The martingale strategy does not work, you have to look at it this way; the smaller your base bet is compared to your bankroll, the more bets you will win before the "big bust", and the smaller your base bets compared to your bankroll, the bigger the "big bust" relative to your base bet.

On the same token, the larger your base bet compared to your bankroll, the less bets you will win before the "big bust" and the relative size of the "big bust" to your base bets.

So all in all, it's more effective to do a few large bets, and hope to get lucky, because martingale is impossible without an infinite bankroll.