Martingale Strategy: Why It Fails and How to Manage Your Bankroll

Many players say that you cannot win with the Martingale system, or that they lost heavily while using it.

This article starts with the basics of how to bet with the Martingale system, then explains why losses tend to grow when you use it and what you can do to keep those losses under control.

What You Will Learn

• The Martingale system changes only the size of the swings in your results (the variance). The house edge stays the same.
• Players who lose heavily with the Martingale system are usually raising their bets too high or playing with too small a bankroll.

This article takes about 12 minutes to read.

What Is the Martingale System?

The Martingale system is a betting system you can use with table games at online casinos, such as roulette and baccarat.

The system is very simple: you place an even-money bet (one that pays 1 to 1), double your bet after every loss, and go back to your original bet after a win.

It is one of the best-known betting systems and is used by casino players around the world. Many other betting systems are derived from it, so the Martingale system could fairly be called the original betting system.

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How to Bet with the Martingale System

1. Place a bet that wins 50% of the time and pays roughly even money (1 to 1)
2. After a loss, double your bet each round until you win
3. After a win, return to your original bet for the next round

Betting with the Martingale system is very simple: you just follow the steps above. That makes it easy to use even for beginners.

The system also works easily with bets that win about 50% of the time, such as red/black in roulette or the Player bet in baccarat.

Note that in no-commission baccarat, no commission is taken from the Banker bet, but a Banker win with a total of six pays half (1 to 2), so a $10 bet wins only $5. A win of this kind does not recover your earlier losses, so take care if you use the Banker bet with the Martingale system.

The key point to understand from the start is that the Martingale system does not change the game’s house edge or its return to player (RTP) in any way. It changes only the size of the swings in your results (the variance), giving you frequent small wins at the cost of infrequent large losses. Your overall expected value is the same as with flat betting.

Why People Say the Martingale System Works

There are three main reasons people say the Martingale system works.

• In the short term, you rarely finish with a loss
• A single win recovers all of your losses up to that point
• The betting method is simple, so beginners find it easy to use

If you double your bet after every loss on an even-money bet, the next win always pays more than your total losses so far. As long as your bankroll and the table limit hold out, a single win puts you one unit ahead, however many losses in a row came before it. This structure is why a cycle rarely ends in a loss.

Why the Martingale System Fails: Poor Bet Sizing Is the Usual Cause

However, the Martingale system has a major pitfall: a long losing streak can cost you most of your bankroll. Many players who lose heavily with the Martingale system either overlook this point or use the system without fully understanding it.

The table below shows the bet required at each step when you start at $1, $5 or $10, along with how often you would lose every bet from the first one up to that point (assuming a 50% win probability).

Note: The frequencies assume a win probability of exactly 50%. The baccarat Player bet tested in this article wins about 49.3% of the time excluding ties, so in practice losing streaks occur slightly more often than the table shows.

Even if you start at $1, five losses in a row mean your next bet is $32, seven losses mean $128, and after 10 losses you must bet $1,024, all to win $1.

If you start at $10, your bet passes $1,000 after just seven losses.

The cycle turns into a profit as soon as the losing streak ends, but runs of the same result happen more often than most players expect.

For example, in Speed Baccarat, where a round takes about 30 seconds, and assuming a win probability of about 50%, a run of 10 identical results in a row (either wins or losses) occurs on average about once every 8–9 hours. Counting losses only, it happens about once every 17 hours, so if you play over several days, 10 losses in a row is well within the realm of possibility.

Beginners also often misunderstand the probability of a losing streak. On a bet you win 50% of the time, the probability of losing 7 in a row is 0.78% (1 in 128), but this is the probability of losing every bet from the 1st through the 7th.

So if you have already lost 6 in a row, the probability of losing the next bet is still 50%. The chance that the next bet turns your 6-loss streak into a 7-loss streak is not 0.78%.

If you assume that losing streaks are rare and start with a bet that is too high, you are likely to run into a streak early on and lose most of your bankroll.

Testing the Martingale System in About 400 Rounds of Baccarat

We used a bankroll of $1,000. To see the advantages and drawbacks of a larger starting bet, we ran the test with both a $1 start and a $5 start.

The other conditions were as follows.

Simulation Conditions

• Bankroll: $1,000
• Starting bets tested: $1 and $5
• Bets placed only on the Player bet in Evolution’s Speed Baccarat
• Play continued for 200 rounds or until the next bet could not be placed

Starting at $1: 200 Player Bets Ending in a Profit

With a $1,000 bankroll and a $1 starting bet, you can place bets up to the 9th (a cumulative $511). The 10th bet of $512 is more than your remaining balance, so you cannot place it. The next bet can recover a streak of up to 8 losses, and once you lose 9 in a row, you are left with an unrecoverable loss of $511. A streak of 9 or 10 losses is unlikely in a single session, but if you play enough rounds, it will eventually happen.

There were some losing streaks along the way, but a win after seven straight losses recovered all of the losses up to that point.

There were no notable losing streaks after that, and the session ended $139 ahead. However, this is just one example in which the losing streaks stayed within the bankroll. The larger the balance you have to absorb losing streaks, the more often you finish ahead, but the amount you lose when the bankroll finally runs out grows accordingly, so the overall expected value has not improved.

Starting at $5: Player Bets Until the Next Bet Could Not Be Placed

Next is the simulation in which we started with a $5 bet and set out to place 200 Player bets.

With a $1,000 bankroll and a $5 starting bet, you can place bets up to the 7th (a cumulative $635), so the next bet can recover a streak of up to 6 losses. Recovering from 7 losses would take an 8th bet of $640, bringing the cumulative total to $1,275, so a $1,000 bankroll cannot cover the 8th bet.

The probability of losing 7 in a row is 1 in 128 (about 0.78%). Over 200 rounds at a 50% win probability, the chance of at least one streak of 7 or more losses is about 54%, so it is more likely to happen than not.

In this simulation, we played without any long losing streaks for most of the session, but shortly before the end we lost 7 in a row.

The 8th bet was more than our balance, so the test ended there, with a balance of $215 and a loss of $785. By round 196, we had lost about 80% of the bankroll.

What the Simulations Show and How to Avoid Unnecessary Losses

These simulation results show that if you use the Martingale system without a clear plan, it can lead to a large loss at some point.

The rest of this section looks at how to preserve the system’s main advantage (that a cycle rarely ends in a loss) while avoiding unexpected losses.

Keep Your Starting Bet to 1% of Your Bankroll or Less

The number of losses in a row you can withstand with the Martingale system depends only on the ratio of your bankroll to your starting bet. The cumulative loss after n losses is starting bet × (2^n − 1), and you go broke as soon as this amount exceeds your bankroll.

For example, with a $1,023 bankroll, the next bet can recover a streak of up to 9 losses with a $1 start, 6 losses with a $5 start and 3 losses with a $50 start. Conversely, if you fix the starting bet at $1, you can withstand 2 losses in a row with $10, 5 with $100 and 9 with $1,023. If you increase your bankroll but raise your starting bet in the same proportion, the number of losses you can withstand goes back to where it was.

As a guideline, keep your starting bet to no more than 1% of your bankroll. At this ratio, the cumulative loss after 6 losses in a row stays within 63% (63/100) of your bankroll, and 7 losses bring it to 127%, which exceeds your bankroll. For example, with a $1,000 bankroll and a $10 start, you can place bets up to the 6th (a cumulative $630), so the next bet can recover a streak of up to 5 losses. If you lose 6 in a row, you cannot place the $640 bet needed for the 7th round, and you are left with an unrecoverable loss of $630. Assuming a 50% win probability, the chance of 6 losses in a row is about 1 in 64, well within what can happen in real play.

Because each cycle earns only a small profit, the Martingale system assumes that you can withstand losing streaks. It is not a way to win big from a small bankroll.

Set a Stop-Loss Limit in Advance

With the Martingale system, losses can grow very quickly.

Even if you start at $1, your losses keep doubling: -$31 after 5 losses in a row, -$63 after 6 and -$127 after 7. To avoid large losses, decide on a stop-loss limit before you start.

For example, if you decide to reset and start a new cycle after 5 losses in a row, you will never lose more than $31 in that cycle.

Capping the amount you can lose in a single cycle protects you from unexpected losses. Keep in mind, however, that a stop-loss limit does not change the expected value; it only sets an upper limit on each loss.

If you stop after 5 losses and the next round would have been a win, it can be hard to accept. After you hit your stop-loss limit, stepping away from that game and moving to another table makes it easier to start fresh. Each round’s result is independent, so changing tables neither helps nor hurts your chances.

Choose Games with a Low Minimum Bet and a High Maximum Bet

The Martingale system can fail in two ways. One is when your balance is smaller than the next bet you need to place. The other is when the next bet exceeds the table limit (the most you can bet on a single round).

Software-based (RNG) baccarat and roulette games in particular often have a fairly low maximum bet.

At a baccarat table with a $5 minimum and a $100 maximum, for example, you cannot bet $160 after $5, $10, $20, $40 and $80, so in practice the Martingale system cannot continue after 5 losses in a row.

Always check the table limits before you start. Some casinos offer tables with limits such as a $1 minimum and a $50,000 maximum. At a table like this, the limit lets you withstand up to 15 losses in a row (you can place the 16th bet of $32,768). To keep going that far, however, you would need a bankroll of $65,535.

At the very least, avoid any table whose limit would stop you before the number of losses in a row you are planning for.

Summary: The Martingale System Fails When Your Bets Are Out of Proportion to Your Bankroll

The Martingale system is a betting system well known to table game players. It is easy for beginners to use, and its appeal is simple: as long as your bankroll and the table limit hold out, a single win puts you back in profit no matter how many times you have lost in a row. The risk is that if you lose more times in a row than you can withstand, you lose most of your bankroll.

The biggest reason people lose heavily with the Martingale system is a starting bet that is too large for your bankroll. If you play with too little money, or keep placing bets your bankroll cannot support in the hope of a big win, you will soon exceed the number of losses in a row you can withstand. The most important thing when using this system is to decide on the balance between your bankroll and your bet size before you start.

At the same time, it is not accurate to say that the Martingale system is bad and that another betting system is better. No betting method changes the RTP or the house edge, so no method is inherently better value than another.

The Martingale system rarely ends in a loss in the short term, so you finish ahead more often, but the price is large losses when it fails and only small profits when it wins. Compared with flat betting, every betting system improves one aspect of your results at the expense of another, and none of them raises the RTP itself.