Betting Systems Explained

Posted at October 6th, 2010 Add your comment

Jean le Rond D'Alembert has invented system, well known as D'Alembert Betting System

Betting systems are as old as gambling itself and if you do research you'll find many of these gambling systems and wonder if they work. It seems like with sportsbetting you have sharp sports bettors who seem to consistently make money from gambling. You have professional poker players that claim poker is not gambling but a game of skill. I think players like Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan make a strong case to prove that poker is a game of skill. If you don't believe it then play them heads up for $5000 and see what happens. With casinos it seems impossible to beat the house but maybe you have heard of card counting which is a system used to profit from the casino playing blackjack. Maybe you have got the emails that tell you how to make millions with their can't lose system. Sometimes these systems sound too good to be true and usually they are.

Despite the bogus betting systems that can be found everywhere it is possible to make money professional from sportsbetting as a sharp bettor. It definitely is possible to become a professional poker player and win consistently. You can of course make money playing casinos but it is tougher than it sounds as the main methods involve card counting with blackjack. You might as well give up on card counting unless you're a hot slim petite girl that can card count while getting free comps out of the pit boss. You see a hot girl playing blackjack could never be smart enough to count cards so you never need to worry about heat from the pitboss.

Back to the topic at hand. You want to know what betting systems exist and if they work or not. We asked our math expert at SuperBetting.com to research and analyze some of the common betting systems and tell the readers what to look out for.

Martingale Betting System

The Martingale betting system believe it or not was popular back in the 18th century. This probably became a public rumor that you could use the martingale system to make money. It was at this time that roulette was one of the more popular betting games around especially in France. The principle of the system is that you take a coin toss style of game where the outcome can be 50/50. 50% of the time you'll get heads and 50% of the time you'll get tails. The theory is that if you keep flipping then at some point you will eventually get heads. So if you place a bet for $1 and flip and get tails, then the next bet you double the bet size to $2 and keep playing until you win. This explanation makes sense to people and they stop challenging the theory and it's flaws.

Our math expert explains all the flaws with the martingale betting system on any game that has some house edge. A coin toss has no house edge at all unless you reduce the payout of a win. So if we apply this theory to blackjack or roulette here is what we end up with. Blackjack it is possible to get a house edge of 0.5% and roulette can be 3% to 5%. So you start with a bet of $5, and lose, then bet $10, and if you keep losing you'll start to double more at $20, $40, $80, $160 and it stops there because most casinos will limit your maximum bet of $300 to $500. So you do not have an infinite bankroll as the first problem and the second problem is with a game like roulette you will grind your money to almost zero with a house edge of 3%. The more you keep betting the more money you're contributing to the house from the house edge. If you could bet without any maximum betting limits and had an infinite bankroll then you have an argument to win. Just remember the house always wins and if they didn't they wouldn't be able to afford such a nice lavish building and have the money to pay out it's winners. Gambling is their business and you are their customer. The next time somone proposes to use the martingale betting system just propose to have this tested out at any landbased casino online.

D'Alembert Betting System

The D'Alembert betting system has many names like the cancellation system or simply the Alembert system named after Jean le Rond D'Alembert who was a mathematician. This system is meant to be applied to even money games like a coin toss or playing blackjack or betting black or red on roulette. The system is tough to explain because the system doesn't make much sense in that it's just a means of playing on the idea that a player has infinite bankroll and infinite betting limits. An example is best used here:

You want to win 10 betting units where each unit is $1.
You bet $1 and if you win the bet size remains the same.
If you lose you increase the bet size by 1 unit. As long as you have to bet more than 2 units you increase the bet size by 1 unit if you lose and you decrease it if you win.

Overall this system doesn't do much and maybe changes the variance of your bets but certainly does nothing for the house edge. We like to joke that it's called the cancellation system or method because it cancels out your bankroll until you have lost everything. In theory you can apply this to sportsbetting but it is difficult to do so as sportsbetting has a higher built in house edge and you really need to be sharp. Overall it's not worth your time with this system.

Parlay Betting System

What happens when you mix gambling with a pyramid scheme? You get the beautiful Parlay betting system. The team at SuperBetting likes to joke that it is a system to parlay your money into a big loss. The system can be applied to most betting scenarios but it is commonly used in betting for horse racing. The idea is simple, you take your original bet plus the winnings and bet it all or as they say let it ride. This system works great if you never lose but even people like Tom Dwan lose sometimes.

This system is recommended for people who have no interest in investing and love to gamble. If you win all the time it is a great system but that is where it fails.

Paroli Betting System

The Paroli system is known as the anti-martingale system and is a positive progressive betting system. The idea is simple where you increase your bets when you win. You essentially parlay it into huge wins and become rich for life. This system is meant to be used when you win a set number of units then you restart to your original bet unit. This is really just another let it ride system where you start small and try to bank on a win streak. The name of this system really should be changed to the parody betting system for being such a big joke.

Don't trust any person or website that claims there are any ways of making money from this system. We see many list advantages and disadvantages but truthfully it doesn't make much of a difference of the outcome as you are still gambling. If you want to make money on sportsbetting follow tipsters with a proven track record and listen to their advice.

1-3-2-6 Betting System

This system has a stupid name but it does explain the bet units involved which is betting 1, 3, 2 and then 6 units. The example of this system is to bet one unit of $1. If you win you increase the bet size to 3 units, if you win then go to 2 units and if you win go to 6 units. So the 2nd bet if you win would now bet 3 units or $3. If you win you have $6 and you now bet 2 units being $2. If you win then you really risk it all on the last one with a 6 unit bet. This is just another example of a progressive betting system but really no math is needed to demonstrate that this system is just another failed one.

If I asked a child to give me 4 numbers from 1 through 6 they would probably come up with 1-3-2-6. I would probably end up with the same thing rolling a single die and you can probably make your own betting system this way too.

Another failed betting system is added to our catalogue of betting systems.

Value Bets System

If you want a betting system that would make sense at all then the value betting system is really just stating the obvious which is placing value bets. Value bets can come in many examples which would be reducing the losses or a bet or increasing the potential payout and having a positive expected value. Another example of a value bet would be you want to place a bet on Chelsea Football Club to win the champions league. You review our list of trusted sportsbooks and compare the prices. You find the book that gives you the most return if you win your bet and this would be a simple example of a value bet. Your goal is either to save some money or to make money depending on the situation.

Sure Bets System

A sure bets system is basically a can't lose system. This doesn't exactly mean you are placing bets where you only win but rather it's meant to imply that no matter what you do for this system you will come out with some form of profit. One example of a sure bets system would be betting the number of goals scored in a football match. At one sportsbook you are given a price of 2.10 payout for under 2.5 goals and another book has a price of 2.10 payout for over 2.5 goals. These situations are rare but if you are able to find them this is betting on both sides and no matter what happens with the outcome you have given yourself a sure bet and a sure profit. Situations like this occur when sportsbooks are changing the prices of their bets and sharp players are able to find situations where betting on both sides produces a guaranteed profit. Situations like this are tough to come by but sometimes you can find similar events where maybe you don't have a guaranteed profit but a situations that produces a higher expected value where maybe 25% of the time you lose $100 and 75% of the time you win $300. This isn't a sure bet but it's a value bet.

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