Martingale: how a doubling run ends
Uses even-money bets on the wheel chosen above. With La Partage a zero returns half the stake; here it counts as a loss, so the French figures are slightly pessimistic.
How it is calculated
- Chance of winning: numbers covered ÷ pockets on the wheel (37 or 38).
- House edge: 1 − (numbers covered × (payout + 1)) ÷ pockets. Standard payouts are set as if the wheel had 36 numbers, so the zero (or zeros) is the house's share: 1 ÷ 37 = 2.70% and 2 ÷ 38 = 5.26%.
- La Partage: on even-money bets a zero returns half the stake, which halves the edge to 1.35%.
- Martingale: after each loss the bet doubles. A run fails when the next bet would pass the maximum; that happens when every bet in the run loses.
Read more in Roulette Math: European vs American and Why the Martingale System Fails.
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