Betting Systems
Virtually any betting system you come across will take one of two forms: increasing the amount of your bet when you lose, or increasing your bet when you win. Beware of any betting system that touts itself as a “sure winner” or “can't-lose system.” There is no such thing. If people could predict the outcome of a given draw of the cards, spin of the roulette wheel, or throw of the dice, it wouldn't be called gambling.
Systems that call for you to increase your bet when you lose — such as the Martingale, D'Alembert, or Fibonacci systems — have two inherent problems. First, they assume you have a large bankroll. Second, you're likely to run up against table limits before you can follow these systems to their promised conclusions.
The Martingale system is the most commonly known “up-as-you-lose” system, calling for you to double your bet every time you lose. Consider how expensive this system can be even if you're playing just $5 a hand at blackjack, assuming no bet limits for this example. If you lose the first hand, Martingale calls for you to bet $10 on the next. If you lose that hand, you then bet $20 on the third hand. Lose that hand, and you're at $40 for the fourth hand, and when you lose that one, you're up to $80 for your bet on the fifth hand. After five losing hands, you've dropped $155 ($5 + $10 + $20 + $40 + $80 = $155). If you continue with this system for another five hands and lose those five, you'll have dropped more than $5,000 in ten hands of $5 blackjack.
Why won't the Martingale system work with table limits?
Casinos establish maximum bets, or table limits, specifically to prevent systems like the Martingale from wiping them out. At most $5 tables, the maximum bet is $200. If you play six losing hands using Martingale, you've lost $315; even if you win the seventh hand at the maximum bet, you'll get only $200 back.
“Up-as-you-win” systems, such as the reverse Martingale, call for you to increase your bet when you win and return to your base wager when you lose. So, if you're playing $5 blackjack, you would bet $5 on the first hand and, if you win, you would bet $10 on the next hand. If you win that hand, your next wager would be $20, and if you win again, you would increase your bet to $40. Systems like these are great as long as you're winning. But, like the up-as-you-lose systems, they can get expensive, and they have the added disadvantage of putting your winnings, as well as your base bet, at risk. With these systems, it only takes one losing hand to wipe out everything you've won before.
A more conservative betting strategy — and one that will neither break your bankroll nor run up against table limits — would be upping your bets by one unit as you win for a cycle of, say, five bets, then starting that cycle over. Using our blackjack example again, you would bet $5 on the first hand; if you win, your next bet would be $10. If you win that hand, your bet on the third hand would be $15, then $20, then $25. Whether you win or lose on the fifth hand, return to your $5 bet on the sixth hand, and if you keep winning, you keep repeating the cycle. If you lose, you bet no more than $5 until you win again.
Conservative strategies like this won't make you rich overnight, but they will help keep your expectations at a reasonable level. Remember that any win, large or small, still is a win, and small wins, carefully husbanded, add up quickly. In addition, more conservative betting means longer life for your bankroll, and the longer your bankroll lasts, the more fun you can have playing.
