I’ve heard it plenty of times that betting systems won’t beat the house. Why won’t this one work: Say I bet 10 and lose. Next time I’ll bet 15. If I lose again, I’ll bet 30, covering my losses and still giving me a profit of 5. If I lose again I’ll bet 60. So no matter how big I have to bet, when I finally win one I’m up 5 or 10. Once I win I will go back to the minimum. I will keep doing this, gradually gaining 5 or 10 each time I win. I saw tables in Vegas with min of 10 and max of $3000. It seems that you would have to lose at least 10 times in a row to reach the max and not be able to get back to even. Why won’t this work?
I’m aware the odds are always with the house. The downfall of this system would be if you lost like 10 or 15 times in a row… It seems that you’d cover your losses before that would ever happen though. No?
9 thoughts on “Why won’t this blackjack betting system beat the house?”
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Because the odds are always with the house.
Because it is based on flawed logic.
It would work…if the casino did not have table limits. Unfortunately, the casinos have thought about this system (known as the Martingale) when they instituted table minimum and maximum limits. Most casinos will only allow you to double your wager 5-7 times with limits like $50-$1000 You bet and lose the following hands $50-$100-$200-$400-$800 See here you can only lose 4 hands before the table limits get you in a pickle!
The system you are describing is essentially the Martingale System. Been around since the 18th century.
I’m guessing that if it worked, casinos would have banned it. But it doesn’t, so they haven’t.
So your betting system would be:
$10, $15, $30, $60, $120, $240, $480, $960 etc.
This means that if you lose just eight hands in a row, you have already lost $1,915. You are now going to have to bet $1,920, and if you win, you are up $5 for the night. If you get unlucky and lose, you are now down just under four grand, and even with your liberal rules you’ve seen at one casino, you are over the betting limit for that table. So now you have to move to the high stakes area and bet nearly four grand on a hand, with the fact remaining that even if you win, you are up just $5.
Are you really willing to put four grand on the line to win $5?
The other issue you run into with Blackjack is that mathematically it is often correct to split or double down. Well once you start losing hundreds of dollars, you need even more money to afford to double down or split.
The fact is, if you can find the table with the right stakes (and limits) this system will probably work most of the time. The major flaw is that when you get unlucky just ten hands in a row, that does happen, you lose thousands.
You are essentially take a fairly small risk of losing thousands, for the chance to win a wholly unremarkable amount of money.
well based on your betting system you would have to into the casino with a few grand to start off with first cause if u do start out with 5 lose then ten lose and 30 and lose you would have needed over 90bucks in ur pocket to bet 60 for the 30 dollar loss you just inccurred and yet if u win that would only bring you back to even for the night and u would be going back through the same cycle all over again, you would be better off going into a casino with a few hundred dollars in your pocket and just sticking to one set amount like 20dollars a hand rather than continually trying to cover your loses, to me someone that bets more the next hand to cover what they lost from the last hand doesnt have a clue how to play black and are just going off the fact that if u bet more u are likely to win, but what if u do use your stratgey and you wind up losing all the money you had in ur pocket, then tell me what u think about that stratgety u have you will probably think it sucks
Because if you play a $5 table it will have a $200 maximum bet, this allows you to double you stake 5 times.
If the table minimum bet is $25 it will have a $500 maximum, this allows you only 4 doubles.
The bad news is that the house could offer you a maximum bet of $1500 on a $25 table and it will still only allow you to double you stake 5 times the 6th double will take you over the max bet by $100.
This is how we stop this system from winning in the short term as a long term bet this system is cr@p.
Seriously, get a blackjack video game and try it. You will not go an hour without hitting the table max, and you won’t come anywhere close to doubling your investment. People come on here asking if this will work all the time, yet not a single one of them has taken any time at all to actually try it and see what happens.
10 losses in a row seems like a lot, but it’s not as uncommon as you think. Anyone who has not lose 10 hands in a row has not played much blackjack.
Basic strategy is the best idea otherwise, but the house still maintains a .5% advantage in that case. Other strategy systems generally give even more of an advantage to the house. Most casinos don’t mind people with their own systems, since they still have an advantage.
Generally, you can make money through blackjack with proper betting and strategy. However, you can also lose money.
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-play-and-win-Casino-blackjack
You’ve already given yourself the answer. If you play the game long enough, sooner or late you’ll encounter a string of losing hands that will exceed your limit to raise cash to place a bet doubling the previous bet.
I ran a quick spreadsheet of this. After losing 10 hands in a row, you would have already lost $7,675 and need to bet $7,680 on the 11th hand. After losing 15 in a row, you’d have lost $245,755 and need to bet $245,760 to get back to where you need to be.
The arguments saying you’d have to exceed the maximum table bet are bogus. Who says you have to keep playing at the same table? I’m sure if after losing 10 hands in a row, you could walk over to a high end casino and plop down the $7,680 if you had it. They’d take it. Even after the 15 losing hands, if you had the $200+k to bet, you can go into the high roller area to bet.