Created in the 1880s by scientist Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert, the Roulette D’Alembert Strategy is a system that’s been played for centuries. Although it’s compared to the Martingale strategy, mainly because they’re both negative progression strategies, it’s considered less risky and a good strategy for beginners to use around the roulette wheel. This is because, unlike the Martingale strategy, it avoids doubling down, making it one of the safest ways to play roulette.
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Players will never guarantee a win with it but can walk away with decent winnings, as long as the house cut is taken into account.
It is a relatively simple structure that focuses on players placing an even wager, like on red or black, or even numbers. They need to decide how much money they’re willing to place on their initial bet, which acts as their base unit. The reason for this is that if they win the bet, the unit is decreased by the value of that base unit. If they lose, then that unit bet is increased by the value of their base unit.
As mentioned, bets are placed on even-money areas of the wheel. If a bet has a base unit of $2 as its stake, and loses, the next bet has an extra base unit value added to it, meaning $4 is the next amount bet with.
This shows how the D’Alembert Strategy could work, based on a player’s base unit value being $1.
The first pro worth mentioning about this strategy is that it’s easy to learn. This makes it an ideal strategy for any beginner to roulette wanting to learn different ways to play it.
Perhaps one of the greatest pros is that you’re in control of how much you can spend, especially as you set the base unit amount. This makes the D’Alembert strategy a relatively safe way to play and keeps you from hitting the table limits. Based on your base unit, you’ll know how much you can keep betting depending on the luck of your streak.
The D’Alembert strategy is low-risk, so players will never make a fortune using it. This is what makes it good for beginners to roulette, if small amounts are wagered, then small amounts will be won.
The house always gets a cut, so if you’re experiencing a run of bad luck, the house will inevitably win. It’s also unlikely that you’ll win a lot of money, or as much as you could in other casino games.
He was an 18th-century French mathematician and scientist. The illegitimate son of a French officer, Jean-Baptiste le Rond D’Alembert was abandoned as a child. Raised by foster parents, D’Alembert’s childhood was badly impoverished. Despite this, he received a good education and soon discovered his love of math.
It was his work in physics that was highly lauded. D’Alembert was a believer in the notion of equilibrium; when things tend to balance each other out. In respect of roulette, this would mean that winning and losing streaks will eventually level out when playing on the roulette wheel. However, this isn’t taking into account that roulette is a game of chance.
As D’Alembert's strategy is easy to pick up and players are in control of the amount they bet, it’s generally accepted that it’s good for beginners to use. Having some form of strategy when it comes to how much they’re willing to spend on the game and the base unit bet will be advantageous.
It will prevent them from placing an initial bet that could potentially see them losing too much money in the event they end up on a losing streak.
Known as the Contra D’Alembert system or strategy, it centers on D’Alembert’s fascination with the Law of Equilibrium. In other words, wins and losses will balance out.
When players use the D’Alembert strategy, they increase their wager by adding their base unit value to it each time they lose. In contrast, when players win, they reduce their next wager by the base unit value. With the reverse D'Alembert strategy, players do the opposite. So if a player loses, they reduce their wager by the base unit value they initially bet with and if they win, they increase their next wager by the same amount.
There are many ways to adjust this strategy, and that’s in part thanks to being several centuries old. As the system is relatively easy to pick up, players can figure out their own way to adjust the system in their favor.
For instance, rather than decreasing the base unit value from a wager if a player wins, why not reset it to $1 and see where it leads? There’ll be low losses, which a player’s winnings will demonstrate, and they’ll need to figure the amount the house cut will be as part of their losses.
Another way to adjust the D'Alembert strategy is to adjust the wager by two or more units after each bet, so a player can increase their chance of a profit. This strategy is only useful when a player is flitting between winning and losing in rounds. To do this when on a losing streak will only make their losses higher.
There are a variety of roulette strategies that players can use.
Considered a high-risk strategy, the Andrucci system focuses on roulette as a game of chance, but numbers will eventually appear more regularly. Players bet around 30 times on random even bets, noting where the ball lands every time. As these balls land, the numbers that appear the most should then have straight bets placed on them. This strategy is repeated around 30 times.
Also considered a high-risk strategy, the Martingale system focuses on recovering a player’s losses. In a negative progression system, like the D'Alembert strategy, the difference is that each time a player loses, they double the wager for the next round. Only when they win, does the amount they bet go back to the amount of the first bet they placed. This is meant to recover any losses a player suffered, in addition to a profit.
Before explaining what the Fibonacci system is, for those that don’t know, the Fibonacci sequence is when numbers are added together to produce the next number in the sequence as follows: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 42, 84, etc. With the Fibonacci system, the amount wagered is the sum of the two stakes before it. Wagers must be paid on an even bet with a 1:1 payout, like red or black, odd or even. This strategy is good both for beginners and experienced players.
This 19th-century system is thought to be harder to come to grips with than the other strategies featured, but it will suit anyone comfortable using numbers. Once a player has decided how much they want to win, they have to split this amount into smaller, random numbers. For instance, if a player wants to win $20, they may break it down to 2, 4, 8, 2, 4.
Next, the player will take the numbers furthest left and right to make their bet. In this instance, it’ll be $6 (2 + 4), which they’ll place an even bet on. If they win, the next furthest numbers left and right will be added together to make their next bet, which again is $6 (4 + 2).
If they lose, the amount the player bets for that round will be placed in the furthest right position, so the line will be: 4, 8, 2, 4, 6. The process is then repeated, with the numbers furthest left and right added together to make $10 (4 + 6) which the player will then use to place a bet. This continues until the sequence is cleared, and the player has won the amount they set out to win, which in this case was $20.
If a player is losing too often, they may choose to stop at that point, rather than play this strategy to the end.
Learn about other roulette strategies in our guide: