In the casino gambling where I am a consultant, players often come up to me and say, "Hey, Scarne, give me a system so I can beat this game." They all get the same answer: "If I knew any system that would overcome the house percentage, I would keep it strictly to myself. If you had a surefire winning system you would do the same." There is nothing more futile than the attempt to cook up betting systems that will overcome adverse odds.
Betting System
The oldest and commonest betting system is the Martingale or "Doubling up" system, in which bets ate, doubled progressively. This probably dates back to the invention of dice, but every day of the week some gambler somewhere re-invents it, or some variation of it, and believes he has something new. Over the years hundreds of "surefire" winning systems have been dreamed up, and not one of them is worth the price of yesterday’s newspaper.
Chance of Winning
When you make a bet at less than the correct odds, which you always do in any organized gambling operation, you are paying the operator a percentage charge for the privilege of making the bet for casino game. Your chance of winning has what mathematicians call a "minus expectation." When you use a system you make a series of bets, each of which has a minus expectation. There is no way of adding minuses to get a plus, or adding losses to show a profit. Add to this the fact that all gambling operators, including race and sports bookies, limit the size of the player’s wagers so that it is impossible to double up bets indefinitely. This and the house percentage make all gambling systems worthless. The sole exception is in games of both chance and skill when the player has some special skill or knowledge that enables him to make most of his bets with a plus expectation. As an example, suppose a certain ball club is a 2 to 1 favorite to win today’s game because the team’s star pitcher is scheduled to be in the lineup. If you obtain inside information that he has suffered an injury which will keep him out of the game, and if you then get 2 to 1 odds on the underdog, you would have a plus expectation.
Gambling Operators
The system player believes his system will overcome the operator’s favorable edge. He couldn’t be more wrong. Systems actually work against the player and for the house because they are all based on a combination or series of bets, and the more bets the system player makes, the more he increases the operator’s percentage take.
Gambling operators also love system players because they have to bet a specified amount of money, usually more than the average player bets, in order to back up the casino system. The system demands that the player bet it all, and the gambling operator knows he is going to get it all. If a casino player with $100 wants merely to double it, the soundest plan is to risk it all in one bet on the "don’t pass" line on the Craps table. When he splits his $100 into smaller bets, as he would have to do playing most systems, he merely reduces his chance of doubling his money; the smaller the bets the less chance he has.
