The Double Up Method

jjgold · 10-13-2005, 11:10 PM

Do any of you guys double up bets when you lose the first one? I guess another phrase would be called chasing and I sure we have all done it. I once started with a couple of $50 bets about 7 years ago and by end of week lost over $4k.

Be careful and stay calm when you lose.

Mudcat · 10-13-2005, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjgold

Do any of you guys double up bets when you lose the first one?

I don't.

Illusion · 10-13-2005, 11:36 PM

Money management is the key here. I was guitly of doing that when I first started betting. Sometimes not chasing is easier said than done. We all have days where we get killed and want it all back in one fell swoop.

freebie · 10-14-2005, 12:35 AM

I usually chase 1 game and if it doesn't win, that's it. I just move on to another game.

Ganchrow · 10-14-2005, 01:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjgold

Do any of you guys double up bets when you lose the first one? I guess another phrase would be called chasing and I sure we have all done it. I once started with a couple of $50 bets about 7 years ago and by end of week lost over $4k.

There isn’t much "method" to this at all.

This is known as the "Martingale" strategy and what it allows a gambler to accomplish versus level staking for any sequence of N bets (truncated at bankruptcy if it occurs) is:

increase his chances of bankruptcy
increase his chances not making a profit
decrease his expected finishing bankroll (for a gambler with a negative expectation)
increase the standard deviation of his finishing bankroll

Sound great, right?

That being said, as one's bankroll approaches infinity, then by using Martingale, the probability of profiting by a given amount approaches unity (100%).

Note however that this does not imply any increase in expected profit (or decrease in expected loss). This is simply the result of increasing one's probability of a gain and decreasing one's probability of an extremely large loss only by (exponentially) increasing the magnitude of that loss. In other words, given a negative expectation, then the larger the gambler's stake the greater the expected loss, but the higher the probability of yielding a (tiny) profit.

In short, whether you're a gambler or an investor, stay far, far away.

natrass · 10-14-2005, 04:17 AM

The Martingale system did break the bank at Monte Carlo ..

... but, statistically, it is proven to be flawed.

Ganchrow · 10-14-2005, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by natrass

The Martingale system did break the bank at Monte Carlo.

What do you mean by this?

natrass · 10-14-2005, 04:44 AM

If I remember right, the guy who bankrupted the famous Mont Carlo casino about a hundred years ago .... he used this system (he may have even been the very same Mr Martingale) ... I think he played for big big stakes ... but its years ago I read about it, so I am open to correction.

Ganchrow · 10-14-2005, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by natrass

the guy who bankrupted the famous Mont Carlo casino about a hundred years ago .... he used [Martingale]

I know that there's a song about "Breaking the Bank in Monte Carlo" but I ‘m fairly certain that the casino in question (the Casino de Monte-Carlo – a beautiful place) was ever actually bankrupted. Urban legend.

Furthermore, even if said bankruptcy did occur, I'd have a rather difficult time believing that the Martingale method was the cause. The Martingale is characterized by extremely small wins in relation to the stake risked. If one's goal were to bankrupt a casino (with presumably greater resources) in a short period of time before going bankrupt oneself, the Martingale would probably be one of the least efficacious strategies to use.

natrass · 10-14-2005, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ganchrow

Furthermore, even if said bankruptcy did occur, I'd have a rather difficult time believing that the Martingale method was the cause. The Martingale is characterized by extremely small wins in relation to the stake risked. If one's goal were to bankrupt a casino (with presumably greater resources) in a short period of time before going bankrupt oneself, the Martingale would probably be one of the least efficacious strategies to use.

Not if you are betting huge stakes ... could be very quick. I think he had a bigger bankroll than the casino.

Ganchrow · 10-14-2005, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by natrass

Not if you are betting huge stakes ... could be very quick. I think he had a bigger bankroll than the casino.

I don't know how casinos were run a hundred years ago, but it would be positively astonishing to me if a casino, even back then, would have allowed wagers so enormous relative to its own bankroll, that a Martingale could realistically bankrupt it. Remember that to run a sucessful Martingale over a decent stretch of time you'd likely need to place wagers thousands and thousands of times larger than your base wager. I suppose the gambler could have simply gotten lucky, but then that would hardly have qualified as a Martingale strategy.

Got any evidence supporting this claim?

Ganchrow · 10-14-2005, 05:30 AM

According to the American Automobile Association (http://www.aaa.com/eurotourbook/Frenet1.html):

Quote:

It was here [the Pink Salon Bar at the Casino de Monte-Carlo] in 1891 that Charles Deville Wells turned $400 into $40,000 in a three-day gambling spree, thus inspiring the popular tune 'The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte-Carlo'.

n.b. "Breaking the bank" refers to the state of affairs where a casino simply runs out of currency on-premises to pay its winners and ought not be used interchangeably with rendering bankrupt.

natrass · 10-14-2005, 05:43 AM

You may be right there ... but, in those times, Id imagine a casino not having enough money to pay a winner was a scandal. I dont know I read he bankrupt it but who knows ... Im sure you know better.

As for the staking, thats the whole point of the martingale. The theory is that if say Roman Abramovich or Donald Trump went into a tin pot casino ... he could bankrupt it by playing the martingale system because he could have the bankroll to come back from much higher losses than the casino could.

Ganchrow · 10-14-2005, 05:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by natrass

As for the staking, thats the whole point of the martingale. The theory is that if say Roman Abramovich or Donald Trump went into a tin pot casino ... he could bankrupt it by playing the martingale system because he could have the bankroll to come back from much higher losses than the casino could.

No. That is not at all true for a casino with anything even approaching reasonably set limits. Even for a casino with infinite limits and a de minimis bank roll, the expectation would would still be for the "Big Player" to lose (although the most common occurance would be for the casino to lose, the times that it did win would its winnings would dwarf its losses.)

What you're describing is but a common (and highly dangerous) fallacy regarding the Martingale system.

Remember: there exist no betting strategies which can ever ever ever turn a negative EV game into a positive.

natrass · 10-14-2005, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ganchrow

No. That is not at all true for a casino with anything even approaching reasonably set limits. Even for a casino with infinite limits and a de minimis bank roll, the expectation would would still be for the "Big Player" to lose (although the most common occurance would be for the casino to lose, the times that it did win would its winnings would dwarf its losses.)

What you're describing is but a common (and highly dangerous) fallacy regarding the Martingale system.

Remember: there exist no betting strategies which can ever ever ever turn a negative EV game into a positive.

Sorry but that plain wrong.

An example, you are the casino and your total bank is $100,000.

I am Donald Trump, total bank $4.2 bn

Say I play black or red and as you say there is "infinite limits" so I am playing $1,000 a go. I will play the Martingale system. Are you still saying that the "expectation will be for the big player to lose"?

jjgold · 10-14-2005, 07:09 AM

The Martingale system only fails because of house limits. If there were no house limits you