“Oscar’s Grind” is the nickname provided to a wagering system popularized by Allan Wilson in the mid-1960s. It is nearly specifically applied to even-money binary propositions, like the flip of a coin or, in the context of sports wagering, covering the spread.

It’s like the D’Alembert System, to some extent. In contrast, D’Alembert increases bet size after a loss, Oscar’s Grind aims to take advantage of winning streaks by increasing bet size after a win (while suffering losing streaks).

Below, we discuss how Oscar’s Grind operates and why it doesn’t operate in reality.

How Does Oscar’s Grind Run?

Oscar’s Grind divides wagering into “sessions” and “systems.” Every session starts with a one-unit bet and ends when the gambler has achieved a one-unit profit.

For most people, using actual dollar amounts makes it much easier to understand.

Pretend that your “system” is $100. Each of your sessions will begin with a $100 bet. When you have a $100 profit, it will end only.

For mathematical ease, pretend that there is no juice when wagering against the spread (” ATS”) and that winning a $100 ATS bet will result in a $100 revenue. (In reality, it results in a $90.91 gain with the standard -110 odds in effect.).

If you win your first bet of $100, you have achieved the famous $100 revenue, and a brand-new session starts.

Oscar’s Grind dictates that you continue to bet $100 (a.k.a. one system) up until you win a wager if you lose your very first $100 bet. When you (eventually) win an opportunity, the bet size doubles to $200. It stays $200 till either:

You lose again, at which point it increases by another system (to $300), or.
Betting a lesser amount might potentially lead to $100 earnings.
Once again, utilizing examples will make this easier to understand.

As you can see, each time you win, your stake is increasing by $100. In this example, you wound up $100 ahead after seven bets. But it’s not tough to envision how this might go really, very poorly and wipe out your whole bankroll in a matter of 10 or 15 wagers.

If you won your next bet, you would be down $1,100 again, and your bet size would increase to $500. You would still need to win three straight bets at that point to get back on the positive side and end the session.

If you didn’t win those three bets, you would be betting a minimum of $600 in the future. That’s six times as much as you start wagering. A six-fold increase is a lot for any gambler.

Successful sports wagering, in the long term, requires intelligent bankroll management and diversifying financial investments. Because some mathematically flawed betting system states so, it doesn’t tend to consist of betting exorbitant portions of your bankroll on the next game.

Why Does not Oscar’s Grind Work in Real Life?

Not satisfying these conditions will result in an inevitable loss of your entire stake in the long run.”

Hopefully, that makes it clear why this is not a betting strategy to be blindly followed, but we’ll explain even more if it does not.

You might get fortunate following Oscar’s Grind for a long time. If you do it repeatedly, however, your account balance is going to hit no.

You don’t have a boundless total up to bet or an infinite amount of time.

You could get fortunate following Oscar’s Grind for a while. In a vacuum, winning one bet does not make it more likely that you’re going to win your next bet.