There is a lot of mental energy invested into deciding whether or not it is possible to bet strategically at casinos. After all, if you can work up a viable strategy for betting, then surely you can be more confident of winning? And if that’s the case, aren’t you beating the casino at their own game? If that’s the way you view casino strategy, however, the unfortunate truth is that there is no strategy that will make wins more likely (other than betting on lower-odds outcomes, which sort of misses the points). The real benefit of an effective casino strategy is that it allows you to maxmize the benefits of your wins, and soften the blow when you lose.
That’s still a worthwhile goal, and when you go to a casino such as the ones listed on sinlicencia.org, it is worth having some idea of a strategy in mind. One of the most popular strategies in casino betting is the Martingale strategy. As we’ll see, the strategy is based around changing your bet size in reaction to a previous result. But does it actually work? That may depend on what you consider to be “working”.
What is the Martingale strategy in a nutshell?
The concept, as basically as possible, is this: You bet an amount, we’ll say for argument’s sake it’s $10, on an outcome with 1:1 odds such as Red or Black. If it doesn’t happen, you’ve lost $10, and your next bet will be $20. If you win, then you’ve so far staked $30 and won $40, so you’ve profited $10 (as you would have had the initial bet won). If you lose again, your next bet will be $40. So you’ve staked a total of $70, but if you win, that’s $80, a profit of $10. You can also use the Martingale as a betting strategy on Win/Loss games like Blackjack or Baccarat.
Does it work?
It can, but bear in mind that you’ll need to have the funds to back it. If your bankroll is, say, $100 – and you start with a $10 stake – then by the time you’re on your third bet you can’t go any higher. You’ll have lost $70, and would need to stake $80 (a running total of $150, which is over your bankroll) to even have a chance of getting it back. Anyone who has played roulette will tell you that it’s easy to lose three or four, or more, bets on Red or Black consecutively. If you had unlimited funds, it would be a great strategy – but it’s a big commitment to end up just winning $10.
So it doesn’t work?
Well, it depends what you mean by “work”. If you match stake to bankroll well enough, you should win eventually, and while running out of funds can happen, you’re never going to find a strategy that guarantees against that. You do, however, have to have an amount that you can lose comfortably in mind, and tailor your stake accordingly. If you bet a dollar as a first stake, you’ll only be able to lose eight bets before your losses cross into the hundreds. In other words, if it doesn’t work early on, you’ll have a decision to make on when to bail. Also, many roulette tables have limits, and if you run into those, the strategy crashes.
