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NEGATIVE PROGRESSION BETTING SYSTEM - CHASING LOSSES

Negative progression betting

There is a very simple, but poignant adage when it comes to betting. Never chase losses. What exactly does that mean? Well, it is probably the best piece of betting advice that you will ever hear. It means that if you have suffered some betting setbacks, don’t go throwing more and more money at subsequent bets to try and make up for what you have lost. It’s unlikely to work and you could find yourself staring at even bigger losses before you are even sure how it all happened. But there are systems which are designed to try and compensate for losses.

Losing the loss chase

If you are chasing then you are probably losing and going to lose. That’s a harsh reality of betting. The major risk at the end of all that is a financial hole. You are only, or at least should only ever be, betting with a set bankroll, which itself is based on how much you can afford to lose. But the problem for punters is that when they see themselves losing, the natural inclination is to try and fix that by throwing more money at the problem. Punters will try and overcompensate by perhaps doubling stakes to try and not only make a profit but to get back the losses that they have suffered.

Online Sports Betting Systems – Winning Bets with Strategy

The fallacy of the Martingale system

The Martingale System doesn’t fully account for losses, even though it is designed to do so. The Martingale system is one of the most famous betting systems around. It presumes that if after a loss you double your stake on the next bet, you will cover the losses from the previous bet (or bets) as well as potentially getting you ahead (depending on the odds of course).

Let’s say £1 on your first bet. It loses. Under the Martingale system, you place a £2 stake in the second bet. If that loses, then you play £4 on the third bet. If that goes down then it is £8 on the fourth bet. If that loses then you are already digging out a £16 stake for the fifth bet. However, if that fifth bet wins immediately you cover the £15 you had laid out previously because you would get the £16 stake back plus whatever profit came from the winning bet.

However, at the time of the fifth bet you have laid out £30 in total. Here is where the system can fall down. It is easy to fall into a losing streak and what if that £30 was your total betting budget? You have nothing left to double up to play the £60 needed to then try and recoup all the losses from the five previous bets. The Martingale system assumes a bottomless pit of stake funds, which punters should never do.

Flat betting and the Progression d’Alembert

So ask yourself, does that makes sense over playing five £1 bets to try and limit loss? This is called flat betting where you just play the same stake over and over again until you have expended your bankroll (which hopefully doesn’t happen). The Martingale System does everything you shouldn’t be doing. It is chasing losses and in extreme cases could lead to bankruptcy and other debt problems.

The Progression d’Alembert is another system where you start with a unit, say £1. If the bet loses then you increase the second bet by one more unit. If that loses, instead of doubling the stake as in the Martingale System you just add one unit. As soon as a bet wins, then you decrease the value of your next stake by a unit. This makes a lot more sense because if you are winning then you don’t need to be risking as much, but when increasing after a lost bet by just one unit from the last stake, your finances aren’t hit as hard.

Pros and Cons of loss chasing system

As with any system, there isn’t going to a foolproof plan. One of the pros is that you are at least planning ahead for losses by using one of these systems. However, they can quickly get away from you and if a losing streak still happens then you are still going to be losing, perhaps more quickly than if you were straight out flat betting. When a loss chasing system works it can cover what has gone before, but don’t look at them as be all and end all methods of loss prevention. They aren’t.