Support UkraineDoes Martingale Strategy for Roulette Work? (Test & Analysis)
The Martingale strategy is one of the most popular roulette strategies you could ever try. The system is ideal for new players who are only getting familiar with strategic algorithms and how they may impact your gameplay in a game of roulette. Today, we will discuss this strategy in depth, but also take a more serious look at how Martingale behaves when tested extensively. Just like you may imagine, Martingale is a strategy that does not work every time you try it. It has its drawbacks, but it also has many strengths.
The Martingale strategy for roulette was coined by Paul Pierre Levy, an 18th century French mathematician who wanted to figure out a way to analyse and defeat the roulette wheel, but quickly concluded that like many other games, the house edge is always going to interfere with a 100% success rate. Regardless, the strategy he developed is touted as one of the most accessible stratagems people can use across many games of chance, and not just roulette.
How Does the Martingale Strategy Work?
Martingale works in a pretty straightforward way. The idea is to bet the minimum unit per each individual wager, which usually means 1 unit. However, some games will allow you to also go lower than that, possibly to 0.10 or 0.20 units. This is great news as it gives you plenty of leeway. Martingale essentially tells you to double down after every loss, and to go back to your basic unit once you win again. The strategy only works for Even Money bets, which is to say Red/Black, Even/Odd or Higher/Lower bets. For our testing purposes, we have taken 1 unit as the basic bet we used. Here is an example of how the system works.
Example
- Step 1
We bet 1 unit on red. If we win, we will continue betting 1 unit until we lose. Then we move to Step 2.
- Step 2
Because we lost, we now double down and bet 2 units. If we lose again, we will double down again. If we win, we go back to 1 unit.
- Step 3
Let’s assume we lost in Step 2. Now we must bet 4 units. If we lose, we double down to 8 units again.
- Step 4
However, let’s assume we won in Step 3, and from 4 units we go back to 1 unit.
Putting Martingale to the Test
To better understand whether Martingale roulette is a good idea, we have done an extensive test of the strategy. The best way to do this is to test it over 1,000 rounds and this is precisely what we have done with the help of Google Sheets, which have allowed us to simulate hundreds of rounds of play. We picked 1,000 units as our budget and bet one unit per round. As you can see from the graph below, we almost lost it all around the 300th round, but we recovered and continued to bet.
There were several things to consider in the moment. We ended up losing quite a bit and were only able to recover because our bet of 512 units paid off in the moment. As you can see, however, Martingale, a good strategy as it is, could potentially betray its user because of the risk of running into ten consecutive losses and breaking the bank. Remember, it’s not just a matter of what the table limit is, but also how much money you have, and whether you can cover your losses.
The good news is that as soon as you recover, you will have no issue covering another loss, but the bad news is that you may run out of money – or the table limit to keep doing so past a certain point. Let’s look at another experiment right now. We have picked three players and set the bankroll to 300 units, which is something that more players can afford. We also set the algorithm to 100 rounds.
What Martingale strategy roulette reveals in this case is that all three players managed to increase their bankroll in the end, but both Player 2 and Player 3 had come close to losing the session. The first player managed to secure 59 units as a net win, above his 300 units which he started with, but he had to risk 300 units in the first place to have a chance to win what is a fraction more.
Why is it important to know all of this? Simply because this is proof that if you have a series of losses in a single sequence, you may break your budget and not be able to recover. The probability of this happening is 0.1275% for European Roulette, and 0.1631% for American Roulette.
The chances jump dramatically for eight-round loss sequence, to 0.5683% for European Roulette, and 0.5859% for American Roulette. Remember, you lose if 10 losses occur. You can’t double down after that as most tables are capped at 2,000 units.
What the Issue with Martingale Roulette Are
Although a fantastic strategy on the face of it, Martingale does face certain limitations and pitfalls that need to be treated seriously, and with understanding every time you approach the strategy and seek to use it to your advantage.
Betting Limits
The first drawback you need to be aware of is that even though you may have the money to continue recovering from your losses, the table limit may not really allow it. In other words, yes, you can have the money to double down after a big loss, but the table limit could be set to just 500 or 1000 units. Often, the table limits are set to 2,000 units, but then you need to have a bigger bankroll, which brings us to the second issue.
Money Means Safety with Martingale
As we have shown you across both tests, players with a smaller bankroll may run into trouble earlier. This means that they will have a problem with making up for a loss and staying in the game. If this happens, they will be limited not by the house edge per se, but rather by their own bankroll. This is why the more money you bring – even if you have no intention of risking it – gives you a level of safety in Martingale.
Time and Patience Are Important
For players who want to really win to some extent, they would have to remember that they need both time and patience to play and see meaningful results show on the reels. This is why it’s very important to take things easy and remember that you will not see a huge jump in your bankroll. Remember in our second test where the player won 59 units after 100 rounds of play? This is how Martingale usually works.
What of Martingale Strategy?
As you can see, Martingale is a strategy that follows some clear rules and is generally considered to be a very approachable and easy-to-understand strategy. It’s also one of the best examples in which you can see why even good strategies could fail.
Overall, it’s agreed that Martingale is a “winning strategy,” but the caveats we have listed throughout the article are very much true every time you sit down to play. Yes, you may be told that Martingale is a fantastic strategy and see a lot of superlatives thrown around.
We believe Martingale to be a fantastic strategy as well, but we want you to know what the pitfalls with this stratagem are. Here are the main takeaways:
- Martingale could work in theory if there were no table limits and you had endless bankroll.
- The strategy requires you to play for longer periods of time, with a minimum of 100 rounds being a good benchmark.
- You will only see incremental gains over time which may be a little too slow for some players.
- Martingale will result in 10 consecutive losses sooner or later, so it would be beneficial for you to understand the risk of this happening.
- Last but not least, we would still recommend Martingale to players, as you can win some amount of money with it, but luck will also play a factor as it always does with roulette and casino games of chance.
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