http://imspirit.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/why-any-progression-must-fail-for-negative-expectancy-games-in-the-long-run/

enjoy 

I think it is well known . The negative expection makes it near impossible to win in the long run. The long run is here very long.
Some math model stress the negative expection, so it  should be impossible at all to win. In the shorter time it is the variance which is the killer,and the way to overcome the HE as well, the shorter comes before the longer. BV has fair odds on NZ and trust to make a share of the money bet.  The 10% in tax can not make the profit, some have to lose as well. The puritan math model says all should go break even  in a game with  an expection of no advantages to the house.  Despite the HE,  the main money is distributed among the players, winners and losers.


Progression can not  overcome the HE, but often the variance.

Another article on the same theme:

http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A615539

To  this we may include a discussion about "lock in the win".  The positive progressive method  1,3,2,6. It we bet  1,2,3,6 or even
6,2,1,3  should not matter on a larger sample.

Further down in the original article posted by Bally, there's a discussion between a couple of people, & a point where SethBets argues that progressive betting can win out over the HE:


What you bet on (Banker or Player, Red or Black, Odd or Even) is irrelevant – the only thing that matters is how much you bet and the relationship of each bet's value to the amount you need to recover in order to end up ahead in spite of losing more rounds/wagers than you win.
The suggestion that progressive betting seeks to magically change the house advantage (simply defined as the ratio of losses to wins) is, again, disingenuous piffle!
I know for sure I can't change negative expectation in the long run, because casinos would not exist if there was a way for me to win more bets than I lose.
What I can do is make sure I win more when I win than I lose when I lose so that losing more often than I win won't hurt me in the long run.




There are at least a couple of people even here on the forum who do well at roulette, yet (correct me if I'm wrong) do not claim to be able to win flatbetting.


In these cases, their way of progressive betting seems to allow them to win, contrary to the article's assertion that progressions are simply different level flatbets, & therefore if you can't win flatbetting, then you can't win..


Of course the goal is to win as many bets as possible, more wins than losses then Happy Days, but does not being able to win flatbetting really mean you cannot win for any decent length of time beyond just being lucky?

Quote from: monaco on February 25, 2013, 01:09:02 PM
Further down in the original article posted by Bally, there's a discussion between a couple of people, & a point where SethBets argues that progressive betting can win out over the HE:


What you bet on (Banker or Player, Red or Black, Odd or Even) is irrelevant – the only thing that matters is how much you bet and the relationship of each bet's value to the amount you need to recover in order to end up ahead in spite of losing more rounds/wagers than you win.
The suggestion that progressive betting seeks to magically change the house advantage (simply defined as the ratio of losses to wins) is, again, disingenuous piffle!
I know for sure I can't change negative expectation in the long run, because casinos would not exist if there was a way for me to win more bets than I lose.
What I can do is make sure I win more when I win than I lose when I lose so that losing more often than I win won't hurt me in the long run.




There are at least a couple of people even here on the forum who do well at roulette, yet (correct me if I'm wrong) do not claim to be able to win flatbetting.


In these cases, their way of progressive betting seems to allow them to win, contrary to the article's assertion that progressions are simply different level flatbets, & therefore if you can't win flatbetting, then you can't win..


Of course the goal is to win as many bets as possible, more wins than losses then Happy Days, but does not being able to win flatbetting really mean you cannot win for any decent length of time beyond just being lucky?

We have to be "just lucky" to win for a longer time, if we progress or not.  A  progression distribute  the  win loss other than flat. A negative takes more  smaller winnings and bigger losses. A positive a lot of small losses and larger win.   Too many  misinterpret theire luck, and call it skill, and it is nothing to do about it, they will not recognize it. Flat bets can win if bet less than the payout, have the variance with us constantly, which means we must have entrypoints which are at our favour.



There are methods with a likehood of winning 99.9999% of the time, still it takes all at 0.0001% of the sessions. It can for some take longer time then they ever play, with some of the luck we need.


In the shorter run we have to stand the variance, which make us win or lose, at a longer perspective the HE works. The NZ wheel has no HE, and they use to have smaller spread, so the variance will work so the casino can survive.

We control when to bet or not to bet.  We control where to place our bet...and where not to place our bet.  And of course within limits (table limits) we choose how much to bet after we decide when and where.

Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time at a table can certainly attest that patience and discipline are major factors separating successful players from unsuccessful players.  The house is strictly disciplined...there are hard and fast rules that they play by...pick your game...Obvious example...Blackjack they have to hit or hold based on strict rules.  What is the house edge on Blackjack?  Baccarat?  Roulette?  We all know the numbers.  But what are the real returns that the casinos generate from these venues?    Guy sits next to me with $500 and later leaves with nothing...as do most of the other people $100 or $1000 at a time during the same time period.  Why didn't he simply lose his 2.7%?  Because he was undisciplined with bad bet selection (obviously) and likely that was coupled with bad money management.

A progression with no stop-loss could certainly be the end of a huge bankroll.  But a slight progression (this goes both ways negative or positive) can be a useful weapon in the arsenal with well thought out stop-losses along the way both from the winning side on the way back down or on the total implosion scenario side.  Will we sometimes lose...sure...everybody sometimes loses.  But at the end of the day (month) the experienced disciplined player, properly funded with a good plan can and should certainly come out ahead.  If I can't beat a 2.7% negative expectancy by using the knowledge and tools available to me...I deserve to lose.

Bet Selection + Patience + Good Money Management + Discipline + Solid Starting Bankroll will beat the house edge...I believe that wholeheartedly.

It's interesting to see a thread that involves balance points. If you use a 1, 2, 4, progression and never bet higher -- you can find those three bets actually having a  balance point. They do exist. Just like even chance bets balancing in two bets -- the three step Martingale balances in eight. You must win one of two even chance bets to have your balancing point. In the three step Marti you must have eight wins for every loss in order to achieve the balance point. 

So is it possible to make a three step Marti an opportunistic, situational awareness, effective method? You don't have to make your bets sequentially back to back. You can play them any time you want. You can throw them in among winning streaks. Anyone that knows this game knows that the odds on any single spin don't change. So you have to mitigate bad guesses, if you can. Only experience can tell you if you will do that. It literally comes down to execution of will. You must enter the casino with the will to win.

I've decided to talk with you all here as if you understand the simple basics of randomness. I've gone on for years talking about the basics. It's time to look at the complex. The giant leap forward is agility. You can't discuss it if your prerequisite knowledge of basic randomness is lacking.

Great replies! Thanks.

Imspirit has a very interesting site with a lot of good reading.

A lot of experienced players don't agree with what he wrote however.

Ian Harmer (sethbets) was the original author of 'Turnaround' and then went on to develop his 'Target Betting' strategy.

He has a site and a blog where he explains his concept in detail.

sethbets.com

targetbetting.blogspot.com

My opinion is that a smart method needs to have a smart betting strategy as well to get around the edge consistently.

Thanks for the links Bally. I once wrote a sim of 'Turnaround' and thought I'd found the holy grail. I never actually played it because the stakes get too high at times. I see from the updates that things haven't changed much in that dept. Still, it's a winner if you have the balls and the bankroll.

Quote from: Bayes on February 27, 2013, 09:01:47 AM
Thanks for the links Bally. I once wrote a sim of 'Turnaround' and thought I'd found the holy grail. I never actually played it because the stakes get too high at times. I see from the updates that things haven't changed much in that dept. Still, it's a winner if you have the balls and the bankroll.

Still we can lose badly. Things has changed with internet casinos. The old classic methods were not for all players designed to have a larger bankroll.  It is possible for more to use a bankroll of 100000 on a penny casino. And then try to ride out difficult swings. A loss is still possible, but you do not need  to be billionare to give it a try.   Myself think it is dangerous to leave the pennies when ahead, just rise the stake to 10 cent is tenfold, and a bad streak will fast take back all winnings. Better test the luck using higher first, and then reduce the bets.  I have got impossible runs RFH three times this year losing  about 200 Euro, and have a net of 3800 Euro. If I had rise the stake to even 0.1, I have maybe still been in plus, but the loss had been 2000 Euro. I may have lost more session as it may be hard to have a stoploss at 1000 Euro or more. I think we can win for a while, sometimes a long while, but not forever.

Quote from: Ralph on February 27, 2013, 10:19:33 AM

Still we can lose badly. Things has changed with internet casinos. The old classic methods were not for all players designed to have a larger bankroll.  It is possible for more to use a bankroll of 100000 on a penny casino. And then try to ride out difficult swings. A loss is still possible, but you do not need  to be billionare to give it a try.   Myself think it is dangerous to leave the pennies when ahead, just rise the stake to 10 cent is tenfold, and a bad streak will fast take back all winnings. Better test the luck using higher first, and then reduce the bets.  I have got impossible runs RFH three times this year losing  about 200 Euro, and have a net of 3800 Euro. If I had rise the stake to even 0.1, I have maybe still been in plus, but the loss had been 2000 Euro. I may have lost more session as it may be hard to have a stoploss at 1000 Euro or more. I think we can win for a while, sometimes a long while, but not forever.

You mention regression, cool ...

Quote from: Bayes on February 22, 2013, 03:59:53 PM
Another article on the same theme:

http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A615539

From the article:

"With... systems it's a habit to think linearly."

We all think in a linear fashion, its how we figure things
out. Animals don't think this way, that's why they have
a hard time making connections.

You'll never beat roulette thinking in a linear way. But
its very hard not to, so you'll keep trying anyway. Random
is not linear.

From the article : "Too many bets at the same stake: you lose."

Thinking linialy in a non-rhythmic, non-symmetrical, non-proportional manner offers elegant possibilities. Thinking that larger numbers decreases the number of losses used against large numbers, as a form of camaflauging the inevitable, like the author suggests, is non-productive. The only way to beat this game is to utilize an agile, intelligent implemented, bi-level, awareness system that deliberately manipulates the balancing effects of the large number effect.

Can I both agree AND disagree with the thread proposition?

Having been a programmer in the past and these days a Business Analyst you could be forgiven for thinking that I should know better than to propose this.  Surely, you could argue, there can be only one truth here? How can it make any sense whatsoever for both sides of the proposition to be true?

Well, let me try and explain. I'll try to be brief but it may not be possible.  But I'll try.  And remember, this is only one person's thoughts on this - mine, of course.

After a long time of study of a range of ecarts using various progression techniques I came to the conclusion that a progression was equivalent to a flat bet - the actual amount of the flat bet being dependent on the particular progression under review.  Problem solved I thought - progressions were therefore useless so let's not waste our time any further in trying to solve the roulette problem this way. Note that this study was not done using any form of theoretical mathematical proof - the approach was empirical, but sufficiently large to support the hypothesis strongly.

However, at another time in my research I worked through a thought experiment that goes like this - using any even chance game, and where there are no limits, and where my bank is truly limitless, a simple martingale WILL eventually result in a win. Now, ignoring the poor return on investment and all the practical aspects involved, this shows that from a purely theoretical point of view a progression can win when a flat bet cannot.

So we would have to ask the question - if a progression can defeat a a game why would the first study not have shown this?  I am not sufficiently strong in theoretical maths to be able to answer this question that way, but I would suggest that the answer lies in the nature of randomness and the consequential effect known as Black Swan events.  These events aren't necessarily bad - it depends on which side of the event you have placed your gamble.  For example, you could go through your entire life playing the lotto only when expectation is positive (yes that can happen) and not win a bean because the probability is low - but for the person who does win ( and eventually somebody does), that is a positive Black Swan event for them.

So I guess that what I am saying is this - for practical purposes, if we actually want to win inside our lifetime and on a consistent basis, we have to treat the situation as per the empirical evidence which exists within our expected "volume" of personal betting history, i.e.  that progressions are effectively the same as flat betting. But the reality from the universe's point of view (which is really long) is that progressions ARE different to flat betting, however this is of no practical value to the human gambler.

So, to summarise, it is my view that it is a waste of time and effort to go down the path of trying to turn a losing flat bet strategy into a profitable one by throwing any form of progression at it.  End of story!  Kaput!  The fat lady has sung!  It just can't be done in a meaningful way - that is, within a reasonable length of ecart.  UNLESS, you happen to be the lucky one who is on the right side of the Black Swan when it appears - and the probability of this occurring within your lifetime is very low.  So why would you bother?

Therefore, ladies and germs, let us turn our thoughts to creating something new!  Let us jump out of our respective mental boxes and move into uncharted territory!  Be creative!  Discover or create new principles - not rehash old ideas long since proven to be worthless!

<I'll get off my soapbox now>.

All the best
Bryan