The Reverse Martingale and the Paroli System

In this article we will show you two very similar betting strategies you can use to enhance your experience at the tables. Similarly to most betting strategies, these won't change your expected winnings, but they may allow you to enjoy the game the most.

In our previous article you can read about the Martingale strategy - the knowledge you got there will be helpful understanding our new betting systems: the Reverse Martingale and the Paroli System.

Reverse Martingale

So in the Douple-up System the problem is that you may lose your entire bankroll at any time, if you have a really bad losing streak. You may have already asked yourself the question: what if I wouldn't chase my losses, but 'chase my winnings' so to say, risking only the house's money to win. What if you wouldn't double up after a losing hand, but double up after a winning hand. The result of every session will be -1, but you have a chance to win huge by just having 4-5 wins in a row (keep in mind, we're talking about even bets like in Blackjack, Craps or the Red/Black bet in Roulette). So you will lose small amounts often, but from time to time you will be massively in positive.

You could say this strategy is not the best, because you always end up with -$1 after every session. This is why you should implement the opposite of the stop loss, let's call it 'win stop'. Let's say we set the 'win stop' to $64 meaning if we have $64 in winnings, we restart the session. If we go for a full 64-session of betting, mathematically we should be at zero (in reality variance occurs and you also lose the house-edge on the game).

Why is that - you ask? Well, you have 1/2 chance to win the first game, 1/2 the chance to win the second. That makes the chances of winning two in a row 1/4. Winning 6 in a row therefore has 1 in 64 chance. Using the EV-formula here leads us to a sum of 0 in the long run. This means that you will hit your 'win stop' every 64 sessions. If you hit it before the 64th game, you have a profit, if you don't, you suffered losses.

The Paroli system

The Paroli system uses the same principle as Reverse Martingale, but sets the 'win stop' at 3 wins, so it's more frequent that you experience a winning session. It has very low variance, therefore it is pretty useful to keep yourself close to your starting amount. Let's look at an example of a couple of spins using Paroli.

Betsize	Result
$1	Win
$2	Loss
$1	Win
$2	Win
$4	Win
$1	Win

You can see that after 3 wins, hitting the 'win stop' we set our betsize to the initial $1.

Both Reverse Martingale and Paroli are designed to be safe and only risk big to win even bigger. Sadly, it doesn't mean that an unprofitable game will become profitable, since all those small initial bets that you lose will add up. These strategies are built on the streaks as well, which we all know do not exist mathematically.

If you'd like to learn about betting strategies based on other principles, take a look at the Labouchere System.