The doubling strategy at roulette

The roulette doubling strategy (or martingale) is the most popular strategy of all. But is it really profitable? Here are the advantages and disadvantages of this system.

How to place bets by following this martingale

The doubling strategy in roulette is used for bets that are 1-18 or 19-36; red or black; even or odd. Compared to other bets, they have the greatest chance of success (about 50%), but also the smallest gain. In the case of a win, the win is 1:1, that is, you win the same amount that you put in for a bet. For example, if you bet a chip on black and you win, you get your chip back plus another chip for winning the bet.

How does this strategy work?

The concept is very simple: you place your bet on one of the bets mentioned above. After each losing spin, you double your bet, and you keep doing it until you win. The first win allows you to recover all previous losses, while giving you a profit equal to your initial bet. At this point, you restart with your initial bet that you will double again until your next win.

Double your bets

Here is a specific example to illustrate the concept – let's say for example that you bet on black. If the result falls on the red, you lose your token. This is the first stage of the martingale, you will double your bet, so you bet two chips on black. If black finally appears, you win two tokens. You thus recover your loss of the first round (a token) and you win a token. If, instead of black, red had reappeared, you would have had to double your chips again and bet four chips on black.

To be clear, does the doubling strategy in roulette work or not?

In theory, the concept is indeed logical, although in the long run, due to the house advantage represented by the green zero, the odds will always be against the player. The probability that the ball will land on the outside bet on which you placed your chip is close to 50%, but not exactly. However, this is not the main problem of the martingale. In fact, it applies to any roulette strategy, since there is simply no way to compensate for the house advantage.

Danger

The main problem with this strategy is the risk that the player will run out of money very quickly, especially after a few rounds. If this is not the case, the bets can reach the table limit if the player has lost too many times in a row, which forces him to double and redouble his bet again and again. Once the limit is reached, the player no longer has the possibility to double his bet again, therefore not being able to cover his loss line. If the player reaches the point where he no longer has any chance to double his bet, he loses massive amounts of chips. And not only does the player lose a lot of money in one fell swoop, but this usually happens in a very short period of time. True, it seems unlikely that the player will lose ten times in a row. The martingale strategy is based on the fact that a player must play a lot of rounds to win a reasonable amount, because for each successful martingale round he wins only one token; a result that would satisfy almost no one. Therefore, the higher the number of rounds played, the greater the chances of having a bad losing streak, and thus, going bankrupt or reaching the table limit. It is this risk that prevents experienced professional roulette players from using the martingale system.