In case you missed read about Positive Progressive Betting Systems
As the name suggests a negative progression betting system is one that is the direct opposite of a positive progressive betting system. It means that you’ll be required to raise your stakes when you lose and decrease your bets when you’re winning. The theory with negative progression is based on the thought that you are bound to get a win eventually and when you do win you’ll be able to gain more money.
It is important to note that the negative systems are normally considered extremely dangerous, because of the fact that it is possible for them to lead the players losing their entire bankroll after a long series of losses.
Here are some examples of negative betting systems:
The Martingale Betting System
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
The Martingale system is one of the oldest and most well-known betting systems. It’s also one of the easiest to learn because it doesn’t require any complicated calculations. As a negative progression system, the Martingale involves increasing your stakes when you lose. Note that like all other progressive betting systems, this one comes with no guarantee of success.
Martingale Betting System -Usage:
The Martingale system is primarily used at casino games which offer even money bets. The outside bets on the roulette table, such as odd or even, are good examples of where players could try this system. However, it can also be used on the pass or don’t pass bets at the craps table, and at blackjack and baccarat, and can even be used for even money bets in sports betting.
There are basically just two rules to follow:
- Double your stake every time you loss
- Stake one base unit after every win
Since the Martingale is a negative progressive system, you will be required to bet your base stake each time you experience a win.
The Martingale Betting System in Practice
For example – let’s say that you’ve chosen to play a game of Roulette with a minimum bet of $5 and you decide that you’re going to use a base staking unit of $5.
- Stake $5, lose. Total -$5.
- Double up to $10, lose. Total -$15.
- Double up to $20, lose, Total -$35.
- Double up to $40, win. Total +$5.
It makes no difference how many bets you lose in a row or the size of your base unit. When you win a wager, you will always make a profit of exactly one betting unit.
This system can work in the short-term. If you avoid any long losing streaks, it can even work for quite extended period of time.
However, if you fall into a long series of losses, which often happens, the problems will start for you.
As you can see, you have to risk $320, which is 32 times your original base unit, after losing just 5 consecutive rounds, which is extremely usual in roulette. You have already lost $310, which means you will have to wager $320 simply to make a $10 profit, which may not seem reasonable to you.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Martingale System:
The Advantages of the Martingale System
- Easy to Use
- You can set your base stake as low or high as you desire
- Enables you to generate short term profit
- Applying the Martingale System makes the game more interesting
The Disadvantages of the Martingale System
- Does not affect the house edge
- The size of the bets grows significantly
- Requires an unlimited bankroll to guarantee success
- Reaching the Table Limit is quite Possible
- Small reward in return for a big risk
Variations of the Martingale System
As a result of the creation of the Martingale betting system, several more modifications were developed, all of which aimed to correct the original’s weaknesses. Here’s a few details on some of the more popular variations.
The Mini Martingale
With this variation, you limit the amount of times you double up. The idea is that this will prevent the stakes getting ridiculously high. While it does that, it also means that you are more likely to experience a losing streak where you don’t manage to get a win. With this option, you’ll lose your money more slowly, but you will still lose money unless you have incredible luck.
The Anti-Martingale or Reverse Martingale
The Anti-Martingale is also known as the Reverse Martingale. Rather than doubling up after losses, you double up after wins. This can lead you to potentially bigger wins if you go on a winning streak. Of course, you have to stop at some point or you will end up giving back all your profits with one loss. This is a safer option than the original system but still offers no guarantee of winning.
The Grand Martingale
This system was created to solve one of Martingale’s biggest problems in the original system: the benefits are too small for the risk involved. So instead simply doubling your stake after a loss, you increase your stake by an additional stake unit. This way, you’ll win more than a single base unit on any sequence that ends with a win. However, because you are growing your stakes at an even higher rate, this system is incredibly dangerous, and a long losing streak would be devastating.
The Labouchere Betting System
The Labouchere system was famously used by James Bond and is one of the most widely used in the gambling world. The Labouchere system is one of the more sophisticated betting systems. Despite its complexities, it is still one of the most well-known and popular systems among gamblers. This betting system is one which is known by more than one name including the Split Martingale, the Cancellation System and American Progression. It’s a negative progression system, so it involves increasing stakes after losing bets. The theory behind this system is that you should be able to recover the losses from losing wagers with a smaller number of wins.
The Labouchere works on the same principle as the Martingale, another negative progression strategy, but it does not aim to recover all previous losses with a single win. Instead, it tries to recover losses with multiple wins.
The Labouchere Betting System Usage:
The Labouchere was designed to be used at the roulette table, specifically the even money outside bets such as red or black, or odd or even. It can be used with any even money bets in other casino games such as Blackjack and Baccarat. Online sports betting is an option as well.
The Labouchere Betting System is based on the idea that if a player wins more often than he/she lose, he/she will eventually be able to cross off all the numbers in the sequence that he/she has chosen to use during the playtime. It’s important to remember that this strategy was created to be used on even money bets, where the chances of winning are pretty much equal to the risks of losing.
How to Use the Labouchere Betting System:
The Labouchere system involves following sequences, according to which you put your wager. These are the following rules to accurately implement the system:
- To start with the system, the first thing to do is write down a sequence of numbers. Technically this can be any sequence you want it to be, although you do need to put some thought into it. Right now we’ll use a simple 1-2-3 sequence.
- Consider the following three factors before making your decision:
- How much money do you want to earn
- How much money you’re prepared to risk in the process
- The betting limits of the game you’re playing
- The potential profit for each round in this system is equal to the total value of all the numbers in the chosen sequence, in our case that would be 1+2+3 = $6.
- Each time you bet, your wager will be equal to the sum of the first and last numbers of the chosen sequence, which in our case would be 1+3 = $4.
- If you win your wager, you will remove the first and last numbers from the sequence, so in our case, you will remove 1 and 3.
- If you lose your wager, you will add the amount staked to the end of the sequence. So losing your first wager with this sequence would mean adding a 4 after 1-2-3 in this case.
The above-mentioned rules apply after every single wager. Win, and you cross the first and last numbers off. Lose, and you add your stake to the end. For each subsequent wager, you always stake the combined amount of the first and last numbers.
The only exception to this rule is if you’re left with just one number. Then you just stake that amount. If you happen to win that wager, the cycle is over and you start again with the original sequence.
This all seems simple, but things get a little more complicated when losing a few wagers. Let`s have a look at the following example:
- Bet $4 (1+3), lose. Add 4 to the end, giving 1-2-3-4
- Bet $5 (1+4), lose. Add 5 to the end, giving 1-2-3-4-5
- Bet $6 (1+5), win. Remove 1 and 5, giving 2-3-4
- Bet $6 (2+4), lose. Add 6 to the end, giving 2-3-4-6
- Bet $8 (2+6), lose. Add 8 to the end, giving 2-3-4-6-8
- Bet $10 (2+8), win. Remove 2 and 8, giving 3-4-6
- Bet $9 (3+6), win. Remove 3 and 6, giving 4
- Bet $4, lose. Add 4 to the end, giving 4-4
- Bet $8 (4+4), win. Remove 4 and 4, finishing the chain.
In this cycle you would have lost five bets and won four. The total losses would be $27 (4+5+6+8+4) and the total wins $33 (6+10+9+8). The overall profit would still be $6, despite having more losing wagers than winning wagers. Actually this is the Labouchere’s key principle. You will gain a profit equal to the total value of the original sequence of numbers if you remove all the numbers no matter how long the chain is. This can theoretically be achieved by winning fewer bets than you lose, as the winning bets will be at greater stakes than the losing bets.
One of the key positive aspects of this system is its flexibility. Because you can adjust the initial betting sequence, you can adjust your levels of risk and reward somewhat. A longer sequence of higher numbers will lead to a comparatively much larger profit if you manage to finish the chain. However, the size of the bets will also increase rapidly after just a few losses, greatly multiplying the risk involved. However, you can use sequences that include a number of zeros. This makes the system a lot safer.
There are people who feel the Labouchere works since it can produce a profit by winning fewer bets than you lose. Indeed, if you can avoid going on a long losing run, you can make money with this strategy. The problem is that there is never a guarantee that you will not have a long losing run. In fact, if you play often enough or for long enough, it’s very possible that you will.
By increasing your stakes after every loss, a losing streak can result in the required stake getting too high. You might not have enough money, and even if you do, there are betting limits to consider.
Some people are attracted by the Labouchere progression, or any negative progression for that matter, because they don’t believe they will ever lose enough bets in a row to cause a problem. Unfortunately this is not true.
D’Alembert Betting System
The D’Alembert system is one of the simplier and safest betting systems. Like the Martingale, Great Martingale, and Labouchere betting system, the D’Alembert betting system is also a negative progressive betting system. After the Martingale system, it is perhaps the second most popular betting system. The stakes are raised more slowly compared with the Martingale and the other negative progression systems, so the stakes are less likely to reach impossibly high levels. To some extent, this is a benefit, but it also means that losses are recovered more slowly.
The Logic Behind the D’Alembert Betting System
According to the D’Alembert system, you are more likely to win after a loss. To put it another way, the idea is that you should always win roughly the same number of even money bets as you lose.
The D’Alembert system is commonly applied when making even money bets at the roulette table, but it can effectively be used for any other game as well, as long as it is being used for even money wagers.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the D’Alebmert Betting System
The Advantages of Using the D’Alembert Betting System
- Easy to learn and simple to implement
- The D’Alembert Betting System offers players a structured way of betting
- The D’Alembert system gives you a better chance of recouping your losses
- Using this system will enable you to generate some short term profit
The Disadvantages of Using the D’Alembert Betting System
- Using the D’Alembert Betting System will not have any effect on the odds
- Long losing streaks are still possible
- Your stake can go over the table’s maximum
- Potential Winnings are usually low
The D’Alembert system is very simple to learn. The system uses 4 basic rules:
- Set your Base Stake – The first think you need to do is to decide what your base staking unit is going to be. It is recommended to use between 2-5% of your bankroll
- Begin With One Unit – You must stake only 1 base-staking unit for the first bet of every cycle while using the D’Alembert system. So, if you decided that your base unit is $10, bet that
- Bets only increase by 1 Unit after a Loss – After every losing wager, the stake for the following wager must increase by one base staking unit. If you started with $10, you should then double it to $20
- Stakes Decrease by 1 Unit after a Win – After every winning wager, you should decrease your stakes. If a wager is won at a stake of only one unit, then it remains the same for the following wager
The D’Alembert system is simple to apply. In theory, winning the same amount of bets as you lose still must lead to a profit, because winning bets will always be at higher stakes than the losing ones.
Let`s look at the following example to understand the concept of the D’Alembert system. We’ll assume you started with a base unit of $10, and were betting on black at the roulette table. Take a look at the results of our example in the table below.
Betting Systems – Conclusion
Betting strategies should never be thought of as a way to generate guaranteed profits. However, some of them can be really effective in the short term. The most reasonable strategies include betting between 1%-5% of your bankroll.
As you can see, there are a range of functioning systems and strategies available to suit various needs. The betting strategies can also make gambling more exciting.
