There are a plethora of betting systems floating around, some for sale, some for free, some come in eBooks, and others in DVD’s for 19.99 that you buy in the middle of the night from a very hyper man on cable television.

Some of these systems are just silly, and make no mathematical sense. There are however some that are worth a second look. That is not to say that they’re perfect, or that you will be rich when you leave the casino on your next vacation, but they’re worth further exploration.

Martingale System
The martingale system is meant to be used any time you have a 50/50 shot at winning, for instance betting on red or black on the roulette will, or on the Don’t Pass line at a craps table.

Basically, to utilize this system you double your bet every time you lose.

If you bet $5 and you lose, you bet $10 the next round. If you lose again, bet $20, then $40.

Now if you win that $40 bet, you’ve recouped whatever you may have previously lost, and you’ve walked away with a little profit.

Other well known betting systems include the d’Alembert also known as the Cancellation System and the Fibonacci betting System.

All of these systems are commonly used on Roulette tables, and in other even odds betting situations. If you want to read more about the Martingale System, check out gamblingnerd.com

The d’Alembert Betting System
The d’Alembert, known also as the cancellation system, and frequently mistakenly referred to as the d’Albert betting system, is another of the easier to understand betting systems.

There are still ongoing debates as to whether or not this is a profitable betting system. Here’s how it works:

Decide how much you want to wager, you’re going to be writing that number on a piece of paper over and over, so grab a pen.

Then, decide how many times total you would like to bet. That’s how many times you’re going to write the number from above.

So if you want to bet $3 15 times, your paper will look like this:

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Now we’re going to use the first number and the last number, add them together and bet that much. So place a bet of $6.

If you win the bet, cross off the first and the last 3. Rinse and repeat.  If you lose the bet, cross off the first 3, and add a six (the amount you lost) to the end.

Now you have 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 6.

Now adding the first and last numbers gives us 9, so that’s our bet, $9.

If you win, you cross out both numbers again, if you lose, you cross out the first one, and add the amount we’ve just bet to the end.  If there’s only one number left. Bet it.

Almost all betting systems fall into one of two categories, the negative betting systems, like the ones above, that are meant to keep you from losing. Whenever you lose a bet, you increase your next bet using these betting systems.

Positive betting systems take advantage of hot streaks, or optimal deck counts in games like blackjack where the progressive betting system is probably most successfully used since it can actually influence the outcome of the game.