Does martingale really works?

[bumm]

Well you cant say that betting everything on 5% chance is a good strategy

If you play for your own money, there is no good strategy at all, because of negative expected value. If you play with bonuses, situations may be different depending on terms and conditions. Sometimes even such strategy as betting everything on 5% chance may be good. Example: a casino gives a bonus of 500 satoshi, but only if your balance is zero, and minimum withdrawal is 10000 satoshi. Such situation is quite close to reality in many bitcoin casino. Then you need a strategy maximizing the chance of winning x20, and such strategy would be optimal.

[adaseb]

I just want to let you guys know about this software I stumble upon recently: Martingale Tester 1.57 Check this thread  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=948131.0 "If you are a gambler, then this tool is very good for you! This will let you simulate the martingale strategy and other variants of it on your PC so that you can see how profitable or risky the strategy is. Since martingale is the Nr1. strategy used by gamblers worldwide."

As always, be very careful about what software you download and run.

I know nothing about this "Martingale Tester" but be aware that anything you download and run can potentially contain keyloggers, trojans, and many other kinds of malware.

Be safe out there!

That is exactly reason I posted it here. I do not use it. And I want to know your opinion and maybe find someone who already have this software installed.
I don't think is is malware but I want to be sure.

Why do you need that "martingale tester" program? It should be very easy to code a small program to generate uniformly distributed random numbers from 0.00 to 100.0 with any kind of language. If you can't code at all, just use rand() in your excel.

There is a program already out. Just google "Martingale Dice Simulation" its based on Java but if you choose very small bets, it freezes your browser.

But either way the point is that it always goes to 0.00 since there is a house edge

[CryForMeSky]

I don't quite understand this. Indeed, these limits won't allow you to bet and, consequently, win more than the set amount, but, at the same time, this invariably means that they in fact will make you lose if you employ martingale and come up to that...

The point was that the house doesn't care about users using martingale because martingale is a -ev strategy (as is all strategies when playing against a defined house edge).  Yes, in B&M casinos there are very low max bets (relative to both the min bet and the house bankroll) but this is more of a cautionary short term thing.  Casinos, especially publicly traded casinos, don't like to have negatives on the balance sheet, even if it's only a result of short term variance.  It looks bad.  Online bitcoin casinos don't really have to worry about that, so their max bets are only a function of the risk they are willing to take.

Well you cant say that betting everything on 5% chance is a good strategy

Betting yolo on a 5%er is literally as good of a strat as martingale, labby, or any other thing you can think of.

In fact, if you only bet once and leave/cash out, it's actually a BETTER strat as you'll be betting less total overall, so the house edge will affect you less.

There is a program already out. Just google "Martingale Dice Simulation" its based on Java but if you choose very small bets, it freezes your browser.

But either way the point is that it always goes to 0.00 since there is a house edge

There's an even better martingale simulator that's free and requires no download.  Just take your balance and then put your thumb over it.

[dooglus]

Martingale is just one of many possible strategies of playing casino games. In casino games there is negative expected value, it means that any strategy eventually leads to loss. From this point martingale isn't better or worse that other strategies in general. And IMHO it's incorrect to blame martingale about losses.

Well you cant say that betting everything on 5% chance is a good strategy

You can't really say that there *is* a good strategy. They all expect to lose 1% of everything they risk if the house edge is 1%.

[futureofbitcoin]

Martingale is just one of many possible strategies of playing casino games. In casino games there is negative expected value, it means that any strategy eventually leads to loss. From this point martingale isn't better or worse that other strategies in general. And IMHO it's incorrect to blame martingale about losses.

Well you cant say that betting everything on 5% chance is a good strategy

You can't really say that there *is* a good strategy. They all expect to lose 1% of everything they risk if the house edge is 1%.

take your money and run.

[howzar]

I just want to let you guys know about this software I stumble upon recently: Martingale Tester 1.57 Check this thread  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=948131.0 "If you are a gambler, then this tool is very good for you! This will let you simulate the martingale strategy and other variants of it on your PC so that you can see how profitable or risky the strategy is. Since martingale is the Nr1. strategy used by gamblers worldwide."

As always, be very careful about what software you download and run.

I know nothing about this "Martingale Tester" but be aware that anything you download and run can potentially contain keyloggers, trojans, and many other kinds of malware.

Be safe out there!

That is exactly reason I posted it here. I do not use it. And I want to know your opinion and maybe find someone who already have this software installed.
I don't think is is malware but I want to be sure.

Why do you need that "martingale tester" program? It should be very easy to code a small program to generate uniformly distributed random numbers from 0.00 to 100.0 with any kind of language. If you can't code at all, just use rand() in your excel.

And as well as that I am sure there are many online resources to. It's never worth taking a risk downloading files that aren't trustworthy.
If you need a martingale bot, there are plenty on bitcointalk that are trusted. As well as this, there are many online resources for rolling simulators (there was, anyway)

[deisik]

No, they limit bets because they too have finite funds and want to practice sensible bankroll management. Some Bitcoin sites have been known to offer bets that they can't afford to pay out on, but they're in the minority. The limits are to make sure that if you win, the house can actually afford to pay you.

I don't quite understand this. Indeed, these limits won't allow you to bet and, consequently, win more than the set amount, but, at the same time, this invariably means that they in fact will make you lose if you employ martingale and come up to that...

House limits can prevent you doubling your bet more than a few times, it's true.

That doesn't say anything about the reason for the existence of those limits.

Martingale betting is demonstrably a losing strategy, long term. There's no reason a casino would want to discourage it. People using Martingale betting tend to bet their bankroll over and over again. That's great business for the house. While it's probable that most people will make a small profit, you only need one of them to hit a bad streak and bust to more than make up for all the small profits.

Ok, I got your point. At first I thought that those with huge bankrolls playing only once are effectively the same who use martingale (in respect to the amount put at stake), but I didn't consider the fact that once they win (or lose) they run away regardless of the outcome, while martingalers would continue betting (even if they win) until they lose all...

[Ingatqhvq]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

[Astargath]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

Do people resist so long with martingale, months? Honestly ive never survived more than 1 day using it

[freeyourmind]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

Do people resist so long with martingale, months? Honestly ive never survived more than 1 day using it

It makes more sense to compare based on # of bets than days/weeks/months or measure of time.

I'd be interested to know how many times people were able to double their initial bankroll before either quitting or losing it all.

The most I've been able to do is double 27.5 times initial bankroll before going bust.  The transition in feeling invincible to a mere mortal was pretty sad lol.  I actually withdrew a little more than the initial bankroll before losing, but that's when I started thinking of periodic withdrawals.  After doing the math, the odds are still against you long-term.

[futureofbitcoin]

It makes more sense to compare based on # of bets than days/weeks/months or measure of time.

I'd be interested to know how many times people were able to double their initial bankroll before either quitting or losing it all.

The most I've been able to do is double 27.5 times initial bankroll before going bust.  The transition in feeling invincible to a mere mortal was pretty sad lol.  I actually withdrew a little more than the initial bankroll before losing, but that's when I started thinking of periodic withdrawals.  After doing the math, the odds are still against you long-term.

a lot of what was said on this page can be summed up in two words: Selective Memory.

That's all it is. I admit I'm guilty of it as much as the next person. You just gotta understand that your intuition sucks.

A personal anecdote: in 2005-2007 I played this game called Kingdom of Loathing. It's a pretty interesting stickman semi texted based mmorpg with lots of references and jokes and stuff. The currency in that game is "meat".

Anyway, there's a gambling mini-game within the game, which is essentially 50/50 double or nothing, with a small house cut.

Long story short, I managed to make 135,000,000+ meat starting from 70,000 meat, using a modified martingale system.

What happened after that, you might ask. Well, I lost it all . If only I could repeat this with real life money... but I never gamble with real money, except "gambling" by investing in bitcoins.

[qwer312]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

Do people resist so long with martingale, months? Honestly ive never survived more than 1 day using it

like in my case martingale is only good for less than 1 hour for me xD

[Ingatqhvq]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

Do people resist so long with martingale, months? Honestly ive never survived more than 1 day using it

Well, the short term may means no more than one days, may be just hours

[laris2]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

Do people resist so long with martingale, months? Honestly ive never survived more than 1 day using it

Worst thing here, people complain on the longer streaks!

[birdcat90]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

Do people resist so long with martingale, months? Honestly ive never survived more than 1 day using it

Well, the short term may means no more than one days, may be just hours

well, sometimes its not matter of hours..

maybe for some bets?
like a hundred or thousands? as we know that long term it will give us bad streaks

[sed]

Short term,maybe. It is possible to do well with martingale over a short number of trades.
Long term, account destruction. Eventually, you will hit a losing streak that will wipe you out. It may happen in the first week, or it may take a few months. Rest assured, it will happen. It is a mathematical certainty.

Do people resist so long with martingale, months? Honestly ive never survived more than 1 day using it

Well, the short term may means no more than one days, may be just hours

well, sometimes its not matter of hours..

maybe for some bets?
like a hundred or thousands? as we know that long term it will give us bad streaks

It can be tens of thousands or more.  That's the thing about luck games, you never know what's gonna happen until it has happened.  If it were not the case, it wouldn't be a luck game.

[Nami]

your bankroll has to be huge, and if it was huge already why bother trying to lose it.

[JoelKatz]

I'd be interested to know how many times people were able to double their initial bankroll before either quitting or losing it all.

That defeats the entire point of Martingale. The entire purpose of a progressive betting system is reduce your odds of losing. By repeating the process, you just increase your odds of losing, giving up the *only* benefit of using such systems in the first place.

[factor280]

The concept of Martingale is fantastic if you had an unlimited bankroll. Problem is one bad streak is going to wipe everything away. It has worked for me nicely when using it in moderation. For example, I start with .1 btc and when I double up, I stop. Or sometimes I withdraw .05 every time I make it until going bankrupt. Usually works out nicely unless im having really shitty luck.

[freeyourmind]

I'd be interested to know how many times people were able to double their initial bankroll before either quitting or losing it all.

That defeats the entire point of Martingale. The entire purpose of a progressive betting system is reduce your odds of losing. By repeating the process, you just increase your odds of losing, giving up the *only* benefit of using such systems in the first place.

The question wasn't based on the point of martingale, I'm just curious to hear about other peoples experiences.

What is the point of martingale to you?  Win a bet and then stop?