D’Alembert roulette system

The roulette D’Alembert method is said to be much safer than the more famous Martingale strategy. Here we explain how it works and analyse its strengths and weaknesses.

The concept of the D’Alembert method is quite similar to the well-known Martingale strategy, although the progression that it’s based on is a lot flatter – and that goes hand in hand with a lower overall risk. Also, the chances are much smaller that the player goes bankrupt or reaches the table limit before he can make up for previous losses. Nevertheless the D’Alembert system definitely has its pitfalls when it comes to its practical use.

Advantages of The D’Alembert Roulette Strategy

The D’Alembert roulette strategy is named after the French roulette theorist Jean le Rond d’Alembert who lived in the 18^th century. Just like the Martingale it is based on a progression after each loss, meaning that the bet is being increased after a losing round. Whereas in contrast the progressions are not as steep as when using the Martingale strategy – bets are doubled after each loss.

As a result of flatter progressions, one winning coup does usually not cover all losses that were made before. The advantage is however, that the bets don’t increase as quickly. That again means that a longer losing streak can more be dealt with easier, and overall the game has the potential to go on much longer. The risk is that the player runs out of money or hits the table limit, which would force him to end the game, of course still exists, but it is much lower than when playing by the Martingale strategy. Ultimately with risk sometimes comes reward, but like any casino player it’s fundamental that losing is kept at a minimum. We’d advise that once you’ve familarised yourself with the D’Alembert strategy that you try it out at 888 Casino, you’ll additionally get a free sign up offer that will give you the advantage required to decrease the risk of using this strategy even further.

How Does The System Work?

The D’Alembert roulette system is mainly used when playing on the very outside bets – those are red/black, even/odd and 1-18/19-36. The basic assumption of the roulette strategy is, that the frequency of how often the outside bets win, is always going to balance out in the long run. So if there is, for instance, a longer series of red, this can be only temporary. Eventually both red and black are going to even out.

This is how the D’Alembert roulette system is being used – you are to place one chip on the outside bet of your choice. As long as you win, keep doing this over and over again. As soon as you lose, you start increasing each of your bets by one chip. With your next winning coup, you start taking one chip away again. The goal is to keep following this principle until you are back to your original bet, which is one chip. If you can make that, you will have made one chip for every winning coup.

An Example for The D’Alembert System

In the table you can see an example for the D’Alembert roulette strategy. It might not be a very realistic course of events, since it is pretty unlikely to lose four rounds in a row and then win five (although it’s definitely not impossible). The example was designed to illustrate how the progression works and how you can make nice, rapid winnings – if the chance you bet on comes up somewhat frequently.

The Danger of This Strategy

The major weakness of the D’Alembert roulette strategy is easily identified. Yes, it’s true that the frequencies of the opposite chances even out on the long run – but that really only works on an extremely long run, like in a mathematical probability theory. In one single session at the casino all this theory really doesn’t help you at all. There is a good chance that everything just goes completely differently, than one might have expected. That would naturally crush the whole principle behind the D’Alembert system – and might leave you with no winnings at all. However, we wouldn’t to see that scenario happen to you and the best solution we can offer is that you sign up at 888 Casino, claim your free offer and play as sensibly as you can.

In the table you see an example of 12 coups (played on black), which illustrates how quickly your budget can shrink during a (very possible) losing streak. In a circumstance like this you could of course try to keep playing until your bet is back to one chip. But, even though the chances are not as high as with the Martingale system, there is still a good possibility that you are going to run out of money for any more progressions, or that you hit the table limit – both of which, means that you wouldn’t be able to cover previous losses and the game would ultimately be over.

On top of these weaknesses of the D’Alembert system, there is of course the house advantage which is represented by the green zero – and there is simply no way to eliminate that. So percentages-wise, the chances are a little more against the player at any given time. This however is not a specific D’Alembert issue, it applies to all roulette strategies.

Contre D’Alembert

As a result of the disadvantages that come with the D’Alembert roulette system – which mostly arise from progressing after lost coups, some mathematicians came up with a Contre version. The roulette Contre D’Alembert system basically works like the regular D’Alembert, only the other way around – instead of progressing after a lost round, the player increases the bet after a win. So after every round you win, you have to add one chip to your total bet, and after you lose, you take one chip away – unless you are already playing with just one chip, then you just leave it at that.

The advantages compared to the regular D’Alembert roulette system are that the player needs even less money to use it. If you happen to have a long (and unfortunate) losing streak, you don’t have to try compensating it by betting more and more chips.

We tried using the Contre D’Alembert strategy on the exact same series of coups that we used before, to show a possible outcome of the regular D’Alembert roulette system. The result shows, that after a longer losing streak the total loss is quite a bit smaller with the Contre version. In other words, this version seems to be even less risky. However, it doesn’t guarantee consistent and safe winnings either.