The Martingale system was discovered more than 200 years ago, and probably it's the oldest of betting systems.
According to Martingale, a player have to double his bet after every lost bet until he wins. Every time he wins he come back to his original bet, that is to one unit bet.
Suppose you want to apply the Martingale system to Roulette game betting on even chances (for example Red or Black). So you start the game placing a bet equal to the minimum allowed table limit. Let it be $1 to Red. The payout for the even chances bet is 2 to 1, and if the ball lands in the red slot will win $1, black - you will loose $1.
Let us look what you will have after nine consecutive lost bets been using small Martingale system:
| Spin # | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Your bet (pervious bet x2) | $1 | $2 | $4 | $8 | $16 | $32 | $64 | $128 | $256 | $512 |
| Red or black | Black | Black | Black | Black | Black | Black | Black | Black | Black | Red |
| Result | -$1 | -$2 | -$4 | -$8 | -$16 | -$32 | -$64 | -$128 | -$256 | +$512 |
| Accumulated result | -$1 | -$3 | -$7 | -$15 | -$31 | -$63 | -$127 | -$255 | -$511 | +$1 |
The table above clearly illustrates all catches of this system. After nine consecutive loses you will have to bet much more than your original bet. To follow the system you will put on the table $512 on the tenths spin.
You can easily hit the table limit where it becomes impossible to recover your losses (which would have been, 512 times your original bet.).
And besides, after wining any bet in a row you will have only $1 more. Even if you put to the game $512. So you are betting $512 to win $1.
Of course, it's hard to lose 9 times in a row, but roulette is the game of chance were everything is possible.
Many other systems are based on the basic theory of the Martingale, and so to evaluate most systems you need a full understanding of the Martingale.
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