Casino Magazine

For gamblers who like to rely more on strategy than luck, the Martingale system is on technique I’m sure most have tried. Most new gamblers prefer to use it over others because it has the allure of winning you quick money and the (often incorrect!) perception that should have a loss or two it’s easy enough to claw it all back. The other factor that makes it a ‘go to’ for many is that even though there are systems that work better, they require a lot more maths than most people can cope with.

This type of strategy was popularised in 18th century France. The basic idea of the strategy is that the bettor keeps doubling their bet until they win and a single win would recover all previous losses winning them a profit equal to their initial stake. The bettor then reverts to the initial bet doubling again until another win comes by. This means if you placed a $5 bet and won first time, you place another $5 bet and continue doubling until you win again after which you go back to a $5 bet.

The martingale system was first tried with a coin toss game where heads wins and tails losses. The strategy is also applicable to roulette where the chances of getting red or black are just about balanced (the bankers edge in this situation is the green 0, on European wheels there tends to be one 0, whereas in the US you often see two so the odds on near 50/50 bets and somewhere worse).

An example of how the system works:
In roulette, the system is applied when a player places the outside bets. The outer bets are 1-18 (Manque) or 19-36 (Passe); even(Pair) or odd(Impair); red (Rogue) or black (Noir). They have a higher chance of winning but fetch low rewards with a payout of 1:1. For instance, if you place the bet with a single chip you win a chip.

Supporters of the system rely on the inevitable win if a player keeps playing with a near 50/50 chance of winning. However, the Martingale System can only work well if the gambler has enough money to keep doubling their bet each time until they win. This usually becomes a problem because the likelihood of suffering a catastrophic loss sooner or later is immense. Aside from this, losing streaks often tend to occur more frequently than you might think. This is why most experienced gamblers shun the system as they understand that it would only guarantee wins if they held unlimited wealth, time and bets, which isn’t true in practice. Many casinos have limits too, so that’s another factor that could end uch a stratgey.

It may be fun to occasionally ‘go for it’ with the Martingale betting system, but it’s not a serious long term way of betting, because it will eventually in all likekihood result in a losing streak that will lose you everything!

Oscar’s Grind as a betting strategy uses the assumption that gambling results come in streaks of wins and losses. Mostly used in Roulette, it seeks to keep increasing the betting stake during the positive streaks, and low when you’re not winning (progressive strategy). It divides the gambling event into a ‘betting units’ and ‘sessions.’

A betting unit is an amount of money that you start out with at the onset of a gambling event, while a session is the time it takes to earn profit of another one unit. Every time you win, your unit doubles. This goes on until your units increase to four, at which time you begin again at one unit. Every time you lose, you place another bet of a similar amount.

Let’s simplify that by looking at an example:

Assume you have 1000 dollars bankroll, which you divide into units of ten dollars.

Session 1:

Bet £10 and lose – Bet another £10
Lose the second £10- Bet another £10
Win £10 on third £10- Bet £20
Win £20 on new stake- End of session

So, here, you set out with £10, which you staked twice without winning. The third stake won you £10, and you placed an extra unit, which won you another £20. In total you have spent £30, and now have £40. The difference is one unit of profit, so the session is done, and you go back to another session which you start out with £10.

The upside of this strategy, whose first documentation was in Allan Wilson’s 1965 book, The Casino Gambler’s Guide, is that every gambling session ends in profit.

The downside is that it requires too much time to keep profits going, which are not assured because of streaks of losses. Also, the length of a session cannot be expressly determined. Essentially, it keeps the gambler hooked.

Oscar’s Grind is also commonly referred to as Hoyle’s Press or Pluscoup Progression within gambling circles by the pros.