By far, the best known and most popular progressive gambling system is the Martingale system, which has been around for centuries. On the surface, this system seems so foolproof that thousands of hopeful gamblers think they have reinvented it, only to find out later that it’s not as infallible as they thought.
The appeal of the Martingale lies in its simplicity. You start off by betting one unit – say, $5. Whenever you win, you continue with the same $5 bet, but
whenever you lose, you double the next bet. Ifyou lose the next hand, you double again ($5, $10, $20, $40, $80, $160, $320, $640, and so on).
To many gamblers, the Martingale seems perfect. However, it has a couple of fatal flaws. The first problem is that by doubling up after every loss, eventually
you bump up against the maximum allowable bets in many casinos. A $5 starting unit will exceed $500 if you lose seven straight hands (which happens far more often than you may think).
But the real problem of the system is that it doesn’t work. If you’re playing a negative expectation game, such as roulette, you can expect to lose an amount that is close to the preset house advantage of 5.26 percent. The Martingale does give you a lot more winning sessions, but they’re mostly small. Your losing trips, however, are bone rattling.