No website about roulette systems could possibly fail to talk about the very famous martingale system. We’d like to be very upfront on this one however and state clearly that it is not a system we recommend. Beginners in particular seem drawn to the Martingale as the flaws aren’t readily apparent to them. But please read on.

There are several problems with the system. We will explain the system in a moment but first we will point these major issues out.

The odds of a red or a black number coming up are not 50/50. There is also the green zero. For this reason the system is not as simple as it seems and a lot of people who recommend this system seem to overlook this fact.

The second problem is how quickly it escalates the bet and worst of all, it focuses heavily on chasing losses. Which is something akin to the “dark side” for all gambling hobbies.

Importantly the system also fails because you cannot endlessly double up on your stakes due to all online casinos having an upper limit you can stake. So there will come a point that the system cannot be played anymore. Trust us, if you reach this stage then you will have lost a lot of money indeed.

What is the system? It is very simple in essence. You place a bet of £1 on either red or black. If you win then you restart with a stake of one again.

If you lose, you double your stake and bet on the same color. You never change the color. Everytime you lose you simply double the stake and bet on the same color. The theory behind the system is that obviously eventually your color will come up and you will recoup your losses and come out very slightly ahead.

It doesnt sound too bad in theory but just look at your staking progression as the game goes on if you are not being fortunate;

1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256

Many casinos have a bet limit of £500 so you couldn’t continue at this point. And you have just lost £511 while chasing a loss of that original £1.

Stunning isn’t it. We suggest you take a coin out of your pocket and flip it a few hundred times, record the results and see how many long streaks there are where one of the two possible outcomes happens repeatedly. A run of 9+ probably happens at least once. And the odds you have in roulette are slightly worse than that. Remember that 37th option, the dreaded green Zero!

Hopefully we have made clear why we recommend staying away from the Martingale system. The progressive doubling up is a major red flag in our opinion.