Sep
11
This is the first in a series of articles about different staking plans you can use when betting on horses, soccer or anything else. The first staking plan I’m going to write about is of course the most used of them all – Martingale staking plan.
How does a Martingale Staking Plan work
The Martingale system is quite easy to use. Everytime you lose you place a new bet to recover your losses and the profit you aimed for in the first place. If we say you are betting on something at odds 2 and bet 50 units, and then lose these 50 units, then your next bet will be 100. If you win then you have just won 50 units. If you had placed your bet at level stakes (the same stake every bet) you would just break even.
The idea behind the Martingale staking plan is of course very good and will make sure that you will never lose since you just keep betting more and more until the win eventually comes. In a perfect world where long runs of loses does not exist this system would make us all rich.
But take a look at what happens if you run into a steam of losers (we use odds 2). The first bet is 1 unit
1
2
4
8
16
32
64
128
256
512
You can see that the stakes quicky rises very much and this is only 10 loses in a row. With odds 2 you can expect to hit 16-20 loses in a row quite often and this will wipe out your bank. I think the record run on roulette (black / red) is 32 of the same colour in a row.
Negative things about the Martingale Staking Plan
The positive thing is of course that you are sure to always win back all that you have lost (if you have unlimited amount of money, and no problems getting bets matched) and many people therefore think that this is the holy grail in betting.
You see suckers every day try this system in casinos and on Betfair. It might go good for some time – maybe even months, but suddenly the bad luck kicks in and you will lose all your winnings plus all your bank roll.
This system is way too agressive and I’m 99,9% confident that NO ONE has ever made money long term with this kind of staking plan. Of course if you start with 0,1 cents as a unit and have one million in your bank betting account then you will have a good chance of success (the only problem will be to get the bets matched) but the money you earn will be far less than you get by placing the money in a bank account.
Final review of the Martingale system staking plan
This is NOT a staking plan to use when betting. In theory it works but in real life this plan has never made anyone money long term. You will see a lot of systems sold that implement Martingale Staking Plan and it will get some good mentioning on some forums by people who have used it for some months and made a great deal of money, but you can be 100% sure that they will lose it all someday 
simple progressive plan
selection 1 2 3 4 5 6
stake 1 2 3 5 8 12
odds to 2/1 +2 3 3 4 5 5
cover stakes any 1/2 1/1 6/5 11/8 7/4
For me the only staking plan to use, is to bet 2% of your betting bank if you are backing or laying at less than 6-1 on betfair you can easily track your P/l ratio and if you are on a losing streak your stakes descend slowly and your bank will increase quickly if you have had a long winning streak. As with all staking plans you most operate the correct systems with them ie backing 33-1 shots. Betting 2% of your bank will end up breaking your bank many times over.