The Truth about Pragmatic Betting Systems
One of the biggest myths about gambling is that games of luck can be overcome with methods such as varying bet sizes to manipulate the odds. Depending on how the specific system works, in the long run, you will either sacrifice a few large losses for many smaller wins, or many small losses for a few larger wins. In the long run you can only lose at any game of pure luck. The more you play, regardless of what form of betting system you use, the ratio of money lost to money bet will always approach the same constant. This is known in mathematics as the Law of Large Numbers. Betting systems are just mathematical voodoo that will never survive the test of time. If you don’t believe me here is what the Encyclopedia Britannica declares under the subject of gambling:
“A common gamblers’ fallacy called ‘the doctrine of the maturity of the chances’ (or ‘Monte Carlo fallacy’) falsely assumes that each play in a game of chance is not independent of the others and that a series of outcomes of one sort should be balanced in the short run by other possibilities. A number of ‘systems’ have been invented by gamblers based largely on this fallacy; casino operators are happy to encourage the use of such systems and to exploit any gambler’s neglect of the strict rules of probability and independent plays.”
Probability and Measure (second edition) by Patrick Billingsley provides specific proof that betting systems do not win in the long run. On page 94 he states that, “…There are schemes that go beyond selection systems and tell the gambler not only whether to bet but how much. Gamblers frequently contrive or adopt such schemes in the confident expectation that they can, by pure force of arithmetic, counter …
