If you didn’t already know, the Martingale strategy is one of the most popular and well known betting systems in existence. These systems are usually great for risk and bankroll management and guide players into betting by a series of patterns. Not only can this system be used in craps, but it can be used in just about any other casino game. First of all, this is a negative progression strategy, which means that you actually increase the size of your bets whenever you lose. This is also one of the riskiest, yet profitable betting system to use and I will explain it below.

The first important requirement for using the Martingale is to wager on bets that have nearly even odds and even payouts. An example of this would be the pass line or don’t pass bet, which pays out 1:1 (even) odds and also has a very low house edge. The lower the house edge, the better this system will work. Depending on the rules of the craps table, some bets have no house edge at all. For example, the any craps bet and the any seven (big red) pays out true odds (no house edge!) when playing at the CasinoMax‘s crap table. Generally though, the free odds bet in addition to one of the pass bets are perfect for using the Martingale system.

Now the first thing you do is wager 1 chip, which can be $1, $5, $100 or whatever you plan on betting. If you win, then the proceeding bets will always be 1 chip. Basically you never increase the size of your bets when you win. If you lose the bet, then you double the number of chips on the next bet and you keep on doubling up each time you lose consecutively. If you go on a losing streak, your bets would go from 1 chip to 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and so on. If you are using $100 chips, your bet would be $6400 after 6 losses in a row! If you finally win on that bet, then you return to your original 1 chip bet.

The benefit and advantage of the Martingale system when playing craps is you will always end up with a profit of 1 chip whenever you win, even after a long string of losses. The disadvantage is having to worry about table limits. For instance, if you were betting $100 chips and the table limit was $5000, you would be unable to wager $6400 in order to keep on pace with the strategy. Ideally, you would want to start with a very large bankroll and also begin with the minimum bet or minimum table limit, that way you have lots of room to move. If you started off with $1 chips, you would have to lose 12 times in a row before hitting the table limit, as long as you have a large enough bankroll to play with.

Losing 12 times in a row is somewhat rare, but it does happen. The larger your bankroll is and the larger the table limit is, the better chances you have of winning. This is a great strategy to use if you are a high roller and play on tables with high stakes craps. Still, the Martingale system is notorious for being risky so it is a good idea to know what you are doing in this game first.