This is the fifth part in an educational series on gambling safety.
If done irresponsibly, gambling can be a dangerous activity. We all know that. The anti-gambling crowd has been kind enough to share countless stories of people who have ruined their lives by gambling irresponsibly. That is why education is so important.
In previous installments of Gambling Safety 101, we covered the fact that you should never wager money that you can’t afford to lose and that you should use proper money management to create a gambling budget. It is also important to ensure that you are playing at a safe casino. One aspect of gambling safety that is often overlooked, though, is the importance of knowing your odds on any game that you play. That includes knowing that with games of chance, there is nothing you can do to improve your odds. That’s right: nothing, including betting systems.
Betting systems are the number one mistake made by gamblers. To be fair, a lot of the people who advocate betting systems honestly feel they work. They might even use them when they play in the casino. Despite that fact, one thing will always be true of betting systems: they don’t work.
The concept of betting systems is simple: bet in a pattern that will maximize your wins and minimize your losses so you can make more money. They are intended to tilt the scale in games of chance, though they are also used in skilled games. They don’t work in either.
The Martingale system is by far the most popular betting system. In this system, a player doubles his bet after a loss. That probably sounds like a good system. If you double after every loss, once you finally win again, you’ll gain all of that lost money back, right? Not exactly. With an infinite bankroll, this system could work, but assuming that you have only budgeted a certain amount for gambling, a losing streak can quickly deplete your entire bankroll if you keep doubling your wager. The most common problem with using the Martingale system is players running out of money before they could win their money back.
Even if you had an unlimited bankroll, though, the Martingale system is easily thwarted by table limits. Casinos have heard of these betting systems and have rules to render them useless. By putting an upper limit on wagers, casinos make players unable to use the Martingale system to their benefit by cutting off the price of wagers once you have doubled it enough times. For example, if you doubled your bet enough times that you wager $500 and lose, you would not be able to double your bet again at a table with a $500 limit. Due to betting limits and losing streaks, the Martingale system is rendered ineffective.
The same holds true for every other betting system. The Parlay system is the opposite of the Martingale. Here, you bet all of your winnings on the next hand, which is called “letting it ride.” For example, if you wager $10 on a hand of blackjack and get a natural blackjack, you would win $15. You would then bet $25 on the next hand (your $15 in winnings plus a $10 bet). People think this is a good idea because they are “playing with the house’s money,” but it’s your money, not the casino’s. The Parlay system will seem like a good idea while you’re on a winning streak, but in the long run, it will cost you. It’s simple math. Every game in the casino has a house edge, meaning that in the long run, you will lose more money than you win. Therefore, betting your winnings exposes it to the house edge, meaning in the long run you will give some of it back.
There are countless betting systems out there, such as the D’Alembert cancellation system, where you bet more when you lose and less when you win. All of these systems seem to work while you’re winning, which is why so many people swear by them, but in the long run, using any progressive betting system will cost you money. You will win more (or lose less) money if you use flat betting, which is to bet the same amount each time. Avoiding betting systems, no matter how appealing they sound, is a key to gambling safety.
I can not believe that people would use a system like Martingale, given that the principle of the system sounds so flawed.
I agree, but it’s pretty popular. The main problem is that people have selective memories. When people win a lot of money using the strategy, they attribute their success to the strategy, forgetting about all of the times they lost money because of it.