You make small bets in a scheme like this to avoid the possibility of enough bad results wiping you out to zero so you have no capital to start again. Suppose

You make small bets in a scheme like this to avoid the possibility of enough bad results wiping you out to zero so you have no capital to start again. Suppose you have $100 and can flip a coin to lose $1 on heads or win $2 on tails. The highest expected value per flip is to bet all $100. But you shouldn't do that since you have a 50-50 chance to go to zero and be unable to continue. You should bet something like 1/8 of your bankroll each time so you can survive a streak of bad luck. I also wouldn't trust that "13 in a row" reporting from something like this. That's likely exaggerated or misreported or misremembered from an unreliable witness for the sake of the splashy story.