The Base Two betting system is what is known as a progressive betting system. It is a betting system that is well-suited to those that are looking for an easy way to make their betting sessions more interesting. It is predominantly used in games where the payout is 1:1, with roulette being the game of choice, as there are several bets that fit the bill – red/black, odd/even, 1-18/19/36.
This betting system, is easy because it takes almost no planning, and, unlike betting systems such as the Martingale system, the amount you are wagering is never going to spiral out of control – the amount you wager is set, and it only has two variations.
So, like all betting systems, you first need to establish what your bankroll is. This amount should be an amount you are comfortable losing, as there is no guarantee that your session is going to be a winner – we all lose sometimes, so you should be wagering only what you can afford to lose. Once you have that established, you can work out how much each unit is worth. Divide your bankroll by 100, and that is how much 1 unit is worth. If your bankroll is $2,000, 1 unit is worth $20. If it’s $100, 1 unit is worth $1.
Now, the Base Two system has two wager sizes – one low amount and one high amount – two bet sizes, hence the Base Two name. Usually you would use 1 unit as your low amount, and 5 units as your high amount. This gives you plenty of play out of your bankroll. In this example, our bankroll is $1,000, so our low bet is $10, and our high bet is $50.
Like all progressive betting systems, the Base Two system is based on Gambler’s Fallacy – the idea that hot streaks and cold streaks exist, and that results are due to happen. In the Base Two system, it capitalises on hot streaks, and limits your loses when you are on a cold streak. When you win a bet, your next bet is your high amount, and when your bet loses, your next bet is your low amount bet. So, if we start with a bet of 1 unit and it wins, we move up to 5 units. If that bet wins, we stay with a bet of 5 units until the bet loses, and then we move down to 1 unit until that bet wins.
For our example, we know our bankroll is $1,000, we know our low amount to bet is $10 and our high amount to bet is $50. And we’ll bet on odd numbers on the roulette table, as this pays 1:1. It’s worth remembering that even though it pays 1:1, the chances of this are just slightly below 50%. If you play on a European roulette table, your chances of a win are slightly better than those on an American table due to the fact the American wheel has a 0 and a 00, while the European table only has a 0.
We start off by betting $10, and we’ll put it on odd. The bet wins, and that means our next bet is $50. Again, we get a winner, and our next bet is $50, and we’ve made a profit of $60. Our next bet loses, so we move our next bet back down to $10, and we have a profit of $10. Again, we get a loser, so our bet stays at $10, and we’re back to a break even point. This continues until you win a specific amount, or you lose your bankroll. However, this should lead to a longer session than you would have if you used a system such as the Martingale betting system, as the fewest number of spins you would have would be 100, and you would be really unlucky to lose 100 bets in a row on the roulette table. If you were using the Martingale system, a bankroll of $1,000 would last 7 bets before you didn’t have enough to double your next bet – so far less entertainment to be had for your money should you go on a losing streak.
While it’s a system that gives you a lot of bang for your buck, it’s not a guaranteed way to make money. Sure, if you go on a hot streak, you can win 50% of your bank if you get 11 wins in a row, but this is a system that believes in hot and cold streaks, which any gambler knows doesn’t exist. Each spin of the roulette wheel is an independent event, and previous spins (win or lose) have no bearing on the outcome of your next bet.
So, if we go win, win, win, win, win, win, lose, lose, win, we end up with a nice profit of $210, which is 21% of our bankroll. And if we reverse that and go on a streak of lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, win, win, lose, we have a loss of $50. In fact, it’s that last losing bet that puts us at a loss. If we finished with win, win, win, we would have a profit of $50. So the benefits of occasionally betting big when you win can certainly pay off. However, as has been mentioned time and time again, there is no such thing as winning streaks and losing streaks.
The Base Two betting system is better than many out there, because it doesn’t have you wagering obscene amounts of money to claw back your winnings – you only ever bet, at most, 5 units of your bankroll, which isn’t a lot on the grand scheme of things. With other progressive systems, you can end up wagering 50 units or more, which will wipe out your bankroll if you’re not successful.
But for the more experienced gambler, the Base Two betting system isn’t much fun – you have two bet types, there’s no thought involved, and there’s no thought involved. A betting system such as Labouchere makes you think, do some planning, and even though, like the Base Two betting system, it isn’t guaranteed to make you money, it brings some entertainment to the game of roulette.
The Base Two Betting System Summarized:
The Base Two Betting System is, while very easy to use, a fairly bad betting system for Roulette or for any other game for that matter.
You start by picking two dollar amounts you’re comfortable with, one bet amount being larger than the other and only pick two, hence the name base two and place bets on only even money bets.
This system is designed to capitalize on hot streaks and cut down on losses during cold ones. The low bet amount being used after losing bets and the high being used after a winning one.
For this example let’s use a $5 for our low and a $20 for our high. Start by placing a your low bet of $5 on any even money bet, if you were to win on the first spin than your next bet would be the high bet of $20 but if you were to lose than you would continue to bet $5 until you win one.
So let’s say the sequence of spins was win, win, lose, win than the amount you would bet would look like this $5, $20, $20, $5, $20 this looks great right, so what’s the catch you might ask.
Well as with all casino games there is no sure thing and with even money bets being basically a 50-50 shot of winning your bankroll would be chewed up faster than a plate of hot dogs in front of Joey Chesnutt.
So with the 50-50 chance let’s say you do go win, lose, win, lose, win, and lose than your bankroll would look like this after one hand we are up $5 but then it quickly goes south; Lose = -$15, win = -$10, lose = -$30, win = -$25, lose = -$45 etc. With this system be prepared for some MAJOR losses but a nice long hot streak could grab you some serious cash.