Yeh. If you want to double your balance, bet it once on 2x rather than martingale. You will pay more "1% house edge" commission if you martingale. Therefore, martingaling or any form of betting progression is detrimental if your playing with house edge.
Correct me wrong if I'm wrong.
Yeah, you're wrong.
Suppose you have 1 BTC and need 2.
If you bet it all on the 2x bet, you have a 49.5% chance of doubling up.
But if you bet 0.41421356 BTC on a 3.41421356x bet, and if you lose, bet the remaining 0.58578644 at the same odds, you still get to 2 BTC if you win either bet, and have a 49.58492857% chance of doing so.
Better, no?
(Every bet has a 1% house edge, meaning you expect to lose 1% of everything you bet. In the single large bet, you bet 1 BTC, so expect to lose 0.01 BTC. When martingaling, you expect to bet less than 1 BTC (sometimes you bet 0.414 BTC, sometimes you bet 1 BTC, average is somewhere between the two) so you expect to lose correspondingly less)
Sorry, but I disagree Doog.
I'm not referring to your first paragraph. That's just manipulation of multipliers.
(Every bet has a 1% house edge, meaning you expect to lose 1% of everything you bet. In the single large bet, you bet 1 BTC, so expect to lose 0.01 BTC. When martingaling, you expect to bet less than 1 BTC (sometimes you bet 0.414 BTC, sometimes you bet 1 BTC, average is somewhere between the two) so you expect to lose correspondingly less)
In order to profit 1 BTC from martingaling with a start of 1 BTC, with a base stake of 0.1 BTC, you would have to do a MINIMUM of 1 BTC worth of bets. (10x 0.1 BTC wins in a row). However, the moment you lose 1 of those bets & are forced to double up in order to regain losses, you're better more than 1 BTC. That essentially leads to your overall amount of volume increasing, which leads to a higher -EV.
Martingaling is detrimental in -EV games.
Edit:
I think with a properly applied martingale, you can double or triple your money with better than 98% chance, compared to betting it once to double it on 49.5% chance.
Dabs, you have to be kidding me... Right?..