1. Best Progressive Betting System Ever
2. Betting Strategy For Blackjack
3. Progressive Betting In Blackjack
4. Progressive Betting Chart

A simple search on the Internet will reveal a large number of blackjack progression betting systems for sale. Many of the people who sell these progression systems are little more than carnival barkers hawking a worthless scheme designed to get you to pay $49 or more for information that is outdated and ineffective. Progressive betting systems, like yours, will turn a good session into a great one without the risk of catastrophic loss as with regressive systems like the Martingale. However progressive systems will turn a choppy neutral session into a bad one. Consider what would happen if you alternated between a win and a loss the entire session. The number of ‘guaranteed’ betting systems, the proliferation of myths and fallacies concerning such systems, and the countless people believing, propagating, venerating, protecting, and swearing by such systems are legion. Betting systems constitute one of the oldest delusions of gambling history.

USING PROGRESSIVE BETTING AT BLACKJACK

By Henry Tamburin

The intent of a progressive betting system is to vary the size of your bets in a predetermined manner, according to whether or not you won (or lost) the previous bet. Many recreational players use them when they play blackjack. I’ll focus on one of the most famous and widely used progressive betting systems, the Martingale, or double-up, system.

Using the Martingale betting system, you double your previous bet after every loss until you finally win a hand, at which point you will be ahead by one betting unit. For example, suppose you wager $10 and the results of the next three hands are loss, loss, and win (L-L-W). You would have lost $10 on the first hand, $20 on the second hand, and won $40 on the third hand. You wind up with a net win of $10, which is the goal of the progression, to win an amount equal to your starting wager.

Progressive bettors will tell you that if you just follow the betting system and leave the table after a win you always walk away with a profit. The downfall of the Martingale occurs is when you experience a sequence of losses. Progressive bettors will always counter with “the chance that this will happen is slim.” Really? With the help of Donald Schlessinger (Blackjack Attack; Playing the Pros’ Way), and the Wizard of Odds, Michael Shackleford (www.wizardofodds.com), they calculated the following percentages for a streak of ten losses in a row.

You have about a 52 percent chance of losing a hand in blackjack (excluding ties). The chance that you will lose, say, ten consecutive (resolved) hands followed by a win is 0.069 percent, meaning you will average one sequence of ten losing hands (excluding ties) followed by a win in about every 1439 hands, and so, this losing streak will occur about once in roughly fourteen hours of play (assuming you play 100 resolved hands per hour). And get this ... you don’t know when that string of ten consecutive losses followed by a win will occur in the fourteen hours (of course, it may not occur at all). The math says that you have a 2.99 percent chance of losing ten in a row in the first hour; a 6.18 percent in the first two hours; and 15.13 percent chance after five hours. Sadly for Martingale bettors, a streak of ten consecutive losses is not such a rare event after all.

What about all those frequent winning sessions that Martingale players (and system sellers) always tout about this system? The fact is this: although most players will walk away a small winner most of the time, the money you will lose in that one catastrophic losing session will more than completely wipe out all the money that you will win in your more frequent winning sessions. In the long run, your wins and losses will add up to the casino’s edge, and the amount of money that you will lose using the Martingale betting system will be close to the casino’s theoretical edge in the game times the total amount of money that you wagered, the same as it is for every other player who plays blackjack (except card counters). In other words, mathematically speaking, you can’t, and you won’t, gain the advantage over the casino using a Martingale betting system.

There is another more practical issue with the Martingale that also dooms most players who use it, and it’s this: on an extended losing streak, you may not be able to double-up your bets because you will bump up against the maximum betting limit imposed by casinos. For example, suppose you are a $5 bettor and you lose eight (resolved) hands in a row. Your losses at this point total $1,275 (gulp!). Assuming you have the bankroll (and the guts) to double up again, your next wager according to the Martingale is $1,280, which exceeds the $1,000 table-betting limit (that you’ll find in most casinos on low-limit tables). Unfortunately, there is no way for the progressive bettor to bet enough to recoup his losses when this occurs (other than to move to a higher-limit table).

My suggestion if you are a progressive bettor is to learn Speed Count, which will alert you when the edge shifts in your favor. Speed Count is easy to learn and it’s ideal for recreational players. You just count the small cards (2-6) and then at the end of the round you subtract the number of hands played. It’s that simple. Using Speed Count, you’ll know when the edge is in your favor and that’s when you should bet more (or use your progressive betting system).

Progressive betting systems alone will not reduce the house edge against you when you play blackjack. Speed Count will not only reduce the house edge, it will swing the edge in your favor. It’s a no-brainer.

You can get the details about Speed Count in the book Beat Blackjack Now! by Frank Scoblete. There is also an instructional DVD on Speed Count if you want to see Speed Count being used under casino-simulated conditions (seeing is believing ... for details go to www.goldentouchblackjack.com).

One of the most often asked questions from players about blackjack strategy, is 'how should I bet?' You've got severaloptions and I'll discuss them in this article and offer my recommendation.

Flat Bet Blackjack Strategy

This means betting the same amount all the time. Most players don't like to bet this way because they figure if the dealer wins more hands then them they'll never win any money. Also, playersfeel it's boring betting this way. They prefer the thrill of sometimes betting more in the hopes that when they do so, they will win the hand and make a nice profit.

Here are the facts on the flat betting blackjack strategy. If you bet say $5 on every hand in a standard multiple deck game the house will have an edge of 0.5% against theskilled basic strategy player. That means you will lose on average 0.5% of every wager you make. So if you bet $10 on every hand and average 80 hands per hour you will have made a total of $800worth of bets. The casino expects to earn 0.5% of the $800 or $4.00. Of course, the more likely result is that you'll win or lose much more than $4 after an hour of play. But on average you canexpect over time to lose at the rate of $4 per hour.

Let's take an example of a player flat betting $10 on every hand. It's is a conservative betting strategy that leads to a relatively low theoretical loss rate. The fluctuation in this player'sbankroll will also be low which means the likelihood he'll have a big winning or losing session is not great.

Watch 'Why You Should Never Make the Blackjack Insurance Bet with Blackjack Expert Henry Tamburin' (March 2016)

In this video blackjack expert Henry Tamburin explains why a basic strategy player should never make an insurance bet. He gives details on three different situations that a player may encounterand why he considers blackjack insurance to always be a sucker bet.

Progressive Betting Blackjack Strategy

This is where things get interesting. The Progressive betting blackjack strategy is when players vary their bets in some way from one hand to the next rather than alwaysbetting the same amount on every hand. There are all different types of betting progressions but they all have one common denominator. You either decrease or increase your next bet dependingupon whether the hand you just played won or lose.

Win progressions encourage you to increase your bet size after a winning hand. For example, you make a minimum bet of $10 and if you win, you raise your next stakes on the hand to $20.

There are all different kinds of win progressions. The most common is a 1-2-3-5 progression. This means you increase your bet by the above multiples after each winning hand butas soon as you experience a loss, you start the progression over with a 1 unit bet.

Proponents of win progressions will tell you that you'll win more money if you win 5 consecutive hands compared to the amount you lose if you lose 5 consecutive hands. Of course, what theydon't tell you is that you never know when that 5 consecutive winning hand streak will occur.

There are also betting progressions in which you increase your bet following a loss. These Martingale type betting progressions are dangerous and you should never consider using them.

There are also hybrid betting progressions, which have you increase your bets following a win, but after two or three success wins you lock up some profit and gradually regress your bets. Thecreativity of progressive bettors is never-ending.

Best Progressive Betting System Ever

First of all, the blackjack strategy for betting progressions does not change the 0.5% house edge one iota. There has never been a correlation between the hand just won (orlost) and your chance of winning the next hand. In other words, using the criteria of the result of one hand (W/L) to base how you bet on the next hand has no scientific validity. So bettingprogressions, in the long run, don't work in the sense that they won't improve your long-term chances of winning.

But here's what betting progressions will do. First off they increase the fluctuation in your session bankroll compared to flat betting. This means you can win more using abetting progression compared to flat betting but you can also lose more. Secondly, betting progressions will increase the amount of money you wager per hour compared to flat betting. If a $10bettor uses a 1-2-3-5 betting progression, his average bet will $20. Over an hour he will average $20 times 80 hands or $1600 worth of bets. The casino's expected win is 0.5% of $1600 or $8. Inother words, a $10 progressive bettor stands to lose twice as much per hour as a $10 flat bettor.

Here's a tip to save you some money in the long run if you insist on using a betting progression. Instead of starting your progression at $10, start at a lower amount (ie. $5). This will reduceyour average bet to $10 per hour and cut your hourly theoretical loss rate in half.

But in the long run flat betting and betting progressions don't work in the sense they won't change the house edge against you and you will lose in the long run. So what betting system works?That, my friends, is card counting.

Betting Strategy For Blackjack

Betting When You Have The Edge (Card Counting)

With card counting, you know when you have the edge based on the change in the composition of the decks and therefore you'll know when it's the right time to bet more. Sounlike betting progressions that are based on whether you win or lose the previous hands, card counting is based on the mix of cards that were played on previous hands. If more small valuecards were played in previous rounds, there are more big value cards left in the unplayed cards, and the edge shifts from dealer to the player. This would be the best time to bet more.

But I'm a realist. Not a whole lot of average blackjack players have the time or mental concentration during play that is required to master one of the popular point count cardcounting systems. These are readily available in blackjack books. But even though millions of blackjack books have been sold since Ed Thorp's classic book, Beat The Dealer (circa 1962) firstrevealed card counting to the masses, the number of players who can successfully win money in the long run at blackjack number in the hundreds and thousands.

So what's the answer to betting at blackjack for the average player? I asked Don Pronovost that same question about four years ago. Don is a software developer that markets blackjack trainingsoftware. He spent the better part of two years and a trillion computer simulated hands looking for the solution to this dilemma. What he developed is Speed Count.

Progressive Betting In Blackjack

Speed Count is unlike any conventional card counting system. It's much simpler to master and requires much less concentration when you play. And unlike progressive betting systems, Speed Countwill give you a verifiable advantage over the casino You can read about Speed Count in Frank Scoblete’s book, Golden Touch Blackjack Revolution.

Now that you know the scoop on betting at blackjack, I wish you many aces and faces the next time you play.

Henry Tamburin has been a respected casino gambling writer for the past 50 years. He is the author of theUltimate Blackjack Strategy Guide and was editor of theBlackjack Insider newsletter. You can read his latest articles on blackjack, video poker, and his personal playing experiences at https://www.888casino.com/blog/writers/henry-tamburin

Progressive Betting Chart

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