Betting and Doubling Up
A Professional Gambler... "Never bet more than you can comfortably afford to lose. Never risk getting into trouble by chasing losses. The best approach, if you want to bet, is to set a capital sum aside for the purpose and give up if you lose it. You may, for example, decide to have an interest based on the one horse a day shortest price forecast favourite. If you can afford say £200 capital as your betting bank to risk on the plan then put £10 a day on the selection. This means that you can be down 20 points before your bank is lost. Keep records and do not spend any winnings until the betting bank has been doubled.
If you decide to have a day at the races or an evening out at the dogs or a casino set aside £20 or £100 or whatever and regard this as the amount you are happy to spend for the entertainment. Cover the admission costs plus food and drinks and spread the rest of the money over the bets. Regard any funds you have left at the end of the outing as a bonus.
Don't double up
It is surprising how often someone will say to you, that is if you indulge in such mundane discussions, "Anyone can win money betting on horses or roulette if they have unlimited capital", this is completely untrue. The suggestion usually is that you put say £1 on the first event, if it loses £2 on the second event, if it loses £4 on the third event and so on doubling your stake each time until a winner comes up.
The first thing to realise is that when you do strike the winner no matter what your stake, after deducting the previous losing stakes, if the winner's price is evens you have won just £1. After deducting betting tax you could easily show a loss. The other point is that people rarely work out just what amounts of money can be involved on a doubling up plan. I remember years ago one night while having a drink at the bar in the roulette section of the casino at Biarritz a sort of excitement developed around one of the tables. Oohs and ahs and then a hush. I went over to the table to see what was happening.
In fact red had come up nine times in a row; as you probably know red is an even chance and black the other even chance, 18 of the slots on the wheel are red and the other 18 slots are black, ignoring the zero slot. People were stacking money on black reasoning that after nine consecutive reds it must be black's turn. I watched the next spin - it was red again and the following one, thus there had been eleven consecutive reds, the crowd gasped, money was now really piled onto black and some punters had reached the table limit so could not increase their stake. Red came up again and yet again and once more, in all 14 consecutive reds. If someone had started with £1 on the first black and then doubled each time red came up on the 14th losing spin their stake would have been £8192 and their loss to date twice that amount less £1, i.e. £16,383. The stake required at the 15th and winning spin would be £16,384 and when it came up the profit on the series would be just £1. Staking in France is of course in francs but the figures are the same. You cannot win doubling up on anything, even if you have unlimited funds the casino places a limit and on horses remember if anyone places a very large bet the price would go to odds on.
A Painful Tale
Here is a little story concerning a doubling up plan which may surprise some people. A man called at a dentist's surgery near to closing time and said he wanted all of his teeth out. The dentist pointed out that it was getting late and he wished to get away. Could the patient make an appointment? The patient said he wanted them out now and pointed out that he only had twenty teeth left and also he did not care how much he was charged.
The dentist said O.K. I'll take them out for you now if you pay me 1p for the first tooth removed, 2p for the second, 4p for the third, 8p for the fourth and so on doubling each time. Talking in pennies did not sound too serious so the patient agreed. He needed another anaesthetic when he realised that the twentieth tooth stood at £5242.88 and the total bill would be £10485.76. So much for doubling up ideas.
If you do not believe it - go on - write down 1p, 2p, 4p, 8p, 16p, 32p, 64p and so on doubling each time up to 20 times."
MISCELLANEOUS Resources
