So I don’t gamble, and don’t ever indend to make it a habit.
But a friend told me to play roulette, and I would have a ~47% chance of doubling my money and , as long as I had enough money to keep doubling my stake, would have a ~95% break even if I kept going until I won and never played again.
So say I had $200k in the bank and always put my money on red
Spin 1 : $5K
Spin 2: $10K
Spin 3: $20K
Spin 4: $40k
Spin 5: $80K
Spin 6: $160k
In this scenario, I’d have a ~47% chance of winning $5k, and just a 2% chance of losing $160k?
EDIT: Although just working this out, I think I would probably put the 160k into a 4% savings account if I had it, or start off way smaller amounts e.g. $500 to reduce my chane of losing money significantly lol.
In: 8
The first thing is that casino tables have limits on what you can bet, so your strategy of doubling and doubling and doubling when you lose doesn’t work in the real world. But even if it did, this strategy is more likely to result in an actual loss or just breaking even after risking lots of money than it is to result in winning.
Under your example, you run out of funds after six spins. While it is unlikely to lose six spins in a row, streaks like that do happen, and if it happens to you, you are completely cleaned out.
Also, your upside is very limited compared to your downside. If you win right away, great, take your winnings and go home. But you have less than a 50% chance of that happening. What’s more likely to happen is that you lose on the first spin. Now the best you can do is break even. And there ‘s a chance that you’ll just continue to lose until you’re wiped out. So you have an under 50% chance of walking away with a relatively small amount of money compared to the amount you could lose, and once you’ve lost the first spin, the best you can hope is to break even.
And if you counter the above by saying every time you break, even you’ll just start again, that doesn’t much change the calculations, and does increase the chance of a six or more spin. Losing streak, wiping you out.
Sure, you can just make smaller bets so you can use the same pool of money and last far longer on a bad streak, but that also greatly reduces your upside. So the math stays the same.
In any event, casinos would love people who think like you to come to the roulette table all the time. There will be some winners for sure, but overall the casino wins under that strategy, as it does under all of them by the way.
You’re effectively “selling lottery tickets” here. You sell each ticket for 5k, and each has a 1/50 or so chance of winning 315k (they don’t give back your previous bets) – a jackpot you have to pay the casino when they win.
So yeah, this works fine until it catastrophically doesn’t. You haven’t fixed the overall negative odds of the game, you’ve just re-arranged the payouts – this strategy will lose over time, and in a spectacular way.
Edit: Maybe it’s simpler to imagine the overall plan as a single game. It costs $70 to play. 63/64 times, you win $71 (your $70 back, plus a dollar). 1/64 times, you lose it all. Do you want to play this game?
> always put my money on red
Aside from the discussion of a martingale, roulette wheels feature a zero that is neither red nor black and that you can’t bet on, so the chance of winning on red is slightly below 0.5, which works in the casino’s favour.
You’re going to double 5k, 10k and even 20k once or twice and then you’re going to max out your money and not be able to double out after.
You’re going to double 5k, 10k and even 20k once or twice and then you’re going to max out your money and not be able to double out after.
> always put my money on red
Aside from the discussion of a martingale, roulette wheels feature a zero that is neither red nor black and that you can’t bet on, so the chance of winning on red is slightly below 0.5, which works in the casino’s favour.
Table limits.
Let’s say the table has a maximum bet of $50k (it’s usually much less than that, but let’s go with that to match your example). This means that if you don’t win in the first four spins, you won’t get a chance on the fifth spin to get your money back. The odds of losing four spin a row are not out of the question, so you can easily drop $75k just like that.
I tried this on blackjack and did really well until i lost 9 times in a row and lost everything.
Table limits.
Let’s say the table has a maximum bet of $50k (it’s usually much less than that, but let’s go with that to match your example). This means that if you don’t win in the first four spins, you won’t get a chance on the fifth spin to get your money back. The odds of losing four spin a row are not out of the question, so you can easily drop $75k just like that.
There are some really good answers on this thread, but there’s a really simple way to look at it. You and the casino are playing the same game. If you have a 47% chance of winning, they have a 53% chance. Additionally, they have more money than you do. With better odds and more money in the bank, the house will always win in the long run
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