Originally Posted by
KVB
...I’ve posted over and over again that changing you bet size is equivalent to progressive betting and it is costly.
Let’s keep it simple and get back to basics. Take a set of 21 bets; give yourself 11 wins and 10 losses. Now take any starting bankroll amount. To keep it simple, bet 5.5% to win 5% for each bet and put the wins and losses in any order you desire. After each bet, win or lose, adjust the next bet to 5.5% of the new bankroll, just like Gunshard says.
Now, if you didn’t change the size of your bets, 52.4%, or 11 wins and 10 losses would result in breaking even.
But Gunshard’s plan requires changing the size of your bets after each play, changing the breakeven point. How much it changes depends on the percentage bet, but the higher the percentage, the worse off you are. With my example, of 5.5%, the breakeven point nears 54%.
Gunshard should be thankful for discount books and vigorish, if he uses them, as his strategy raised his breakeven point, which was offset by the reduced vig.
Again, the percentage doesn’t matter; it’s easier to use 5.5% for this exercise than Gunshard’s recommended 5%, but the results are along the same lines.
Try it again and again. No matter what order you place your 11 wins and 10 losses, after those 21 bets, you always have 97.1% of your roll left.
In fact, after 110 wins and 100 losses with 5.5% bet each time, you would be down somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of your starting bankroll....