CalculatorsUpdated 5 Sept 20262 min read
Martingale Calculator
The Martingale promises that one win makes you whole. The arithmetic that breaks it is the doubling: stakes climb 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, and a losing streak does not have to be long before the next required bet is larger than your bankroll — or larger than the bookmaker will take.
Longest losing run you can fund: 6 bets.
A further loss would need a stake of 640, but you'd have only 370 left — the system breaks.
Chance of a 6-loss streak over 200 bets: ≈ 82%
How it reads#
- Losses survived is the honest headline: how many consecutive losses your bankroll actually covers before the next doubling is unaffordable.
- The breaking stake is what that next bet would have to be. It is usually a number people are startled by, because exponential growth is hard to picture.
- Probability of ruin is the chance of meeting that streak at least once over the number of bets you entered. This is the figure that turns "unlikely" into "expected sooner or later".
- Try a generous bankroll. Ten times the money rarely buys more than two or three extra losses. That insensitivity is the whole argument.
What it does not tell you#
It assumes every bet is independent and priced the same. It does not model the bookmaker limiting or closing your account, which in practice arrives before the maths does. And it says nothing about whether your selections are any good — a Martingale on top of a winning method breaks the same way, which is the point of the bankroll simulator.
When to use it#
Use it once, before you are tempted, rather than during a losing run. The reasoning in full is in why the Martingale always ends the same way; the gentler progressions are laid out side by side in staking plans compared; and if a streak feels impossibly unlucky, how many bets it takes to prove anything explains why it is not.
For the staking that does survive a season, see the Kelly calculator and risk of ruin.
Related
Frequently asked questions
How many losses in a row can a Martingale survive?
Far fewer than most people expect, because the stakes grow exponentially — 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640. Set your own bankroll above and the calculator returns the exact number of consecutive losses it covers and the stake that breaks it. A generous bankroll usually buys only one or two extra losses.
Isn't a long losing streak rare?
No. Over a full season of betting, a run of seven straight losses is close to routine even for a genuinely good method. The calculator gives the probability of hitting your own breaking streak over the number of bets you enter, and it is rarely small.
Do the gentler progressions fix this?
They delay it, they do not remove it. Fibonacci, the ladder, deferred-win schemes and d'Alembert all raise the stake after a loss, just more slowly. The danger is not the speed of the climb — it is concentrating money at the moment your bankroll is weakest.
Does the bookmaker's maximum stake matter?
Often it is what stops you before your bankroll does. Doubling reaches table and account limits quickly, and at that point the system cannot complete its own recovery step — the loss is locked in by the rules of the book rather than by arithmetic.