Martingale Strategy Roulette

1. The Martingale Roulette Strategy
2. Martingale Betting System

The Martingale is the most common system that players use. The idea is simple – you increase your bets after every consecutive loss and then when you win, you go back to betting the original amount and start over.

Martingale – Fan-Favorite among the Best Roulette Strategies. Many professional gamblers make. Roulette Martingale works on the principle that a player can hypothetically increase their chances of winning in the short term by betting big to win small amounts. The Martingale system is most commonly used on outside bets, or even chance betting.

Most people use the Martingale on the even chance bets where it’s known as the “double up method” because you simply double your bets after every loss until you win, at which point you go back to betting the original amount.

The important thing to understand about the Martingale is that it can increase your chances of winning over the short term by betting big to win small. You will have more winning sessions than losing sessions, but your wins will be small and your losses, while less frequent, will be much bigger.

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To begin with, we’re going to list the progressions for using the Martingale on the outside bets and then we’re going to go a step further and list the losses at each step of the progression and then show you the odds of experiencing a long losing run. Following that, we will then list the progressions for the inside bets.

Even Chance Betting

1 – 2 – 4 – 8 – 16 – 32 – 64 – 128 – 256 – 512 – 1024 – 2048 – 4096 – 8192

That is the most common progression that you would use for Red/Black, Odd/Even and 1-18/19-36 betting. You don’t have to stick to the above progression but you do have to stick to the rule of doubling your last bet. For example you could use either of the following instead:

3 – 6 – 12 – 24 – 48 – 96 – 192 or 5 – 10 – 20 – 40 – 80 – 160 – 320

So long as you’re doubling your previous bet you’re fine. We would not recommend starting off with a £3 or £5 bet though because as you can see, the higher your starting number, the quicker your bets become too risky. You should always start out with the lowest possible bet that the table limits will allow for.

If you’ve never used or heard of the Martingale before, here’s exactly how you would use it, using the example of betting on Red. You would start by placing a £1 bet on Red, if it loses, you increase your next bet to £2. If this loses, you increase your next bet to £4 and so on.

You keep on doubling your bets every time you lose until you win. Then when you get the win, you go back to betting £1 again. You don’t have to stick to betting on the same colour, it’s totally up to you which one you bet on. So long as you keep doubling your bets, you will always be in profit when you get the win.

While the Martingale would appear to be a mathematically perfect and safe system with the small bets that it starts out with, don’t get ahead of yourself. The losses soon add up and so do the numbers that you need to bet to cover the previous losses. Here’s a table to illustrate this point:

The first thing that you need to understand about the table above is that the profit is always 1 £/$/€ no matter what stage of the progression you win at. Secondly, after 10 losses, your total loss would stand at 1023 and your next bet would need to be 1024 to cover those previous losses – a total outlay of 2047, all just to win 1 lousy £/$/€.

The Odds Of Losing 10 Spins In A Row

A lot of players dismiss these figures under the belief that getting 10 Reds or Blacks in a row is not going to happen, but the odds say otherwise. Let’s say that you’re betting on Black, here are the odds of Black not hitting for 10 spins in a row for both European and American roulette (these numbers would apply to any of the even money bets – Red/Black, Odd/Even and 1-18-19-36).

European Roulette: (19/37)^10 = 0.1275% – This works out at 1 in 784 chance.

American Roulette: (20/38)^10 = 0.1631% – This works out at 1 in 613 chance.

The reason these figures are for “Black not hitting for 10 spins” rather than “10 Reds in a row” is because they take into account the Zeros. You could very feasibly have 5 Reds in a row, a Zero, and then a further 4 Reds in a row, resulting in Black not hitting for 10 spins in a row.

What These Numbers Mean

Using European roulette as an example, there’s a 1 in 784 chance that the colour you’re betting on is not going to hit for 10 spins in a row. But this number applies to the start of the event, not during. In other words, when you first spin the wheel there’s a 1 in 784 that you will go on a run of your colour not hitting for 10 spins, but after 5 spins of your colour not hitting, the odds of that increasing to 10 are no longer 1 in 784 because you’ve already had 5 of them, so the odds reduce dramatically.

Also, with the odds being 1 in 784, you can expect to win £784 (give or take and starting out with a bet of £1) before you get a losing run of 10 in a row, resulting in a loss of £1023. So as you can see, the Martingale does increase your chances of short term winnings by betting big to win small, but the losses will out weigh the wins when they inevitably happen over long term play.

One thing that you should be aware of is that we have seen 15 colours in a row when playing roulette online so when this happens, you’re going to lose if you’re betting on the colour that isn’t hitting. If you would like to see this for yourself then spend half an hour or so in our Free Roulette section and you will almost certainly see a long streak of colours.

The Martingale On The Dozens

If you alter the numbers accordingly, the Martingale can be used on the Dozens and Columns which are the two other outside bets. Each of them covers 12 numbers and the payout is 2:1 meaning that when you bet 1, you win 3 back. Here is the progression you would use on the dozens, followed by another chart that highlights the amount lost at each stage.

1 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 6 – 9 – 14 – 21 – 31 – 47 – 70 – 105 – 158 – 237 – 355

With this table, we’ve added a “profit” column because the maths isn’t as “perfect” as it is for the even payout bets which means that the profit jumps up and down between 1 and 2. As you can see, the numbers go up slower than they do with the even chance bets but you’re also covering less of the table so this is to be expected.

After 15 losses in a row, your total loss would stand at 709 and your next bet would need to be 355 to cover the previous losses. That’s a total outlay of 1064 and betting large amounts on a bet that covers less than a third of the table is very risky.

15 spins in a row may seem like a lot without a Dozen or Column hitting but the odds tell a different story. Here are the odds of a particular Dozen or Column not hitting for 15 spins in a row on both European and American Roulette:

European Roulette: (25/37)^15 = 0.2793% – This works out at 1 in 358 chance.

American Roulette: (26/38)^15 = 0.3372% – This works out at 1 in 296 chance.

The odds say that 15 spins without a Dozen/Column hitting is a lot more likely than 10 spins without a Red/Black hitting. Also, using European roulette as an example, you can expect to win £358 (give or take starting with £1 a time) before you get 15 spins without your dozen hitting, resulting in a loss of £709 – almost double the winnings you’d have accumulated. Overall, the odds dictate that this is riskier than using the Martingale on the even chance bets.

Double Dozen Or Column Betting – This is an interesting idea where you bet on either two Dozens at the same time or two Columns at the same time using this progression.

1 – 3 – 9 – 27 – 81 – 243

What that progression means is betting the amounts above on two dozens at the same time rather than one. For example, 243 on 1st Dozen and 243 on 2nd Dozen.

With this style of betting you’re covering over half of the table so you will win more than half of your bets so in that respect, it’s a good system. The problem is that your bets are tripling after each loss so after just 6 losses, your total loss stands at 728 (1+3+9+27+81+243 = 364×2 = 728).

Here are the odds of the two Dozens or two Columns you’re betting on not hitting for 6 spins in a row for European and American Roulette.

European Roulette: (13/37)^6 = 0.1881% – This works out at a 1 in 531 chance.

American Roulette: (14/38)^6 = 0.2501% – This works out at a 1 in 399 chance.

Conclusion For Outside Bets – As you can see from all of the examples and maths provided above, the Martingale does not win enough during it’s winning runs to cover the inevitable losing run. The odds of a losing streak provided above should not be taken literally; they’re what you can expect over the long term of play rather than short term.

While the odds of your colour not hitting on European roulette for 10 spins may be a 1 in 784 chance, it could happen much sooner than that or later – that’s gambling for you.

Table Limits – One final point we should make before moving on are the table limits. All roulette games both online and in real casinos have table limits and once you hit them, you can no longer increase your bets and stick to the progression. Typically, most online casinos will limit outside bets to around £500 per spin, in other words, it won’t allow you to place a bet of £501 on Red.

The table limits vary from one online casino to another and while some casinos do have a higher table limit than £500, they usually have a higher minimum bet as well. In land based casinos, table limits vary greatly from one casino to another and they generally have higher minimum bets than online casinos, especially for the outside bets.

Inside Bets

You can also use Martingale style progressions on the inside bets and we have provided the progressions below. While we’ve provided the progressions below, we haven’t provided the odds of “X” amount of losses or profit/loss for different stages because there’s so many different stages below that this page would become needlessly long and complicated. For more detailed descriptions on what these bets are, check out our page on Roulette Bets.

Line Bet – This is basically half of a Dozen bet. It bets on 6 numbers at the same time. The progression for betting on one Line until it wins is as follows:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 10 – 12 – 14 – 17 – 21 – 25 – 30

Corner Bet – This is a 4 number bet that bets on a “square” of numbers on the roulette table, for example, 1,2,4,5 is a Corner bet. Here is the progression:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 12 – 14 – 16 – 18 – 20 – 23

Three Number Bet – There are different kinds of three number bets. You’ve got the Streets (12 of them) such as 1,2,3 and 34,35,36 (these are individual Street bets) and then you’ve got the 0,1,2 bet and the 0,2,3 bet. All of them use the following progression:

The Martingale Roulette Strategy

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 6 – 6 – 7 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 16

Split Bet – There are many Split bets on the roulette table and they’re simply two number bets that are adjacent to each other on the table. Here’s the progression for betting on a Split:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 6 – 6 – 6 – 7 – 7 – 8 – 8 – 9 – 9 – 10 – 10 – 11

Single Number – Pretty self explanatory really, here’s the progression for betting on a single number. An Important thing to keep in mind here is that we have seen over 400 online roulette spins without a number hitting. If you’re betting on a number that isn’t hitting it can become extremely costly so be careful.

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 6 – 6 – 6 – 6 – 6 – 6

Conclusion – So here you have all the different progressions for the Martingale system. Remember that all parts of the roulette table can go for long periods without hitting and when this happens, you will either go bust or hit the table limits. If you would like to find games that have seriously high limits, check out our listings of high stakes roulette games which have maximums of up to £250,000.

One general tip would be to set yourself a stop loss limit or a step in the progression where you will walk away. For example, if you’re betting on Red or Black you could say that if you get to the stage where you have to bet 32, bet it and stop if you lose. Sometimes this will stop you from going on to 64, 128, 256 and suffering a much bigger loss.

Martingale Betting System

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