Does martingale really works?

[dooglus]

The operators can't bet as it would potentially invite charges of fraud.

I have played in the past, but went to great lengths to prove that I wasn't cheating.

If I want to play I need to:

1) outline exactly how I'm going to bet
2) publish my server seed hash
3) obtain my client seed from multiple people in the chat
4) enter that client seed
5) bet as described in step 1
6) hit 'randomize' to publish the server seed, and let everyone verify the rolls

That's a pain to do, and it keeps me from playing for the most part.

Here's a log I posted of when I did do exactly those steps:

http://www.reddit.com/r/justdice/comments/1vbo1p/justdice_owner_plays_his_own_game_and_wins/

The owner dooglus was sweating a 50 BTC proposition bet that he made.

That's more because he's a tightass than because he couldn't afford to lose it.

[dooglus]

Here is a post from September 2013 from Nakowa himself. At this point he estimates that he was up 6,000BTC. He was upset because JD lowered the maximum bet from 1% of Bank to .25% of Bank.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1my8fc/im_the_whale_on_justdice_id_love_to_answer/

JD has raised the max bet to .50% of Bank today.

While it's true that it's currently at 0.5%, what you wrote could be understood as meaning that it changed today.

The maximum profit per roll has only changed twice, as follows:

2013-06-20 started at 1%
2013-09-25 10:34:16 changed to 0.25%
2013-09-28 00:00:05 changed to 0.5%

To the best of knowledge, the only real reason to play under different names is so that the casino isn't spooked and lowers the maximum bet. Other than that, I can't see any real advantage.

Some reasons I can think of:

Gamblers are superstitious. If you stay on an account too long, maybe you wear out its luck. Maybe you don't quite trust the site operator, and think he could be turning on the imaginary doomswitch on your old account, so you make a new one. Maybe you have built up a reputation as a whale who never loses, so you make a new account each time you play, and if you lose you pretend it wasn't you.  If you win you can shout "yes! I won again!" - but if you use the same account all the time the site owner will easily be able to make a chart of your wins *and* losses and people will see that sometimes you lose.

Statistically you would eventually make the money back, but you still have to meet the loans by investors.

Borrowing money to gamble with, even when you're gambling with a positive expectation, seems dangerous.  The people lending coins to Just-Dice are fully aware that they might not get as much back as they lend, and are happy with that deal.

[PacoMartin]

I don't have exact numbers, because I don't know for sure which accounts were his.  But I estimate that he risked 2.5 million BTC and won 10k BTC.  The 2.5 million he risked should have netted the house 25k BTC.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1my8fc/im_the_whale_on_justdice_id_love_to_answer/
On this blog, Nakowa himself says he doesn't remember, but he estimates 10K+.

What's the total winnings you've taken out of JD?
[–]nakowa-allover
Lost track though, like 10k+, I think.

[PacoMartin]

Borrowing money to gamble with, even when you're gambling with a positive expectation, seems dangerous.  The people lending coins to Just-Dice are fully aware that they might not get as much back as they lend, and are happy with that deal.

That's true. The investors in the Golden Nugget were promised regular payments at a fixed interest rate. They did not benefit if the casino did well, and when the whale took $8.5 million in two weeks, the owners were scrambling to make the payments.

I didn't mean to be personal about sweating 50 BTC, but the previous poster seemed to think that JD had made 50,000 BTC. He was confusing The Bank with profits.

There was a story last year bout Kristoffer Koch,a Norwegian man who purchased 5000 BTC in 2009 for 150 kroner. Currently they would be worth 17 million kroner. He was able to buy an apartment in Oslo with only a portion of his BTC.

[boumalo]

Borrowing money to gamble with, even when you're gambling with a positive expectation, seems dangerous.  The people lending coins to Just-Dice are fully aware that they might not get as much back as they lend, and are happy with that deal.

That's true. The investors in the Golden Nugget were promised regular payments at a fixed interest rate. They did not benefit if the casino did well, and when the whale took $8.5 million in two weeks, the owners were scrambling to make the payments.

I didn't mean to be personal about sweating 50 BTC, but the previous poster seemed to think that JD had made 50,000 BTC. He was confusing The Bank with profits.

There was a story last year bout Kristoffer Koch,a Norwegian man who purchased 5000 BTC in 2009 for 150 kroner. Currently they would be worth 17 million kroner. He was able to buy an apartment in Oslo with only a portion of his BTC.

The profit is headed to 20,000BTC, it is pretty good considering...

The norvegian apparently bought 5000BTC for 27$ in 2009! He pretends he exchanges 1/5th of its belongings to buy an appartement in the center of Oslo

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/29/bitcoin-forgotten-currency-norway-oslo-home

[pastet89]

Yes, Martingale works for sure - it is 100% sure that it will lead you to a full bancrupt. 

[chaosPT]

Thats very lucky on this bet..

2014-06-14 23:14:44 #1248223656: 5.12  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:95.8334 profit:51.20000000

9% and he got lucky i guess thats his last btc ...

[sherbyspark]

Martingale works...
But do it in a live casino than sites like JD,PD etc. It is because you can never verify the spins on these sites.
I have had a losing streak of 20(at 49.5%.. on PD. and mathematically, the probability of that happening is less than 0.01 %...
So , Save your money and invest in something else...
In real casinos, I have never had a losing streak of more that 11... and this means over a sample size of more than 1000's of rolls.

[chaosPT]

Martingale works...
But do it in a live casino than sites like JD,PD etc. It is because you can never verify the spins on these sites.
I have had a losing streak of 20(at 49.5%.. on PD. and mathematically, the probability of that happening is less than 0.01 %...
So , Save your money and invest in something else...
In real casinos, I have never had a losing streak of more that 11... and this means over a sample size of more than 1000's of rolls.

Sure you are hardly to hit that losing streak on casino because you don play 500k games on casino

In Dice game of bitcoin you can easily hit 500k bet with wholeday betting or autobot which a human cant do .

[sherbyspark]

I havent even played more than 500 hands on PD, and it happened to me..
I also lost a 66% favourite bet around 10 times  on dice sites as well, which is why I dont trust them. But I am not stopping anyone from doing so.

[Lieji]

Martingale works...
But do it in a live casino than sites like JD,PD etc. It is because you can never verify the spins on these sites.

To be honest, I trust sha512 more than live casino lol.

[boumalo]

For the third day in a row there has been another crazy Martingale sequence on Just-Dice.  Today's was looking like a textbook "no, it doesn't work" story:

Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't

The operators can't bet as it would potentially invite charges of fraud.

I have played in the past, but went to great lengths to prove that I wasn't cheating.

If I want to play I need to:

1) outline exactly how I'm going to bet
2) publish my server seed hash
3) obtain my client seed from multiple people in the chat
4) enter that client seed
5) bet as described in step 1
6) hit 'randomize' to publish the server seed, and let everyone verify the rolls

That's a pain to do, and it keeps me from playing for the most part.

Here's a log I posted of when I did do exactly those steps:

http://www.reddit.com/r/justdice/comments/1vbo1p/justdice_owner_plays_his_own_game_and_wins/

The owner dooglus was sweating a 50 BTC proposition bet that he made.

That's more because he's a tightass than because he couldn't afford to lose it.

It seems to be the way to do it

If you play a few BTC and you don't get too lucky nobody will have a problem with it anyway

[seandaniel]

Yes, Martingale works for sure - it is 100% sure that it will lead you to a full bancrupt. 

agreed
martingale really works af first nd middle, but in the end you will loose all your money. as simple as that

[Wendigo]

Isn't employing martingale in livecasinos forbidden? I have heard stories that the security staff would throw you out.

[boumalo]

Isn't employing martingale in livecasinos forbidden? I have heard stories that the security staff would throw you out.

No but they have min bet and max bet on tables that makes it unconvenient

[PacoMartin]

Isn't employing martingale in livecasinos forbidden? I have heard stories that the security staff would throw you out.

That's a myth. Casinos love martingale players. It's also a myth that minimums and maximum bets are there to prevent Martingale. Minimums are there because casinos consider bets that are too small to be a waste of time considering overhead, and maximum bets are there because the variance is too high for the casino to handle.

[LiteCoinUser84]

Isn't employing martingale in livecasinos forbidden? I have heard stories that the security staff would throw you out.

No but they have min bet and max bet on tables that makes it unconvenient

And more to the point unprofitable...

The Martingale system is a con... an edge will always cut you apart in the long haul. Graphs being posted here suggest there is on average at some point when using the system an advantage but that is not true...

[makebitcoin]

For the third day in a row there has been another crazy Martingale sequence on Just-Dice.  Today's was looking like a textbook "no, it doesn't work" story:



Here's the bet list:

2014-06-13 00:41:00 #1244304175: 0.05  BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:00.7533 profit: 0.50000000
2014-06-13 14:32:10 #1245662784: 0.005 BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:10.9146 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:32:11 #1245662813: 0.005 BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:18.1392 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:32:12 #1245662856: 0.005 BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:11.5765 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:32:13 #1245662901: 0.005 BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:54.3217 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:32:23 #1245663155: 0.01  BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:08.5585 profit: 0.10000000
2014-06-13 14:34:58 #1245668162: 0.005 BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:43.9689 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:34:59 #1245668192: 0.005 BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:08.6756 profit: 0.05000000
2014-06-13 14:35:52 #1245669913: 0.005 BTC @ 9% lo: lucky:06.8303 profit: 0.05000000
2014-06-13 14:36:18 #1245670834: 0.005 BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:64.5362 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:36:19 #1245670868: 0.005 BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:72.7992 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:36:20 #1245670901: 0.005 BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:00.3965 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:36:21 #1245670928: 0.005 BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:47.7635 profit:-0.00500000
2014-06-13 14:36:25 #1245671081: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:08.1365 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:36:26 #1245671115: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:49.5784 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:36:27 #1245671145: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:45.1318 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:36:28 #1245671175: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:09.9812 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:36:33 #1245671347: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:64.8656 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:36:34 #1245671375: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:47.7898 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:36:35 #1245671415: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:26.5349 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:36:36 #1245671461: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:21.8506 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:36:41 #1245671617: 0.04  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:97.2494 profit: 0.40000000
2014-06-13 14:37:45 #1245673756: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:33.8547 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:37:47 #1245673794: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:61.4345 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:37:47 #1245673824: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:41.7218 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:37:48 #1245673851: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:46.2298 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:37:54 #1245674061: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:85.6451 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:37:55 #1245674098: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:14.3989 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:37:56 #1245674126: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:01.3642 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:37:57 #1245674160: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:11.4983 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:38:03 #1245674350: 0.04  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:96.7545 profit: 0.40000000


2014-06-13 14:38:42 #1245675687: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:68.4204 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:38:43 #1245675716: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:76.6544 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:38:44 #1245675737: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:50.0012 profit:-0.01000000
2014-06-13 14:38:45 #1245675766: 0.01  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:27.7386 profit:-0.01000000

2014-06-13 14:38:50 #1245675943: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:59.6728 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:38:51 #1245675964: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:73.2064 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:38:52 #1245676035: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:24.9378 profit:-0.02000000
2014-06-13 14:38:53 #1245676071: 0.02  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:71.5192 profit:-0.02000000

2014-06-13 14:38:56 #1245676192: 0.04  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:30.5843 profit:-0.04000000
2014-06-13 14:38:57 #1245676234: 0.04  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:85.9242 profit:-0.04000000
2014-06-13 14:38:58 #1245676276: 0.04  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:10.8473 profit:-0.04000000
2014-06-13 14:39:01 #1245676365: 0.04  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:81.5004 profit:-0.04000000

2014-06-13 14:39:04 #1245676490: 0.08  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:43.9120 profit:-0.08000000
2014-06-13 14:39:06 #1245676563: 0.08  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:23.5648 profit:-0.08000000
2014-06-13 14:39:08 #1245676610: 0.08  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:26.2756 profit:-0.08000000
2014-06-13 14:39:10 #1245676658: 0.08  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:73.9017 profit:-0.08000000

2014-06-13 14:39:16 #1245676848: 0.16  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:02.5362 profit:-0.16000000
2014-06-13 14:39:17 #1245676888: 0.16  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:88.5454 profit:-0.16000000
2014-06-13 14:39:18 #1245676928: 0.16  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:40.6418 profit:-0.16000000
2014-06-13 14:39:19 #1245676976: 0.16  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:40.1056 profit:-0.16000000

2014-06-13 14:39:35 #1245677502: 0.32  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:24.3999 profit:-0.32000000
2014-06-13 14:39:36 #1245677549: 0.32  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:33.9988 profit:-0.32000000
2014-06-13 14:39:40 #1245677668: 0.32  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:76.5500 profit:-0.32000000
2014-06-13 14:39:56 #1245678113: 0.32  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:06.8119 profit:-0.32000000

2014-06-13 14:41:55 #1245682013: 0.64  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:22.4410 profit:-0.64000000
2014-06-13 14:42:04 #1245682310: 0.64  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:90.7498 profit:-0.64000000
2014-06-13 14:42:05 #1245682346: 0.64  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:52.0964 profit:-0.64000000
2014-06-13 14:42:06 #1245682380: 0.64  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:74.9434 profit:-0.64000000

2014-06-13 14:48:23 #1245695486: 1.28  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:00.2477 profit:-1.28000000
2014-06-13 14:48:25 #1245695533: 1.28  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:06.4123 profit:-1.28000000
2014-06-13 14:48:27 #1245695591: 1.28  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:00.1788 profit:-1.28000000
2014-06-13 14:48:28 #1245695627: 1.28  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:63.4538 profit:-1.28000000

2014-06-13 15:11:00 #1245741470: 2.56  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:19.8649 profit:-2.56000000
2014-06-13 15:11:02 #1245741542: 2.56  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:43.9854 profit:-2.56000000
2014-06-13 15:11:03 #1245741606: 2.56  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:85.6663 profit:-2.56000000
2014-06-13 15:11:05 #1245741655: 2.56  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:44.0836 profit:-2.56000000

but then, 32 hours after his long losing sequence he came back and made one last bet in the sequence:

2014-06-14 23:14:44 #1248223656: 5.12  BTC @ 9% hi: lucky:95.8334 profit:51.20000000

And then his chart looked like this:



Does martingale really works?

It appears that yes, sometimes it really does if you have balls of steel...

Here's how noway's win fits in with the rest of the week's gains and losses at JD:



Here are his bets broken up into Martingale progressions:

0.5
-0.005 -0.005 -0.005 -0.005  0.1
-0.005  0.05
 0.05
-0.005 -0.005 -0.005 -0.005 -0.01 -0.01 -0.01 -0.01 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02  0.4
-0.01 -0.01 -0.01 -0.01 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02  0.40
-0.01 -0.01 -0.01 -0.01 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02 -0.02 -0.04 -0.04 -0.04 -0.04 -0.08 -0.08 -0.08 -0.08 -0.16 -0.16 -0.16 -0.16 -0.32 -0.32 -0.32 -0.32 -0.64 -0.64 -0.64 -0.64 -1.28 -1.28 -1.28 -1.28 -2.56 -2.56 -2.56 -2.56 51.2

I think this is an example of why it does not work. He was only going to win a few 0.005 bets in the best case scenario and in this case he was only a few bets away of losing his total bankroll. It was either a win of 0.005 or a loss of 100+ BTC.

[boumalo]

Isn't employing martingale in livecasinos forbidden? I have heard stories that the security staff would throw you out.

That's a myth. Casinos love martingale players. It's also a myth that minimums and maximum bets are there to prevent Martingale. Minimums are there because casinos consider bets that are too small to be a waste of time considering overhead, and maximum bets are there because the variance is too high for the casino to handle.

Of course they love martingale players and min bet is here because of the overhead but max bets are very low on some tables, maybe to prevent players to lose/win all at once : they want the players to play as much as possible so they lose as much as possible in the long run; it may be for security/marketing reasons as well

[dooglus]

There was a story last year bout Kristoffer Koch,a Norwegian man who purchased 5000 BTC in 2009 for 150 kroner. Currently they would be worth 17 million kroner. He was able to buy an apartment in Oslo with only a portion of his BTC.

Yes, lots of people made lots of money buying Bitcoin early on.

I found Bitcoin in January 2011 and bought 40 BTC for $0.37 each, paying a total of $15.15 I think.

At the time it was really unclear that they would ever be worth anything, so it was hard to justify spending any significant amount of money on them.

As soon as June 2011 the price peaked at over $30 each before falling back to around $2 by the autumn.  I expect a lot of those who bought very cheaply in 2009 would have been unable to resist selling at some point in 2011.

And now we're sitting between $500 and $600.  Will we be kicking ourselves that we didn't sell before the price dropped to $2 again?  Or because we did sell and the price climbed to $10k?  I don't know...