The D’Alembert betting system, also known as the Pyramid betting system, is a progressive betting system that is ideally suited to roulette players that like to play the 1:1 bets, such as red/black, odd/even or 1-18/19-36. It is a betting system that is based on the idea of Gambler’s Fallacy – the notion that previous bets have an effect on the outcome of the next one. So it relies on the idea that because you lost a bet, the next bet should be a winner, as you are due a win. Of course, it’s called Gambler’s Fallacy because it’s exactly that, a fallacy. There is no truth to the fact that you are “due” a win. However, the D’Alembert betting system can be a fun way of playing a roulette session, and it is a betting system that attempts to limit a player’s loses while maximising any gains, ensuring that your sessions lasts as long as possible until you decide to cash out, or you lose your bankroll.
The system was created by a French mathematician called Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert, who believed that if you lose, your chances of winning the next time round increase.
So, unlike other progressive systems, where you double your stake every time you win/lose, your bet only changes by 1 unit each bet. If your bet wins, you take 1 unit off of your previous bet, and if your bet loses, you add 1 unit onto your next bet. It goes back to the theory that each win gives a greater chance of a loss occurring next, and each loss gives a great chance of a win occurring. So, it’s designed to minimise loses and maximise gains, in theory.
To begin with, like all gambling sessions, you have to set your bankroll. This has to be an amount you’re comfortable betting with – you should never be gambling with money you can’t afford to lose. So make your bankroll for each session something sensible, not the entire contents of your bank account – it’s a quick way to the poor house.
Once you know what your bankroll is, you then know what your units are for betting, which is important when using the D’Alembert betting system, as these are the units that will increase and decrease depending on your wins and loses. To work out your units, you should divide your bankroll by 100, as 100 units is the standard Of course, it’s entirely up to you what each unit represents, but the standard is 100.
To start with, we bet 1 unit. If your bankroll is $100, 1 unit would be $1. A $1,000 bankroll would be $10, and so on. In our example, we have a $1,000, so we will start off with a $10 bet. And our betting increments will be $10. Again, it’s entirely up to you, but you must stick with the system of 1 unit more or one unit less depending on the result of the previous bet.
We’ll place our 1 unit bet on black, and it loses. So, the system says that our chances of winning the next time around are greater, so to maximise our win, we have to wager more by adding 1 unit to the previous bet amount. So we’re now on a 2 unit bet, which would be $20. Again, we lose, so we add another unit onto our previous bet, so now we’re wagering 3 units, or $30. We’ve now lost $30, so our next bet will hopefully get us back to level. Fortunately, this bet wins, and we’re now back to no profit and no loss. And because the idea behind this system says that a loss is more likely now that we’ve won, we reduce our bet by 1 unit. So we go back down to 2 units, which is a $20 bet. If that wins, we reduce our bet to 1 unit, and if that wins, we go down to 0 units, which means we cash out. If that was the progression, we would cash out with a profit of $30 and then start our system from the beginning, with a bet of 1 unit. You can keep this going until you win a specific amount, until you are bored, or if you unfortunately lose your bankroll.
While this is a progressive betting system, like the Martingale or Labouchere betting systems, it is a system that is very slow and steady in that the size of the wagers don’t suddenly spiral out of control, they simply go up in 1 unit increments. So it would take a massive losing streak for your bankroll to vanish.
However, as you no doubt know, the likelihood of you winning or losing is not affected by what happened on the previous spin of the roulette wheel, the previous throw of the dice or the previous toss of the coin. Each spin, throw or toss is an independent event and Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert was sadly misinformed back in 18th century France when he thought that previous events dictated the next event. If it comes in black on the roulette wheel 10 times in a row, it is just as likely to come up black as it is red on the next spin – don’t let the previous spins fool you.
But the D’Alembert is a fine betting system to use if you want to use a system, but are averse to wagering high amounts in a short period of time. It’s a bit of a grind to make a substantial profit using the D’Alembert betting system, but it is also a system that will ensure you don’t have a 5 minute session because the size of your bets suddenly got out of control.
Just remember that the D’Alembert betting system is not a guarantee of success, it is simply a method of making your betting sessions more enjoyable. The idea behind it is completely flawed, but that does not mean it is not a fun system to use when playing roulette.
The D’Alembert Betting System Summarized:
The D’Alembert Roulette Betting system is a negative progression system dating back to the 1700s. The premise behind this system is that by betting on even money bets which offer almost a 50-50 chance to win that over a period of time there should be an equal number of wins and losses, and after a winning spin of the wheel then the next spin should be losing one right?
First you start by establishing a betting amount somewhere between the table minimum and maximum therefore allowing you to decrease and increase your betting amount as needed. Let’s say you were to make a starting bet of $10 on any even money bet (black or red, high or low etc.) if you were to win on the first spin of the wheel than you would again bet on the same even money bet the next time but this time you would take one unit of off original starting bet so for our example we would be betting $9.
But on the flip side let’s say that you were to lose the first bet than on the second bet you would increase your original starting bet and your next bet would now be $11. Well in theory this system sounds great except for a few major flaws. The first being that as you all know that every spin of the Roulette wheel is completely independent of the last spin and therefore there really is no way of knowing exactly which well come up on the next spin, the second flaw being the house edge with addition of the Zero slot ( and in American the Double Zero slot) which make the odds less than 50-50.
Although flawed this system does have a few pros one being that it’s a slow progression system in regards to betting amounts which allow you stay to within the tables limits and your own betting limits the second being that with it being a slow progression system, it gives you the ability to walk away from the table before accumulating a large amount of total losses.