My friend came up with a system that sounds like it works.
Basically his system is for roulette or anything gambling game with a close to 50-50 odds of winning.
Basically for Roulette one would bet for either black or red and triple their next bet until they win.
so if the table minimum is $10, one would start with $10.
if you lose, the next bet would be $30.
if you lose, the next bet would be $90.
but if you win, the $90 bet, you win $90 on top of the $90 you bet.
so one would have lost $40 on the first 2 bets, but won $90 on the winning bet thus making $50.
but let’s say you lost the $90 bet. the next bet would be $270.
and let’s say you win the $270. you would have made $140…
and so on…
of course one will need a big bank to support 7+ consecutive losses… but eventually one would win money right?
the double zero wouldn’t affect the odds too much to ruin the system would it?
Actually, there is one way to turn a profit when visiting the casinos: side bets. One guy’s shooting craps, but there are a lot of people standing around watching. You turn to the guy next to you and say, “I betcha twenty he craps out…” or whatever is currently in the house’s favor.
Yes, this “system” is called a Martingale. And the obvious flaw is that a run of losing games is a very likely outcome if you play more than a few games. And each losing game requires you to bet more and more and more. And pretty soon you will go bust and lose everything, since the Casino has a much bigger bankroll than you do. Your average losses will be the same amount as if you were making bets of the same size. Except that since you are wagering larger and larger amounts and the house odds are against you, you will lose money faster since the more you bet the more you will lose.
Of course, you have the possibility of winning any particular game, and people can win money when they bet against the casinos. It’s just that more people lose than win, and the more you play the more likely it is that you will lose.
There are ways that a player with a larger bankroll than their opponent can gain an advantage, but unfortunately the casinos invariably have a larger bankroll than the suckers.
Another problem is table limits. The house can, and does, limit the size of the bet you can make. Few roulette tables allow a bet over $500. Oddly enough the casinos have already thought of your suckers, oops, meant to say friends method.
Roulette’s draw, much like the slot machines, is that it’s easy. You really don’t have to know much or pay attention.
It makes no difference, you still lose. A recent dicussion here highlights the main problem. The ball doesn’t remember whether it landed on black or white on the previous spin.
Actually, you’re missing why this system is broken. The table limits just slow him down; they aren’t what breaks him. Whe he gets to a point of needing to bet $2000, he can just walk to another table that allows larger bets. Or even another casino.
The real problem with your friends scheme (as others have pointed out) is that your friend has a limited bank roll. There is some number that he can’t lose more than. Pick any number. Let’s say it’s a cool $1,000,000. And let’s say he starts playing at a $10 table. Your friends system will work until he loses 16 times in a row.
But you say, the odds are so slim of him losing 16 in a row! True. The problem is that your friend isn’t betting $10, and hoping to double it to $20. Each time he starts his system, making that first bet, he’s essentially putting his entire million bucks on the table, hoping to win $10. So even though the odds are slim of losing, when he does lose, his loss is enormous. And as it turns out, the odds of that enormous loss are slightly more than is fair, so if he plays enough times, lady luck will whip his butt.
No, what your friend forgot - or never understood - is that if there were any system that worked, the casinos would either outlaw it or alter their games to make it not work.
Heck, I wonder if you could win making Any Seven proposition bets after a point has been thrown. It pays 4 to 1, so you’ve got a little breathing room. If anyone is interested, I’ll boot up my craps program and do a little tracking.
Okay, I’m convinced that that idea is a quick way to losing. I only ran 27 simulations (I know, I know, you should run hundreds or thousands) but it was enough to convince me that it was a bad idea. Out of 27 times where that bet could be made, only 4 were sevens. In other words, the result was -7 units.
I must admit, I was temped by this concept as well, and have since learned that it doesn’t work.
But my question is, what about on a game that pays more than 2-1?
All of this assumes that “if” he wins, he doesn’t win enough to make it worthwhile, then continues to play, and the longer he plays the more likely he is to losing it all.
I was playing “Let it Ride” recently and it has extremely variable payouts (a variation on poker). So that under this system its possible when he does win, he could win 5-1 or better. I assume again that the table limit would prevent that from ever happening.
Why do people say “Oh casinos will be out of business if schemes like this worked…”
Its obviously eventually the scheme will work, you just need a HUGE bankroll to counter the casino’s huge bankroll. And even then, like someone said, theres still a chance you can lose it all for a mere $10 gain or so.
Casinos could be put out of business by smart gambling, but they dont let themselves do that; blackjack card counters is a good example. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vegas.html
Fortauntly, theres enough suckers out there to keep the bank high. But casinos can be beaten mathematically; just not practically beaten.
You countered your own point. You can win a little money a lot of the time with this method, but when you lose you lose HUGE. When you average that out over time you will end up losing money. If you lose the casino wins. That is how it works. There are two ways you can consistently win without cheating. One is count cards at balckjack. Of course, the casinos do not like to lose so they kick you out. The second is to get very good at poker. The casinos do not care abou this as you are not taking their money, but rather the money of suckers.