THE MARTINGALE

The Martingdale is usually the first choice of a novice gambler. It sounds perfect, wait until a table result is statistically due, then launch a wagering series. If you lose, double your bet. Lose again, keep doubling. Given time, the odds will be so heavily in your favour, that you'll have to win.

Hold on. Not so fast. Do you recall the table I told you about when an even money proposition didn't show up for seventeen spins? Do you know how much it would cost to finance a series of eighteen bets that double each time?

Assuming that you start at the $5 level, your eighteenth bet (which would net a $5 profit would cost you $655,360. Financing those bets would cost you over a million dollars. But it's a moot point, because you would never get a waiver against the house maximum in the midst of all that. And that point would be reached about half way through the series.

I think the casinos do that to prevent fools being parted from their money on such a grand scale.

The reality is, that if you play long enough, you're going to hit the mother of all bad tables.

Of course, you could limit your series to, say, five stages and you would win most of your sessions. But speaking as one who has performed thousands of numerical trials, I've found that on average, no matter how many stages you use, you'll encounter a full series loss at roughly the same rate it takes to earn the units to pay for it. And when you figure in the house edge, the two sets of figures match up almost perfectly!

Amazing stuff, huh?