Beware Of The Martingale Doubling Strategy In Online Roulette

• Published: February 6, 2014
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If you are interested in online roulette and have done some background reading about this glamorous casino game, you must have come across the Martingale doubling strategy. This strategy has been touted as a sure fire winner and sounds quite attractive to new players. But there are many pitfalls and limitations that must be understood.

The Martingale doubling strategy can only be applied to even money bets in online roulette such as red numbers, black numbers, even numbers and odd numbers. To understand the Martingale doubling strategy let us consider an example. Suppose you make an initial bet of $1 on red. If the bet loses you double the bet for the next spin. You continue this process till a red number is called and you win. If you win on the first spin you will be paid $2 on an investment of $1 and will win $1. For the second bet of $2, your total investment is $3 and you will be paid $4 if red is called and therefore again win $1. The important conclusion is that whenever you win, your net gain will be $1. The Martingale doubling strategy at best results in a net win equal to the original stake.

All roulette players must understand that each spin of the wheel is independent of the earlier spins and therefore theoretically a black number streak can continue forever. In practice a losing streak has to come to an end. After how many spins this will happen no one can say. The probability of a black number being called for seven consecutive spins is less than 1%. If you are willing to go this far then you will require a bankroll of $63 for an initial bet of $1. If the worst happens and you lose seven times in a row then your loss will be $63. If you win any time within the seven spins your gain will be $1. If you want to extend the sequence to eight spins then your bankroll will have to be $127. If you are looking at a win of $50 in seven spins you will need a bankroll of $3,150 and still face a 1% chance of losing it all.

The upper table limit imposed in online roulette games poses an even bigger problem with the Martingale doubling strategy. Assume there is a maximum limit of $200 and you want to win $10 at the end of the cycle. With an initial bet of $10 you can double only five times. This increases the probability of losing to about 3%. The fact of life is that in online casino games you cannot beat the house edge without luck.