Martingale Roulette Strategy

Roulette perhaps the most iconic of all the classic casino games. The instantly recognisable roulette wheel, the rattling sound as the ball goes spinning, and that age-old question: “red or black?”

Roulette online can be a simple game. But there are a number of roulette strategies you can use before stepping up to the table. We’re going to look at one of the popular approaches now of how to play roulette: the Martingale Roulette Strategy.

How the Martingale Strategy works

The Martingale Strategy basic principle is this: you bet one unit from your bankroll. If you win, you bet one unit again. But if you suffer a losing spin, you continue to double your bet each time, ensuring that you are only ever one win away from breaking even.

Let’s put that into practice. Imagine you’ve got a bankroll of $1000. Each bet unit is $10. And you’re placing a bet with a 1:1 payout – so in this case, we’ll bet on red.

You bet one unit of $10, and you win. That puts you $10 up – so keep that aside as profit.

Now you bet again. Another one unit of $10, but you lose. In this case, your next bet consists of two units. If you win, you get $20 on top of the $20 staked, and you’re back level.

If you lose two bets in a row, you would then bet four units, then eight units and so on.

Testing the Martingale Strategy

We decided to try the Martingale strategy in roulette with a $100 budget. We started with small $5 bets on red. Every time we lost, we doubled our bet, as the strategy suggests. At first, it seemed easy – we won back my losses and made small profits. However, after a few unlucky spins, we quickly reached higher bets, losing $40 in one streak. Soon, we ran out of money to double the next bet. The strategy works if you have a big budget, but with only $100, it was risky and we ended up losing it all.

Conclusion: Martingale is not a safe strategy for small bankrolls.

Pros and Cons

As with all strategies on casino games, there are pros and cons to both. Before you play roulette online or live dealer roulette, here’s a few things you should know about the Martingale Roulette Strategy.

PROS

You can recoup all previous losses in one single bet
Helps to accumulate small profits that you can set aside
Easy-to-follow system compared to alternative strategies

CONS

You need to have a large bankroll in case of a lengthy losing streak
Five, six or seven-game losing streaks require large wagers to recoup losses
By resetting with each win, the Martingale Strategy doesn’t capitalize on winning streaks

Conclusion

As you can see from the above, the Martingale Roulette Strategy does have its benefits. But there are drawbacks aplenty, too.

If you’ve got the bankroll to cover lengthy losing streaks, the Martingale Roulette Strategy is a solid approach for having fun, breaking even and maybe even walking away with a small profit. But it does reduce the possibility of big wins.

Remember the house edge means the odds are always in the casino’s favor and ultimately, no roulette strategy will give you an advantage.