Part 1
NB - this is part 1 of a several part series. Links to the other parts are at the bottom of this post.
Roulette is a simple game. It is luck based - there is no real skill to it. Which makes it a perfect replacement for my day job…?
A friend from university first told me about the Martingale system. He sold it as an unbeatable way to make money - assuming you have enough in the bank.
The premise is simple. You bet on something which offers 50:50 odds. The system is as follows:
- Bet on red (or anything with similar odds)
- If you win, great. You’ve doubled your original stake.
- If you lose, no big deal. Bet again on red but bet twice as much.
- Rinse and repeat.
The theory goes that eventually you will win and get your money back. However in reality there are a few issues. Firstly - the odds in roulette aren’t actually 50:50, which makes it a bit harder. Secondly, its easy to hit a losing streak which wipes out your funds entirely.
Despite all of that, I was curious… So naturally, I did a lot of Python modelling to try to understand.
The results of my modelling are shown in the next post.