THE MARTINGALES

“Professor Einstein, you have covered all the bets one may make on the table, and explained how to play them. Is there not some way a player can simplify this bewildering game, refine it to its absolute essentials and still emerge a winner at the end of the day?”

The Nobel Prize recipient produced a can of Skoal and stuffed a pinch behind his lower lip, got the bartender’s attention and ordered another beer for me while he asked for a double Tequila with Bosco back. For the first time I noticed that his mustache was really the mass of uncut hairs protruding from his nostrils.

“I am glad you asked that question. You are not as stupid as you look. We can agree that the true basis of theoretical crapshooting, axiomatically speaking, cannot be extracted from the experience of previous hot rolls, but must be freely invented at each session. The true question should be, ‘can the crapshooter ever hope to find the right way?’ I answer without hesitation that there is, in my opinion, a right way, and that we are capable of finding it. After all, craps is the realization of only a handful of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas, so if:

Don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” I said in terror.

“This little equation shows us that if we only make the even-chance bets of Pass or Don’t Pass, we can reduce our exposure to loss to the absolute low of 1.4%, and with proper money management and discipline we can use the player’s advantages to come out winners, even if we lose three of four bets.”

“Professor, I’m confused. What are the player’s advantages?”

“A player may choose when to bet, what bet to make, the amount of the bet, and when to quit. The house cannot coerce a player into betting or quitting, tell him what to bet on, and within house limits, cannot tell him how much to bet, so the player has control of the very important variables which could (and should) insure his success at the tables. His decisions are limited to Pass or Don’t and How Much.”

“Could you give me an example?”

“Of course.”

Martingale

“Walk up to any crap game, and the odds of your calling the next five decisions correctly are 31 to 1. It is also true that the odds of your calling the next five decisions incorrectly are 31 to 1. This means the player should be able to call at least one of five decisions, and that a doubling of bets should produce a winning of one unit every time the system is attempted in five tries thirty times, for a net profit of one unit per try, or 30 units profit. Of course, the 31st time he will lose 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 16 = 31 units, and herein lies the pitfall. At the eighth level the player must bet 128 units to win one unit, and at the tenth level must bet 512 units to win the same unit. This is called the MARTINGALE system, and makes little sense except in spot situations and with stop-loss parameters carved in granite.”

Grand Martingale

“The Grand Martingale is a progression of bets that begins with one unit and escalates to double-plus one after each loss, so that the player will win one unit after his first win plus an additional unit for every decision he has lost prior to achieving that win. The progression is 1 + 3 + 7 + 15 + 31 to win a total of five units at the fifth level. With both Martingales, we begin again at one unit every win.”

“These are a up-a you-lose progressions and must be handled very carefully, with stop-loss levels strictly adhered to. More gamblers have been broken by the Martingale progressions than by any other system since their very rapid exposure to loss is coupled with their very limited profit potential. The Martingales are best used after a very long sequence of Passes or Don’t Passes, betting opposite the sequence, or on a very choppy table by sticking to one side, hoping the chop continues. While not the best progressions, the Martingales are worth mentioning because they are the oldest, and have provided the basis for more imaginative systems like the Fibonacci, among others, which I’ll be happy to explain if you start buying some drinks.”