Does martingale really works?

[dooglus]

I didn't understand that
- Gambler deposits
- Gambler plays
Path1; Plays and profits
- Player loses profit, tries to regain and loses deposit
- Player loses partial profit, cashes out
- Player loses all profit, cashes deposit out...he loses his time
- Player loses everything.
Path 2; plays and loses
- RE-deposits and chases losses
- Loses completely
- Loses a little bit of deposit then profits, cashes out
- Loses a little bit of deposit then profits and loses profit or loses the whole thing

Usuay they're the paths that ocur
Very limited options, but this is the occurrence of every gambler who plays dice

Basically it's a random walk - each bet either wins or loses. People spot patterns in the results, like winning streaks, losing streaks, periods where the player is breaking even - but really it's just a sequence of independent random wins and losses.

One path you missed, that I saw happen recently:

player deposits 3 BTC, loses it all
player redeposits 12 BTC, bets 6 BTC on first bet, recovering all previous losses and then some, makes a few small bets, then withdraws with a healthy net profit.

Sometimes chasing your losses works, but in general it's a bad idea.

[PacoMartin]

There was a whole thread about this recently.  OP basically was saying he was thinking of opening a 0% edge casino because "players play until they lose" and that aspect of player psychology would give his 0% edge casino an effective edge.

I think I managed to convince him (via simulation, ultimately) that it was a bad idea. Random walks without an edge pulling you down often go very high. You can have 5 players who play until they lose their $100 deposit, but if the 6th player gets lucky he can easily turn his $100 deposit into several thousand.

That is a very good answer you gave him. It's a little like people's belief in Martingale. Because they believe that every losing streak must end, if they only had an infinite bankroll they would come out ahead. Unfortunately if you had an infinite bankroll, the streaks would also be infinitely long. The gaming device has no memory, it doesn't care if you feel bad about losing 32 times in a row.

Likewise, your OP in your post thinks that human greed will eventually lead people to keep on gambling until they run out of money, and the casino will come out ahead in the long run despite having no edge. That's not true either. The emotion of human greed can no more cancel out the expected value, than the emotion of frustration can allow Martingale  to go from a negative EV game to a positive EV game.

JD is not at 1% because you are really not into the law of large numbers. Your whale so dominates actual percentage of play, that his luck dominates the overall statistics. You said that he is responsible for half the wagering in the first year.

Surprisingly large numbers of people believe that player greed is enough to make a casino profitable. They think that casinos only have a house edge because they are greedy.

[bet btc]

If a gambling system that could beat the house worked, no house would be left standing.

bet some coins, have your fun, don't expect to be rich of it...

[dooglus]

Surprisingly large numbers of people believe that player greed is enough to make a casino profitable. They think that casinos only have a house edge because they are greedy.

It's surprising how often you hear people say that Martingale was working really well for them, but then they got greedy, or lost focus, or some other such weakness.

As if the system would have continued to work if only they had stuck to the system.

[thimo]

Surprisingly large numbers of people believe that player greed is enough to make a casino profitable. They think that casinos only have a house edge because they are greedy.

It's surprising how often you hear people say that Martingale was working really well for them, but then they got greedy, or lost focus, or some other such weakness.

As if the system would have continued to work if only they had stuck to the system.

I gave a friend some chips to play with on JD and he told he knew a strategy that worked all the time. I said martingale? and told him it doesnt work. He went out to proof it did and he lost all in 5 minutes...

So i would say ignorance as well.

[zimmah]

For the people who like to try martingale (which i do not recommend) i have made a spreadsheet


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W_eAMRElsFZH--1npDBqBs_f-PoM7FsMBgPCzriYhSk

/edit I noticed a bug and fixed it, let me know if you find another big but it should be pretty accurate now.

[zimmah]

People tend to keep playing until they lose their deposit.  It's just a matter of time.

This point is often made about discussing house edge. Many people believe that a casino doesn't really need a house edge, since the majority of people tend to gamble away their money. Most people dream of turning their stake into a 100X jackpot, and basically would rather keep risking it all instead of winning just a little.

What do you (somebody besides dooglus) think about the need for a house edge?

Without a house edge casinos would not make any profit, at best they'd break even. Keep in mind casinos have expenses too, like the rent, electricity, wages fir employees, etc. casinos need a lot of profit to operate, house edge is neccesary.

How big the house edge should be is another question altogether. A lower house edge means you might attract more gamblers, but it's also slightly more risky (short term variance) and obviously you need more turnover to get the same profit.

[Cryptopher]

What we have to remember here is that the house is gambling 24/7, each roll is as much of a gamble for them as it is for you, depending on your roll settings, of course. Without the house edge they would be broke soon enough.

[leex1528]

For the people who like to try martingale (which i do not recommend) i have made a spreadsheet


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W_eAMRElsFZH--1npDBqBs_f-PoM7FsMBgPCzriYh

/edit I noticed a bug and fixed it, let me know if you find another big but it should be pretty accurate now.

You should probably make the document public if you are going to share it:)  I cannot see the document as I don't have rights.

[zimmah]

For the people who like to try martingale (which i do not recommend) i have made a spreadsheet


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W_eAMRElsFZH--1npDBqBs_f-PoM7FsMBgPCzriYh

/edit I noticed a bug and fixed it, let me know if you find another big but it should be pretty accurate now.

You should probably make the document public if you are going to share it:)  I cannot see the document as I don't have rights.

hmm, it's supposed to be public, let me check again.

Turns out i missed the last two letters..... FML

try this link instead:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W_eAMRElsFZH--1npDBqBs_f-PoM7FsMBgPCzriYhSk

[leex1528]

For the people who like to try martingale (which i do not recommend) i have made a spreadsheet


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W_eAMRElsFZH--1npDBqBs_f-PoM7FsMBgPCzriYh

/edit I noticed a bug and fixed it, let me know if you find another big but it should be pretty accurate now.

You should probably make the document public if you are going to share it:)  I cannot see the document as I don't have rights.

hmm, it's supposed to be public, let me check again.

Turns out i missed the last two letters..... FML

try this link instead:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W_eAMRElsFZH--1npDBqBs_f-PoM7FsMBgPCzriYhSk

So its a very nice doc now..The only thing you should add is a roll counter---I mean you can see why its good to do Martingale with this, but that's about it. 

So maybe add a roll count to change the probability of busting/or profiting..

[zimmah]

i'm not sure what you mean by roll counter.

I have been trying to make a version 2 where it adds the option to adjust the win chance, but it proves to be rather difficult to get it working properly.

I think the percentages are pretty accurate, however the maximum lose streak might not be accurate, and also the amount of bitcoin lost is sometimes several orders of magnitude greater than the bankroll (or even all bitcoins in existence for that matter).

so there's still some flaws in the calculations but i can't be arsed to find them at the moment.

If you're interested in seeing it here is the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1urhC3Su1ByvstzfKu5SOwUKYQm2xO0cXOisK8hawNn8/


/edit i may or may not have found the cause, it may or may not be fixed

you mean like the amount of attempts (for example stop after 'x' amount of losses and than start again with the same conditions)?

I could probably do that.

[zolace]

Martingale can work if sites didnt play dirty like max bet limit and you have lots of money.    Thats why rich people are smart enough to stay away from gambling and the reason why they rather play poker

[Swordsoffreedom]

Yeah it always fails in the end.  I used doge-dice for awhile and and used really small percentage of my total, but eventually the house always wins.  It can take a long time though if you use really small percentages of your total.  I got over half a million bets before going bust.

Yah its easy to test a martingale stategy with dogecoins since there are so many of those
Although not sure what sites you can use now that doge-dice is closed for a while.

[zimmah]

Martingale can work if sites didnt play dirty like max bet limit and you have lots of money.    Thats why rich people are smart enough to stay away from gambling and the reason why they rather play poker

No, as my sheets show even if you have 21 million bitcoins and bet 1 satoshi as initial bet you would still lose. Picking different winning odds does not matter either.

The only way to possibly win martingale is if both you and the exchange have infinite money, but what's the point of gambling with infinite money?

Any finite number very large will have a 99.99999999999999999999999999% of winning, but the one time it does lose you will lose everything

[ranochigo]

Martingale can work if sites didnt play dirty like max bet limit and you have lots of money.    Thats why rich people are smart enough to stay away from gambling and the reason why they rather play poker

Not really, you can bust without hitting the site's max bet. Martingale just doesnt work in the long run.

[Xiaoxiao]

Martingale can work if sites didnt play dirty like max bet limit and you have lots of money.    Thats why rich people are smart enough to stay away from gambling and the reason why they rather play poker

Not really, you can bust without hitting the site's max bet. Martingale just doesnt work in the long run.

martingale would work for A LONG TIME if there was no min or max bet and you had a decent amount of money.

Chances of losing over 10 in a row is 1 in 2048....

[Minnlo]

Martingale can work if sites didnt play dirty like max bet limit and you have lots of money.    Thats why rich people are smart enough to stay away from gambling and the reason why they rather play poker

Not really, you can bust without hitting the site's max bet. Martingale just doesnt work in the long run.

martingale would work for A LONG TIME if there was no min or max bet and you had a decent amount of money.

Chances of losing over 10 in a row is 1 in 2048....

But you won't get much profit (compared with the risked amount), and eventually you will hit a long losing streak.

[dooglus]

Martingale can work if sites didnt play dirty like max bet limit and you have lots of money.

It's not dirty to set a maximum bet limit, it's absolutely necessary.

If there's no limit then you can place a bet that the house is unable to pay out on if you win.

That would be dirty.

[zimmah]

Martingale can work if sites didnt play dirty like max bet limit and you have lots of money.    Thats why rich people are smart enough to stay away from gambling and the reason why they rather play poker

Not really, you can bust without hitting the site's max bet. Martingale just doesnt work in the long run.

martingale would work for A LONG TIME if there was no min or max bet and you had a decent amount of money.

Chances of losing over 10 in a row is 1 in 2048....

But you won't get much profit (compared with the risked amount), and eventually you will hit a long losing streak.

The problem is that no matter how small the odds of losing are, the amount you will lose will be so large that it will completely nullify all your gains.