All bets are really flat bets

[GLC]

I wrote about this a few years ago but it's worth bringing up again because new members don't have time to go back and read all past posts.

All I'm implying is that even with a standard martingale of 1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256-512-1024 you can break it down into 11 flat-bets.  The reason is that every time you bet the 1 unit bet, it becomes a member of your pool of all the 1 unit bets you have and will make in your life. 
It's the same for each of the other bets.  The reason for this is that the wheel doesn't know or care that an 8 unit bet comes after a 4 unit bet and before a 16 unit bet.  It's just an 8 unit bet.  Take all your 8 unit bets and calculate how many wins vs losses you've had and, given a large enough pool of bets, you will discover that you have lost approximately 2.7% overall.  The same thing applies to the 1024 unit bets.  Granted there won't be that many of them, but collect them all together and you will discover that the house edge applies to them as well.

It's a misperception of reality to think that by arranging your bet amounts in a certain order it will somehow cause you to change the odds of winning some of the bets.

Let's say you decide that a 1-2 two step bet progression gives you your best odds of winning.  You decide this because we know that a win on the 2 unit bet recovers the 1 unit bet plus gives you a unit of profit without your having make huge bets as with the rest of the martingale.  You can see that if you put all the 1 unit bets in a separate tub and all the 2 unit bets in a separate tub each can be viewed and calculated separately and the end result is obvious.

Of course the above is affected by standard deviation.  With a little luck, your bets could be on the positive side of SD for most or the rest of your life.  But for most this won't be the case.

This is why the warnings against playing with money you can't afford to lose.

Gambling is always a risk.  One never knows for sure that you can handle the impulse to throw good money after bad money until you have lost money you can't afford to lose.

I suggest that you gather a pool of money you can afford to invest in gambling and if you have what you think is a winning method of play, build your bankroll from winnings; increasing your bet size with the casino's money.  This requires self discipline that few have, but it's the best way to stay within your financial means.

I know that many of my posts ignore the truth of this topic.  That's because I'm like a lot of you who keep hoping there's something out there that negates the obvious math and when we find it, yahoo.  We just need to stay in control of ourselves during the pursuit.

GLC

[iggiv]

u r absolutely right. Progressions don't work. Flatbet and increasing the bets when you increase the bankroll significally enough. Starting with very minimum bets.