What is the Martingale strategy when playing roulette?

Walk out the casino with profit

In this article we will run over a strategy that has been proven to guarantee you will walk out of the casino profitable, 93 percent of the time, playing roulette. This strategy, of course, is the Martingale strategy, using maths, we look at the pros and cons of the strategy and whether you should be using it or not. Roulette is one of the most popular games in the casino, allowing players to bet on multiple variations from single numbers, groupings, red or black, and so on. Players love roulette due to the house having a small edge of winning, casinos accept the small edge due to it being a game of luck, meaning the game cannot be manipulated.

How does roulette work?

You can choose to bet in a variety of different ways, bet on colours, bet on number sections, odds, evens, high, low, number groups (4, 5, 6 by example) or bet on single numbers. The numbers range from 1 – 36, 18 are red, and 18 are black. As such, odds are 1:1 meaning you bet £10, you win an additional £10, you lose, you lose £10.

The odds-on roulette reflects the probability of winning. If we decide to bet on a single number, as an example the number 9, our odds are 36/1 for a potential win. Seems fair? not quite, as there is an additional number, 0, the 37th number that everyone forgets. If the ball lands on 0 then all bets placed on odds, evens, red, black, individual numbers outside of 0 lose, unless you bet on 0 itself, which would still give you a 36/1 return.

If you decide to bet on a colour, the odds as mentioned above are 1:1. With the additional 0, it means that there are now 19 that are not red and 18 are red numbers, giving the additional house edge. The probability of winning the bet is 18/37, or in percentage terms 48.6%.

How you can use the Martingale strategy to your advantage?

The Martingale strategy can help us manipulate statistics, increasing your chances of winning. It is all about sizing/doubling up in a structured manner, not sure what we mean? In brief it’s about doubling the stake after a bet loses or stop playing after your bet has won.

To give you an example, you have a £300 bank. Using the Martingale strategy, for your first bet, you bet £20 on a 50/50 bet. You could choose to bet on a colour red/black, high numbers or low numbers, even or odd numbers. Taking note of your bank, the amount you bet is important. £20 which is a 15th of my betting bank. Using 1/15 of your Betting bank is an important division, you can then follow the four-step strategy, which will help us get to the 93 percent chance of winning.

For your first bet you have 18 of 37 potential results, if we use an even number, this equates to 48. 6% chance to win. It is important to remember, this is not a 50 percent chance of winning your bet, because of the extra number 0.

This is where the casino has the edge, meaning from the casino perspective, the chance of losing is 19/37 or as a percentage 51. 4% chance, if the ball lands on one of the 19 other numbers, then we would lose our bet. However, if we win our first bet, the martingale strategy tells us to walk away with our winnings, and because we bet £20, we would have made £20 in profit and then cash out.

What happens if you lose the first bet?

If you lose your first bet, we double. On our next bet, we are no longer betting £20, this time increase the stake, we are now betting £40, or double what we were betting before if you have a larger bank or have placed a higher amount as a first bet. You can change to any bet that gives us a 18/37 win potential, for example, betting on evens again, or we can pick something else like betting on red or black, high or low number.

There will be no similar outcome between our first bet and what our second bet outcome is going to be. In simplistic terms, we will just assume we are going to continue with betting on evens again. Remember there is a 48.6% chance that you will win, if you do win, the Martingale strategy tells you to stop and walk away with your winnings.

Therefore, if we do win from this £40 bet, we’re going to make £40 in profit, we made a £20 loss from the first bet we placed, which now gives us a profit of £40 minus £20. Again, there’s the same 51.4% chance of losing, if the ball does not land on an even number. If this is the case, we would then have two losing bets consecutively.

From two losing bets we now double what we bet on from our last two bets, so not £40, but £80. Again, keep in mind that there is a 48.6 % chance that we will win. If we do win, the Martingale strategy tells us again to stop playing, giving us a profit of £80 profit from our third bet, covering our £40 loss from the previous bet and the initial £20 loss.

Should the ball land on an even number, we have a profit of £80 minus £40 minus £20, which is £20, which we would cashout as per the system process. However, if we do lose our third bet, which has a 51.4% percent chance of losing, we will perform one more bet with our £160. If it wins from the 48.6% percent, the profit is £160.

This will cover our £80 loss, £40 loss, and £20 loss from our previous bets, giving an overall profit of £20. However, if it loses the bet, we would have lost 4 bets on the bounce, which again has a 51.4% chance of doing so.

There is a 6.95% chance of this happening. Therefore, the potential for us winning is 93 percent. This is where the strategy gives you the 93 percent win ratio.

Would we promote this as a profitable strategy?

No, the strategy itself looks very appealing, but there are hidden layers statistically that makes it more appealing to the house rather than the player. As you can see from the example above, after 4 consecutive bets, our whole bank is wiped out. If we keep doubling after each loss, then it becomes riskier.

The calculation shows the number is negative, which means it is not profitable long term. Therefore, showing that we cannot win against the casino with the Martingale system. In truth, all we have done is increase the probability of winning but at the potential loss of our entire bank within 4 spins of the roulette wheel.

How can you win at the casino, playing Roulette?

There are many different systems and methods but in truth, it is very hard to gain a competitive edge when it comes to Roulette, it is a luck-based game and the house advantage is small, but tips it in their favour.

Like with any system or strategy, it is important to be clear on the odds, the percentage to win, pros and cons.

That covers the basics of the Martingale strategy and how you can easily apply it to roulette. If you love playing roulette, why not look at our featured casinos, offering free bonuses, free spins, and much more.