Is it martingale? 5 signs to check in the Strategy Tester before you buy an EA

The curve climbs month after month. Almost every cycle closes in profit. The balance line looks like a staircase with no missing steps.

That is exactly what a martingale looks like, right up to the day it doesn't.

Martingale is a way of sizing the lot: after every loss, the next lot is doubled (or multiplied), so the next win recovers everything and still leaves the profit of the first entry. It is a style, and you want to recognize it before you pay. The free demo of any paid EA on the Market is enough to do that. Keep one sentence in mind: martingale does not remove the loss. It gathers all the small losses into one big one and saves it for the worst day.

The lot table: what each losing streak costs

Starting lot 0.01, multiplier 2, the same stop and target distance on every trade. The last column is the accumulated loss, in multiples of the first loss.

After 10 losses in a row, the EA risks 1,024 times the first lot to win the same profit as one 0.01 entry. For your own lot: next lot = starting lot x 2^n, and accumulated loss = (2^n - 1) x the first loss, where n is the number of losses in a row.

Why the bad streak is a matter of time

Take independent trades, like coin flips, at a 50% win rate. The chance of at least one streak of 8 losses in 500 trades is 62.5%. On a fixed lot, 8 losses cost 8 losses. On a doubling lot, they cost 255 times the first one, and the next entry is 2.56 lots.

That is where the two limits of every account come in. The margin: each doubled lot locks twice the margin, until the stop out starts closing positions and the postponed loss becomes a real one. And the broker's maximum volume per order, listed in the symbol's Specification (right-click in Market Watch): when the next lot no longer fits, the doubling stops, and the recovery never comes.

5 signs to check before you buy

1. Ask the seller: "does the lot increase after a loss? Does every position have a stop?" The right answers are no and yes. A vague answer earns a demo run before any payment.
2. Run the demo and read the volume of each trade. In the test report, the list of deals shows the Volume of every trade. A lot that doubles right after a loss is the clearest sign there is.
3. Compare balance and equity. On the Graph tab, a smooth balance line with deep dips in equity means losing positions are being held until the price comes back.
4. Look for several positions open on the same side, against the price, with growing lots. The same lot on every entry is a grid. Growing lots are martingale.
5. Check that every position, or every basket, has a stop. In the list of orders, see whether each order carries a stop price. A position that only closes when the price comes back is the other half of martingale: a cycle with no exit.

Notice what is not on the list: the win rate. A high win rate, on its own, proves nothing. Martingale wins often because it postpones the loss, but a high win rate also shows up in EAs that postpone nothing. Real martingale doubles the lot after a loss and has no stop on the cycle. Open the test and check those two things. The rest is just the curve.

The full guide on our site adds the probability table for 100 to 1,000 trades at 50% and 60% win rates, the variations (a smaller multiplier, averaging down, reverse martingale), figures and an FAQ: martingale strategy in trading: what it is and why it breaks.

Run the five signs on our three EAs

If a high win rate proves nothing on its own, that holds for ours too. So the numbers come with the two signs that expose martingale. In all three, every gain raises the lot of the next trades, and the lot never grows to recover a loss.

• Pitbull Gold on the Market: 22 of 22 months in profit in 2025 and 2026, in the test with real ticks. One entry per trade, with target and stop on the server from the first second. No grid, no averaging down: after a loss the lot does not go up, because it only grows when your balance grows. In the same test, +425% in 2025 on the Balanced profile.
• Collie Gold on the Market: 1,999 of 2,022 baskets closed in profit in the tests. It is a grid without martingale: every entry in a basket has the same lot, and every basket has a stop. The lot only grows when your balance grows.
• Beagle Gold on the Market: one entry per trade, with the stop on the server from the first second, and at most two trades open. You choose 1% to 5% of your balance per trade, decided before every entry.

The Pitbull and Collie numbers have exactly the look this guide told you to investigate. And they pass the investigation: no loss turns into a bigger lot, and no position is left without a stop. Download the free demo of each, run 2025 and 2026 with real ticks on your broker's data, and read the Volume column yourself. Martingale is a style; know it before you pay.

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