Ok so here’s the rules

  • I just bet on red every time
  • I start with 1 dollar
  • every time I lose, I triple my previous bet
  • every time I win I restart

I’m going to simulate 10 games

  • Game 1 - Bet $1 Lose
  • Game 2 - Bet $3 Lose
  • Game 3 - Bet $9 Win $18
  • Game 4 - Bet $1 Lose
  • Game 5 - Bet $3 Lose
  • Game 6 - Bet $9 Win $18
  • Game 7 - Bet $1 Lose
  • Game 8 - Bet $3 Lose
  • Game 9 - Bet $9 Lose
  • Game 10 - Bet $18 Win $36

In this simulation I’m losing at a rate of 70%. In reality the lose rate is closer to 52%. I put in $54 but I’m walking away with $72, basically leaving the building with $18.

Another example. Let’s pretend I walk in with $100,000 to bet with. I lose my first 10 games and win the 11th.

  • 1 lose
  • 3 lose
  • 9 lose
  • 27 lose
  • 81 lose
  • 243 lose
  • 729 lose
  • 2187 lose
  • 6561 lose
  • 19683 lose
  • 59049 win $118098

$88573 spent out of pocket, $118098 won

Walk out with roughly $29525.

I get most casinos won’t let you be that high but it’s a pretty extreme example anyway, the likelyhood of losing 10/11 games on 48% odds is really unlikely.

So help me out here, what am I missing?

  • JoBo@feddit.uk
    7·
    6 months ago

    This isn’t exactly the same as the Martingale system (where you double the bet after a loss so that you end up winning the starting bet when your colour does finally come up) but it’s the same principle, just messier because you’re tripling so it’s harder to analyse (but you’ll go broke quicker).

    In principle, you will usually end up making a small profit while risking very big losses. And that’s why it doesn’t work. Either you run out of money for the next bet or you reach the house limit (which will almost always exist).

    If you go to a casino with an amount of money you are prepared to lose, it’s not the worst strategy (given that there are no good strategies with roulette). You will usually get a small win but you will sometimes get a big loss. You’ll end up down in the long run.

    • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      making a small profit

      Right, this is what people always gloss over to just say that eventually the bet will be too big to sustain. Even if you win repeatedly, the bets you make after 3 or 4 losses are vast in comparison the amount you’ll ‘gain’ per win. For the doubling (Martingale strategy), if your bet starts at $1, and you win $2 off of that, it doesn’t matter how much you are eventually betting, you’ll only make $1 for the whole cycle.

      The tripling helps for the profit angle, somewhat. I ran the numbers for total amount of times betting before a win for net win. I wish the formatting let me make tables, but oh well.

      Total Times Bet(bet amount): total of bet: net winning:

      1 (1) … 1 … 1

      2 (3) … 4 … 2

      3 (9) … 13 … 5

      4 (27) … 40 … 16

      5 (81) … 121 … 41

      6 (243) … 364 … 122

      7 (729) … 1093 … 365

      8 (2187) …3280 … 1094

      9 (6561) … 9841 … 3281

      10 (19683) … 29524… 9842

      • edgemaster72@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        So looking at your would-be-a-table-if-formatting-allowed, I noticed the net winning was close to 1/3 of the net wager. Given that the premise is tripling a losing bet, I thought it a little too convenient to have an expected profit of 1/3 so I recreated the table in a spreadsheet then started tinkering with the multiplier after a loss. I’m not smart enough to explain why it’s the case, but it appears that the limit of the net winnings / net wager as your number of bets increases is n-2 / n, where n is the factor you multiply by after losing a bet.