A stake plan you can hold at midnight

One unit, and where the number comes from

Take what you are prepared to lose over a month and call it the bankroll. One unit is one percent of it. On C$500 that is C$5.

Stake one unit. Not two on the one you like. Not five on the one you are getting back. The whole value of the plan is that the number does not move, because a fixed stake is the only way to tell the difference between bad luck and a bad method.

Why progressions fail specifically at midnight

Doubling after a loss produces a long run of small wins and one loss that takes everything. Eight consecutive losses on an even-money bet happens about once every two hundred and fifty sequences, and starting at C$5 the ninth stake is C$1,280.

It is not a rare event over a year of play. It is a scheduled one, and the schedule always seems to land on the night you are least able to stop.

The traps built into the screen

Quick-stake buttons are set at multiples that step you up a level with a single tap. Type the number instead; the extra two seconds keeps the decision yours.

Auto-play with a stake-increase toggle is a progression system with a settings screen. If you use auto-play at all, set the loss limit in the same panel at the same time.

Balances shown in credits rather than dollars make the arithmetic disappear. Where the app lets you switch to currency, switch.

Recording it

Log the stake, the game or the price, and one line on why. Not the result. Results are noise for the first couple of hundred entries and reasons are not.

After twenty sessions the log tells you what the hobby costs an hour. That figure is the only honest basis for deciding whether it is worth it, and almost nobody has it.