19 through 36 (high). Each of these bets on a single-zero (0) roulette wheel has a 48.6% chance of winning. As we all know, you should always play the single-zero variant of roulette.
• If your first bet wins, you take down the profit of one unit and bet one unit again.
• If it loses, you double your bet to two units.
• If that second bet wins, you take down three units and return to a one-unit bet.
• If that second bet loses, you double up again to a four-unit bet.

In short, the Martingale has you double your bet every time you lose and return to one unit every time you win. Doing so will render a profit of one unit after each winning spin.

Does the Martingale Roulette Strategy Work?

That depends on how lucky you are, how much money you have, where you play and what the betting limits are.

I will say this, though: Martingale works more than 99% of the time!

That’s the Good part.

So what’s the bad part?

The bad is the one time in a hundred you lose. Since you’re doubling your bet after every losing outcome, you’re betting a fortune before you know it.

For instance, you start out with a $5 bet on your favorite color red. You’re looking to earn $5 after every winning bet.

But you lose seven spins in a row and you’re suddenly down $635. The eighth bet in the system calls for $640—and that’s just to recoup a $5 win.

Lose that bet and now you must risk $1,280 to win $5!

Getting scary?

Lose that bet and you must bet $2, 560—to win five lousy dollars!

It’s getting insane now and you’re really sweating.

In short, losing in Martingale has exponential consequences that can leave you penniless in a few consecutive unlucky rounds.

The Ugly: What Losing With Martingale Looks Like

You’ve lost nine consecutive spins and are down $2,555. You reach into your pocket and recklessly grab all the $100 bills left inside. You’re not even sure you have enough to make the system-required $2,560 bet. But you do and you nervously throw the bills on the layout.

But then suddenly the dealer admonishes you with the words, “I’m sorry, the maximum bet at this table is $2,000.”

So what do you do?

You go to another table that has a higher limit or even another casino if you have to.

You make the $2,560 bet.

You lose. You’ve now lost ten spins in a row.

You desperately run to the highest-limit casino in town and bet $5,120, still trying to come out $5 ahead for the whole ordeal, and you can’t even believe you started this.

You’re broke! That’s because you lost your eleventh spin in a row.

And the real killer is you learn that the last spin on the wheel you’d just left came out red! Had you stayed there and placed your eleventh bet, you would have bailed out and been up $5 instead of down $10,240 and broke.

This bleak scenario does not happen often, but if you play long enough it will. I’ve heard stories of gamblers getting wiped out with Martingale without ever winning their first one-unit bet.

On the other hand, you can get lucky and play every day for a year, winning four or five units each day without ever getting near losing ten or eleven spins in a row.

Are There Positives to the Martingale?

We can’t say that the Martingale is all bad. Let’s also consider some pros that have allowed this system to survive through the centuries.

• Structured betting – one way or another, having a plan is better than having no plan at all. Repeating the same bet over and over again is actually a good way for beginners to get to grips with roulette.
• Easy to monitor spending – When using the Martingale, it’s relatively easy to keep track of wins, losses, and overall spending. Doing so is one of the cornerstones of casino money management.
• Can be effective in the short term – The weakness of the Martingale is that it will eventually fall apart. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t actually perform for a while. Unless you hit a losing streak, the Martingale does technically work. The issue is that, statistically, you will hit a losing streak eventually.
• Managing losses – In reality, playing with the Martingale involves a kind of loop. You come out ahead for a bit, then probably lose most of it in a short streak. While this isn’t exactly a net positive, it does help you manage losses to a degree.