Talk:Martingale (betting system)

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Hmm.. How can the player loose $160 in any session if the starting bid is $10? See, first he bets $10, then $20, then $40, then $80. The sum of his bets is $150. So the given calculations do not look right. Can anyone explain and/or correct the article??? Second point: why does it say that on average each winning session gives $4.30? Each winning session gives the initial bet, so that is $10 in this scenario. So why isn't it as follows: for 100 sessions (96 winning, 4 loosing), the player:
- wins 96 times of $10 = $960
- looses 4 times of $150 = $600
In the end he gains $360 dollars.
23/Aug/2006

I believe that if used with craps and you bet on the field starting with a bet of 5$ and doubling up until you win, that eventually you will turn a profit. You see there are 36 possible combinations of dice, 17 of which win you money and 19 of which where you lose money. But snake eyes and 12s gives you three times the pay out so you really have a 19/36 chance rather than 17/36. Sure you could get a very unlucky streak but the odds are in your favor to win. TrueSilver 21:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this encyclopedic? I'm not sure of exactly how the Wikipedia stands on howtos... Ed Cormany 03:19 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Question: who invented the Martingale system, and when? Martin

Is there any reason why this should not be merged into the main Martingale article? --Henrygb 17:09, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This seems pretty POV to me.. Like warning to some gambling addicts that this will not work. This is one of the best betting strategies on roulette and works pretty good if you find a high limit table somewhere..

• I don't see how this is any more POV than stating that perpetual motion machines are not physically possible. You can't ever have positive expected value on an unbiased roulette table.

• • You're right. It's a statement of fact. But it's best just to let the idiots who think they can win at roulette using Martingale (or anything) find it out the hard way. 82.13.187.127 08:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

But does the strategy really require that the gambler has an infinite wealth? I would easily try this out once as soon as I have a companion that could lend me any amount of money for a very short period of time without interest. I would pay him back everything within a minute or so—guaranteed. It's risk free for him and it's risk free for me—and yet I know I will win the amount I want. Am I really an idiot then? INic 02:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

In what way is it risk-free? It is perfectly clear that there is *always* a chance of catastrophic loss. With any real amount of money, you have a chance to lose it all. That is *not* risk-free.

No the only catastroph that can happen is if I lose all money I have and have to stop playing. But this never happens here because I can always get a cheque with the amount I need written on it so that I can continue to play. And I know also that I wil win pretty soon. I will never experience 100 losses in a row for example. INic 02:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

No the only catastroph that can happen is if I lose all money I have and have to stop playing. Yes, indeed. Ponder that for a while.

But this never happens here because I can always get a cheque with the amount I need written on it so that I can continue to play. Your credit rating must be astronomic.

I will never experience 100 losses in a row for example. And even in the unlikely chance that you do, provided your initial bet was $1, you will only lose $1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,375. And it's so much more likely that you'll win a single paltry buck, after all. Aragorn2 11:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

If you play this strategy long-term, you are *mathematically guaranteed* to lose all your money, since you will eventually hit a large enough losing streak to clean you out. With "infinite wealth", you can keep doubling your bet each time and you will eventually hit a win and recoup your losses; therefore with infite wealth you win on average. But without infinite wealth, you will eventually lose.

I will play it only once as I said. INic 02:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Incedentally, why would the money have to be borrowed? Surely you have your own which you can gamble with? Or would you just like to ensure that if you do lose, somebody else pays?--Rhebus 11:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The money have to be borrowed because it could happen that I have to play with a cheque representing more money than there is in the world, or even more gold than is available in the universe. But that doesn't matter because I will pay him back within a minute. INic 02:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Casinos tend to have maximum stakes. Mikekelly 00:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Correct, but we're not investigating a real gambling situation here but rather a thought experiment. My question is if I'm really an idiot if I want to play given that the conditions I specify are fulfilled? I would in fact play and I don't think I'm an idiot. INic 01:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

If you can find someone who will act as casino and allow you to wager an unlimited stake without having to pay up until after the game is over then you are sure to win. So in a thought experiment where there is no maximum stake you would not be an idiot for using this strategy. Your original question was "does this strategy really require infinite wealth to pull off"? The answer is yes. If you do not have some infinite source of wealth to wager with then this is a losing system. Mikekelly 09:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

But I know from the outset that I always will pay back the amounts that I borrow within minutes. The guy lending me money does this risk-free. This means that he easily can lend me more money than what he actually has. If the casino accepts cheques for example I can literally gamble without limit and without risk of losing. In practice I know, in addition, that I will never have to double my stake more than say 30 times. This ensures that the gamble will be not only finite in time but very short. So where is the supposedly required infinitude in wealth? INic 00:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Your "guy lending me unbounded amounts of money" is your infinitude of wealth. Mikekelly 11:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

But those cheques aren't worth more than the paper they are written on. As we know that no one ever will go to the bank with our cheques to cash them in we don't have to have any money at all on our bank account. We can write any amount on them risk free anyway. In fact, it's the very property that we can write any amount that guarantees that we can write any amount. If there is a limit we can't write anything without losing in the long run, at least in theory. It could still be so improbable that we would lose that we could safely ignore that case. INic 02:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

When you find a casino that will let you use a billion dollar cheque to wager with, unverified, let me know. 160.39.190.180 02:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I find your argument very strange, iNic. You are saying that you don't need infinite wealth to execute the strategy, because you are able to write infinite checks that don't actually represent real wealth. I think the problem with this discussion is jumping back and forth between 'in practice' and 'in theory'. In practice, no casino would allow you to wager more than some secured amount that they can reasonably expect to collect from you. You would always be limited by your credit, even if the table did not have explicit limits. In theory, you have constructed a game in which you are writing down numbers that don't represent real wealth, and the imaginary casino accepts those numbers, even though they don't represent actual wealth. So yes, in that constructed scenario, you don't need infinite wealth. You don't even need any money to play at all, you can just write numbers on a piece of paper to play. But that's not an interesting scenario. It doesn't prove anything. It's like saying that you can prove that everything is free as long as you stipulate that you infinite credit. Tristanreid 22:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This page takes a mathematical look at the system and comes up with some conclusions summarized in a few tables, it might be helpful for the article or just for this debate. --BigCow 23:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we need to clearly distinguish between 'in practice' and 'in theory' here. But not even in theory we need infinite wealth to use the strategy as you claim, all we need is unlimited wealth. Anhyway, two things happen to the situation when we go from 'theory' to 'practice,' that actually cancel out. In practice there are always limits to wealth of course, but in practice there are also always limits to a losing sequence with a 50% chance of losing every time. The problem with your reasoning is that you take the first practical limit into account but not the second. In addition I've added an extra detail that can be done in practice, the possibility to temporarily fool the casino. That can in practice be accomplished in many ways. I could have hacked the security system so that my visa card always said yes for example. The point is that I know that this strategy is risk free. I will never be charged any astronomical sum of money as I know for sure I will win in the end. Remember I will use this strategy in practice only ONCE. And of course i can use real money as my first stake. INic 11:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

But Unlimited and Infinite are the same. Infinite doesn't mean it is Hitchhiker's Guide Infinity; it means without bound, bigger than whatever you have. How much money do you need? 2N, where N is the amount you just lost. That's without bound, and that IS infinity. GumbyProf: "I'm about ideas, but I'm not always about good ideas." 05:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Infinity comes in many different flavors and one major divide is between actual infinities and merely potential infinity (that even most finitists accept). What we need here is clearly not any actual infinity. In fact, we don't even need potential infinity. The reason is that in practice I know, for sure, that I will never lose more than say 100 times in a row. It will simply never happen. And 2¹⁰⁰ is very far from infinity of any flavor, actual or not. INic 02:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, COME ON! "It will simply never happen," yet the probability, 2 ^{− 100}, is the inverse of something which is "very far from infinity of any flavor?" I would think that, even in imprecise terms, something "will simply never happen" would have an inverse which would be close to infinity.

No, this is in fact not the case. We can be absolutely certain that events with very small probabilities never will happen anywhere in our universe. This observation is used in statistical physics for example. This, of course, doesn't mean that these events have infinitely small probabilities in any mathematical sense of the word. For the mathematician any finite number is as far from infinity as the number one. INic 02:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if something has any small but finite probability, it *will* happen somewhere, sometime. Since you use statistical physics as your example, the general rule "entropy tends to increase" is in general true but entropy can and does decrease by chance; just not very often. --Rhebus 11:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] analysis solution

Can some provide the spreadsheet for the 96% winning odds at $4.3 per win

[edit] A more simple analysis

Roulette is a game of pure chance - there is no skill - every number has an equal chance of coming up but the payouts are made at under the odds. Roulette is a NEGATIVE EXPECTANCY GAME - every time you bet on a number you are betting into a negative return in the long run. NO method works. In practice casinos couldnt care less about Martingale or any other theory.

[edit] merger?

It is proposed to merge this "with" martingale (probability theory). It would be more plausible to merge this into that article. There is a "mergeinto" template for that purpose. Michael Hardy 19:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

There are three Martingale articles. I'd only merge this one if the third one was merged too. Otherwise, since this is so wildly different than the probability article it should also be kept separate. Anyway, if the paradix one is merged too, that seems best. 2005 22:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Support This article could be a footnote of the probability article. Then, you could take out all the uncited stuff and make it into a useful side comment. GumbyProf: "I'm about ideas, but I'm not always about good ideas." 05:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd support merging all the articles. They're all on the Martingale system, and merging would make the information easier to access. IMHO. 71.89.61.239 02:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Support merge. It can and should be added to the Martingale as it only an implementation of this theory. JeffyP 20:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd keep it as is. I found this article in searching this exact topic. I had not heard of the name of the theory, only the method of essentially doubling one's bet upon sequential losses. Had it been merged with the other topic, I likely would not have found it, much less realized the correlation between the two.