It is a TERRIBLE idea that has been tried numerous times by many folks who thought they hit upon a brilliant way to make easy money.

I assume you are talking about the Martingale system in which you double your bet each time you lose. When you win you go back to your original wager and start the progression all over again.

Since the house has an advantage in every game they offer, there is no betting system that can give the player an advantage over the house. When the house has the advantage it is a negative expectation game. You can not turn a negative expectation game into a positive expectation game with any betting system.

Now back to the Martingale with the limits you mentioned. Starting at $10 your progression would look as follows:

$10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560. After 9 wagers you are at the house limit. So I will analyze the Martingale with a maximum of 9 wagers in the progression.

In blackjack you can get a little under 0.5% of a house edge using basic strategy. You have to count cards in order to turn it into a positive expectation game. That means using basic strategy only, you have a 0.505% chance of losing 1 bet and a 0.0021% chance of losing 9 hands in a row or roughly 467 to 1. Those are fairly long odds that you would lose your wager if you bet it one time.

But the more often you play, the more likely it becomes that you will lose your progression even at those long odds. Play it 512 times and there is a 67% chance that you will lose your progression at least one time. So even though you have a 99.79% chance of winning the wager the first time you play it, over time that advantage rapidly decreases.

Each time you win your progression, you only win $10 no matter on which round you win the progression. But if you lose all 9 of the wagers in your progression, you lose a total of $5,110.

You want to win 50 bucks, try it 5 times and the odds are not too bad. But if you want to win serious money, the more you play the more likely you will hit the wall and lose the progression at least once.

Boy I remember being in a black tournament . It went like this . 6 PLAYERS AT A TABLE 3 WITH THE LOW AMOUNT WENT ON TO PLAY WITH OTHER LOW PLAYERS NEXT DAY WHILE TOP 3 AT TABLE WOULD PLAY OTHERS THAT WERE TOP 3 . You played 21 hands each round .With a 5,000.00 in chips .Min bet 5.00 Max bet 500.00 .I won one hand pushed 2 and lost ALL of the rest . Which me ending in the top 3 at my table . 😆 😆
I could not believe it . It was FUN .
The last tournament I was in my buddy who plays black jack lost right away and I made it to final table by pure LUCK .I got dealt 2 As so I split them and was dealt a 4 and a 5 . While I thought that it was all lost till the dealer busted .
The end win was a guy playing the bonus and hitting 4 kings suited for a 50 /1 win .
Love how luck can come into play .
Good Rolling. 🙂 🙂

No Skinny it is not the Martingale. It was an 8 bet progression. I played it for quite a while, several years though only played about 8 times a year back then, and was only a loser once and that was for less than $1000

It was something like $5, $15, $45, $125, $260, $550, $1200 and then $2500

So, the wins are $5, $10, $25, $60, $70, $100, $200, $300

I never ran the numbers all the way through but experimenting and in real life made a bunch on that.

Wondering about the math though. And, thinking about how to increase the spread to accommodate 10-3000 limits

It sounds like you are talking about something like the Grand Martingale. After the first loss, the wager is doubled (which will produce a win of one unit when successful). After each subsequent loss, the wager is doubled and an additional unit is added. Starting with a unit of 10 using the Grand Martingale, the player might wager 10, 30, 70, 150, 310, 630, 1270, 2550 before bumping up against the table limit of 3000. Wins would be 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70. You can vary those numbers if you want to make it more aggressive. In the end it does not matter.

When you play a negative expectation game you can expect to lose the house advantage times the total amount you wager against that house advantage over the long run. There is no way to beat the math of the game. Hence if you play a game where the house has a 0.5% edge, you can expect to lose 0.5% of the total amount of money you wager on that game by the end of your gaming on that game if you play for a significantly long enough period of time.

So if I run the numbers for blackjack using basic strategy with a 0.5% house edge you get the following for an 8 bet progression.

You have a 0.505% chance of losing 1 bet and a 0.0042% chance of losing 8 hands in a row or roughly 235 to 1.

The more often you play, the more likely it becomes that you will lose your progression in the 8th round even at those long odds. Play it 128 times and there is a 58% chance that you will lose your progression at least one time. After 256 times there is a 67% chance that you will lose your progression at least one time. So even though you have a 99.58% chance of winning the wager the first time you play it, over time that advantage rapidly decreases.

Yes, you may experience a number of short term wins. But over time you will get hammered. It is not a good idea and you never know when the hammer is likely to hit. If I were you I would count your blessings that you have not been hurt with this up to this point and move on from there.

A true advantage player only plays when he has an advantage. You seem to be fairing well with your discipline in learning the skill of controlled shooting. If you follow sound betting methods and strong discipline in choosing when to play and how to bet you should do well over the life of your gaming adventures. The path you choose is up to you.

235 to 1 to lose $4700 234 x $5 (minimum win) = $1170 $4700/234 = $20.01 That may be a bit simple but it seems to mean that your average win would only have to be that $20.01 for you to be a winner.

The stats on losing more than 2 hands in a row but not losing 8 in a row seem to support a winning strategy. Have to factor in those 1 win and 1 loss hands (how many of the 234 bets will be those lower than the average needed wins) and see how it turns out…

The 235 to 1 only applies the first time you play the game. The 2nd time you play the odds of winning 2 in a row get cut in half to around 118 to 1. On the 4th round the odds get cut in half again down to 59 to 1. It continues that way approximately with each successive game you play.

Yes, your math is too simplistic. The stats do not support a winning strategy.

In fact, let me quote someone whom you may find more convincing than me.

one definition of a pro is getting paid (another is someone truly good at it) — and if you want to get paid for your work, you do enough so you will get paid

Well I qualify as a pro when it comes to the math of the game by this individual’s definition of a pro.

If this sounds a bit like a rant, sorry, some doc was just giving me a complaint which is (in the end) because he neither studied nor practiced enough to do ABC™ well.

I have a similar situation here. If this sounds like a bit of a rant, sorry, some novitiate was looking for a shortcut because he does not have the knowledge, training or experience to understand what needs to be done to be successful.

Laughing.

Hell, if I knew or thought I did, I would not have asked.

In fact, what I thought I knew was that there could not be a progression that would win in the long run or they would not let the limits be that high. But, I did want the details.

I figured you would give me the missing data.

Getting the data and being able to think with it is also part of being a pro. Pros also are not hesitant to ask these questions and work like hell at getting things right by getting the data. Just look at that interview with DN.

I always consider it a good thing when I get my ass handed to me at a coaching session for anything. New chance to get it right.

As far as practice, I always remember part of an article/interview about/with Tiger when he reworked his swing the first time. He was talking about learning it and then going to a range for 7 or 8 hours a day to hit balls. After about 11 months he said he hit one and it was THE shot. Another, nope. Another, nope. Another, yes. Another, yes. He noted it was a good thing he hit that last one because it was dark, he was already an hour overdue to go home and was not leaving until he did two in a row.

On that practice subject, another article about Gary Player. Some guy was watching on the range before a tourney and said, "God, I would give anything to hit the ball like that." The author said he did not know why but Player just broke. He turned around and told the guy, You’re full of crap. If you would give anything tell me how many times you stood there hitting balls on the range until your hands bled because you were trying to get it just right every time."

Not quite 6 months in and still practicing hours per day. Screwing it up lately and cannot figure out why so I will be getting another private consult soon.

Thanks Skinny. I am at the knows enough to be dangerous stage and working through it.

Will you be in Vegas??

Happy to answer questions and I am glad you are curious. I was only a tad concerned that you may be drawing a wrong conclusion from the information I was giving because you were misinterpreting how to apply it. I would not anyone to make poor decisions based on information I gave them. Hence my attempt at bringing it back to reality.

As for being stuck in your practice, that tends to happen with athletic endeavors. It usually precedes a breakthrough of sorts. I hope this portends well for you in this case. Be patient and diligent, good things will come in time.

I will not be in Vegas. Other priorities keep me from being there.

Thanks. Look forward to meeting you sometime.