As I was saying.....

[beermantm]

The martingale system is one of the most interesting systems when looking at betting. It is also a system that lures bettors in because it's an attractive, sexy looking betting system and intuitively it makes sense.

We all know as seasoned sports bettors that martingale system is a winning system in theory and not so much in practice. There is obvious pitfalls to this system. Mainly the only way it actually wins is with unlimited wealth. This line from Wiki pretty much sums up this system. " It is only with unbounded wealth, bets and time that the martingale strategy can succeed."

Now I'll spend a couple of minutes on an easy to understand reason why Martingale fails the real world test. A very basic mathematical look shows the pitfalls right out of the gate. For this example I'll start making bets at $20 and I will not include the vig to keep things simple. These bets are obviously based on a 50% chance of winning.

First bet $20 to win $20 roi=100%
Second bet $40 to win $40-$20=+20 or 40 to win 20 roi=50%
third bet $80 to win $80-$40-$20=20 or 80 to win 20 roi=20%
fourth bet $160 to win $160-$80-$40-$20=$20 or 160 to win $20 roi=12.5%
fifth bet 320 to win $320-$160-$80-$40-$20=20 $320 to win $20 roi=6.26%

As you can see by the fifth bet you are spotting over 93% of your wager just to win your money back plus $20. If someone asked you to play heads or tails but you had to put up $320 to their $20 (thats funny just writing it) I think you would say no rather quickly.

This should clearly show why the Martingale system fails in it's purest form. This system can be modified into a more reliable system. Also to make it a system that works long term a couple of other things must be true.

1) you must have a long term positive expected value (in sports 52.7%+)
2) your roi has to decrease at rate much less than it does when just running martingale in it's purest form.

So now I've all but given way the answer to this puzzle. I'll let you all mull that over a bit.

[akatdrake]

I'm a fan of flat betting.

[akatdrake]

I think it's just too difficult to pick a winner in sports, why play with weights? Say you go 4-2 but lose your two biggets bets - you still feel deflated, because even though you hit 66 percent, it was a losing day. Not good.

[V3r1f13d]

I would only do it if I were betting on a consistent sport (baseball), meaning there aren't too many gaps between games being played. For example betting on Yankee or Philly home games. Odds of them losing 10 straight home games? Pretty far fetched. If someone asked me to bet $100 at a 1-1 that they wouldn't lose 10 straight home games, you know everyone here would take that bet. A 10K bank roll and that play is right there for you.

It works. It's just a little dangerous and it ties up your funds. More of a wait and see game. Plus super boring.

[beermantm]

Originally Posted by akatdrake

I'm a fan of flat betting.

I am also an enormous fan of flat betting and think if you are going it alone you should just stick to flat betting. I've always been a bankroll management nit.

I never claimed it's the safest system but it makes profits way faster if you use the modified system I created. I've decided to not post it anyway.