Do you know the doubling-up strategy? I’ve talked about it before, that strategy is also known as the Martingale system. With this betting system, you place an initial bet, for example $5. If you lose, you double that bet to $10. If you lose, you double the bet again, this time to $20. And you double up as long as until you finally win. In this example, you will win your initial bet of $5.

What looks like a fool-proof system to always win, unfortunately doesn’t work. Of course you can play Blackjack with this doubling-up strategy, as this betting system can be used in every game with almost even chances, for example Roulette.

But for the same reasons as it doesn’t work with Roulette, it doesn’t also work with Blackjack. For the Martingale system to work, you must have the capability of doubling up an infinite number of times.

But for two reasons, this is not possible. First, nobody has unlimited funds. And secondly, as in Roulette, also in Blackjack there are table limits. Due to these table limits with minimum and maximum bets, it’s only possible to double up about five to eight times. So even with unlimited funds, you can get very unlucky and lose a huge amount of money (be aware that doubling up $5 for seven times leads to the huge amount of $1280, and is it worth to risk that much money to win $5?).

So my recommendation is not to use the doubling-up strategy in Blackjack. What is as thrilling, but less risky is to use the Anti-Martingale system: Just play with your initial bet (for example $5), and if you win, you play with $10, and if you win, play with $20. Set yourself a goal of how many times you want to win before you take your winnings and restart at $5. I’d suggest to leave your money only for 2-4 games on the table, so that it doesn’t become nearly impossible to keep your accumulated winnings.

Good luck!

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