If you’ve bet on sports for any length of time, you know that losing streaks are part of the big picture. No matter who you are or how good a handicap you are, there will always be losing streaks. It also doesn’t make any difference how handicap you are. Bettors who rely on statistics, trends, or systems are not exempt from the inevitable depression, which makes following some of baseball’s search systems a perilous task.
A chasing system is a lot like the old Martingale betting strategy of simply doubling down after a loss, with the expectation of recouping any previous losses and showing a profit when you win. If you were guaranteed a winning bet in three plays, the chase system would work fine, but there are no sure things in sports betting.
Just as streaks are a part of baseball betting, they are also a part of baseball and it is not uncommon to see teams win or lose six, seven or even eight games in a row.
When someone is promoting a baseball chase system, they will be attracted by an impressive record, but the records given are not the actual win-loss record of the games wagered, but the chase sequence record.
As an example, if a chase system says to bet on the New York Mets, the Mets could lose their next six games. If they win the seventh game, a bettor following the sequence would show a 1-6 record in the seven games he bet on. But the system would be credited with a 1-0 record on the premise that the sequence was successful.
If that’s not bad enough, almost every chase system will have you play the favorite on the money line or take the run line if the team is an underdog. Either way, you are going to risk a lot more money than you expect to win. If you take a +120 underdog on the run line, you can expect to risk close to -175 to get the 1.5 runs.
Using -160 for a money line favorite or run line underdog, suppose a bettor wants to show a chase sequence win of $100. The first bet will obviously be $160 to win $100. If the bettor wins the first bet, a new sequence will begin. It is when the bettor loses the first bet that things start to get a bit complicated. With the loss, the bettor has now lost $160 and needs to win $260 on his next bet to win back the lost money and still show the desired profit of $100.
To win $260 with a bet of -160, you would need to bet $416. If the second bet wins, the bettor can close out the sequence with a $100 win, but if the second game loses, the bettor now has a $576 loss and will need to win $676 to show a profit on the sequence. That leads to a third bet of $1,082 and if the third bet loses, the bettor loses $1,658 and will have to bet $2,813 to show a sequential win of $100 on the fourth bet. If it is a fifth bet, the amount required to bet would be $4471, which could very well exceed a bettor’s betting limit or, most likely, a bettor’s bankroll. A win in game five would be good for a sequential win of $100, but a loss would produce a sequential loss of $7,284.
Losing five bets in a row is not that unusual. It happens. But when it happens with a chase system, it can get terribly expensive quickly and will take out all the better-funded sports bettors.
Consider these numbers before investing in a handicap player who claims to be 44-1 or went 22-0 last season. Losses happen, it is a reality of the game.