Martingale Betting Calculator (Dogon) 2026
Size a loss-recovery chase at any odds. Enter your target profit and the odds, and see the exact stake for each step, the full bankroll the chase needs, and the honest odds it wipes you out first.
Built and math-checked by Evgeniy Volkov
Dogon chase calculator
The full bankroll a 8-step chase needs. One losing streak of 8 in a row and it is gone at once.
Turn on win probability to see the bust risk and whether this chase is positive or negative EV.
How fast the stake explodes
The full chase ladder
The exact stake for every step, the total at risk if that step loses, and the return if it wins. Notice how the at-risk column and the stake climb far faster than your target profit.
| Step | Stake | At risk if it loses | Return if it wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10.00 | $10.00 | $20.00 |
| 2 | $20.00 | $30.00 | $40.00 |
| 3 | $40.00 | $70.00 | $80.00 |
| 4 | $80.00 | $150.00 | $160.00 |
| 5 | $160.00 | $310.00 | $320.00 |
| 6 | $320.00 | $630.00 | $640.00 |
| 7 | $640.00 | $1,270.00 | $1,280.00 |
| 8 | $1,280.00 | $2,550.00 | $2,560.00 |
A dogon, known in English as a martingale chase or loss-recovery bet, is a betting progression where you raise your stake after each loss so that a single win claws back everything you lost plus a target profit. It feels bulletproof, and on paper one win always puts you ahead. This calculator shows the part the feeling hides: how fast the stakes climb, how large a bankroll the chase actually demands, and the real chance a losing streak ends it before the win arrives. Free on ToolsGambling.com, no login.
What this martingale betting calculator does
It builds the full chase ladder for any odds. You set a target profit and the decimal odds, and it sizes every step so that a win at that step recovers all prior losses and locks in exactly your target. Unlike a casino martingale, which just doubles at even money, sports odds are rarely 2.0, so the stake is not a simple doubling. The tool does the real math at whatever odds you bet, shows the stake and the cumulative amount at risk for each step, the total bankroll the whole chase needs, and the stake on the final step so you can see how big it gets. Add a win probability and it also gives the bust chance and the true expected value.
The formula behind each step
At any step the stake is the money you need to recover plus your target, divided by the odds minus one. In symbols, if L is the total you have lost on the earlier bets, the next stake is (L + target) / (odds - 1), because a win pays the stake times odds minus one in net profit, which has to cover L and still leave the target. At odds of 2.0 that reduces to doubling, which is why a martingale is just the even-money special case of a chase. At lower odds the stakes explode much faster, and at higher odds they grow more slowly but each bet wins less often. The calculator applies this at every step for you.
Who it is for
It is for any bettor who has thought about running a recovery chase and wants to see the real numbers before risking a bankroll on one. That includes fans of the dogon in football and tennis, casino players curious how a martingale scales at real odds, and anyone who has been sold the system as a sure thing and wants proof. It is equally useful as a reality check: plug in a modest target and watch the bankroll requirement balloon after just a few steps. If nothing else, it will stop you from starting a chase you cannot actually afford to finish.
Why this one is better than the others
Most martingale calculators online do one of two thin things. The casino ones lock you to fixed games like roulette and never let you set your own sports odds. The sports ones usually compute only your single next bet and stop there. This tool shows the entire ladder at any odds you choose, the total bankroll the full chase needs, the stake explosion on the last step, a bust probability from the real losing-streak math, and an honest expected value that lands at zero only at fair odds and goes negative with any bookmaker margin. It even charts the stake growth so you can see the curve, which almost none of the competitors bother to do.
How to use it
Enter the target profit you want each win to lock in, then the decimal odds you are betting. Drag the chase length slider to set how many losses in a row you want to survive, and watch the bankroll figure climb as you extend it. The ladder table fills in the stake and the running risk for every step, and the chart shows how steeply the stake grows. To see the honest risk, tick the win-probability box and set your real win chance per bet: the tool then shows the bust probability, which is that chance failing on every leg in a row, and the expected value of the whole chase. Compare a few odds and lengths and the pattern is always the same.
The truth a chase never tells you
A recovery chase does not change the expected value of your betting, it only rearranges when you win and lose. You collect a lot of small target-sized wins, and then, occasionally, one long losing streak takes back everything at once and more. The stakes rise geometrically while your target rises linearly, so the bankroll you need runs away from you fast: a ten-step chase at short odds can need hundreds of times your target. The win feels frequent, so people believe the system works right up until the streak that ruins them. The calculator makes that streak concrete with the bust probability, which is never as small as it feels.
Where the math turns against you
Two walls end every real chase. The first is your bankroll: once the next required stake is larger than what you have left, the chase stops and the accumulated loss is realized. The second is the bookmaker limit, which caps how large a single bet can be, so even a huge bankroll cannot chase forever. Because sports odds carry a margin, your true win probability is below the fair break-even line the tool shows, so the expected value is negative on every chase over a long enough run. The progression cannot fix a negative edge, it can only decide whether you lose slowly and steadily or rarely and catastrophically.
Safer alternatives to a chase
If your goal is to grow a bankroll rather than feel busy, flat staking or a fractional Kelly plan beats any recovery chase, because they size bets to your edge instead of to your last loss. Our [Kelly calculator](/betting/kelly-calculator) sizes a bet to a real edge, the [staking plan calculator](/betting/staking-plan-calculator) compares flat and proportional plans, and the [risk of ruin calculator](/betting/risk-of-ruin-calculator) shows the chance any plan busts your bankroll. If you still want to watch a progression play out, the [martingale simulator](/casino/martingale-simulator) runs thousands of even-money sessions so you can see the bankruptcy rate for yourself.
Dogon and chase terms
- Dogon
- A betting loss-recovery chase: after a loss you raise the next stake so a single win recovers everything lost plus a target profit. The sports-betting version of a martingale, at any odds.
- Chasing losses
- Increasing your stakes to win back money you have already lost. It is the core mechanic of a dogon and the fastest way to turn a small loss into a large one.
- Recovery stake
- The stake sized to recover all prior losses plus the target on a win. It equals the accumulated loss plus target, divided by the decimal odds minus one.
- Bankroll
- The total money set aside for betting. A chase needs the sum of every step's stake available up front, or it cannot be completed.
- Variance
- The swing of results around their average. A chase hides variance behind frequent small wins, then delivers it all at once in the losing streak that busts the bankroll.
- Expected value (EV)
- The average result of a bet or chase over the long run. No progression makes a negative-edge bet positive; at fair odds a chase is exactly break-even, and any margin makes it negative.
Related free betting tools on ToolsGambling.com
A chase is a risk tool, not an edge tool. Pair it with the martingale simulator to see the bust rate, the risk of ruin calculator, our bankroll and staking-plan calculators, the value bet calculator to find a real edge, and the Kelly calculator to size it properly.
Dogon calculator FAQ
Evgeniy Volkov
Verified ExpertFullstack developer with a background in mathematics. I build the calculators and game-style tools on ToolsGambling with Pixi.js and modern web tech, and every result uses transparent probability formulas you can verify yourself.