D’Alembert

In this section of our series on Casino Gambling Strategies, we turn our attention to the D’Alembert betting system. As with all of the betting systems and strategies we discuss on this site, we must point out that using D’Alembert never guarantees a winning session. Risk is intrinsic to gambling. When you put D’Alembert into practice in live play, you are just as likely to lose as to win!

As for D’Alembert, this particular betting system has a lot of different names, so if you come across a betting system called the Pyramid or the Up and Down, it’s probably actually the same system, going by a different name!

Much like every other betting system in existence, D’Alembert is based around the even money wagers available within various games of chance. To show you how D’Alembert works, we’ll use the example of Roulette.

What makes the D’Alembert betting system attractive to many players is that you can keep your bets low in value when playing. If you use this system when gambling, you won’t commit yourself to chasing losing wagers with very large new wagers—contrary to several other systems!

To set the D’Alembert betting system into play, you first need to get on any of the even money paying locations on the Roulette tables. You place an initial wager, let’s say 5 tokens, on one of the even-money bets, say on one of the numbers 1-18 coming up on the next spin. (The Low Numbers bet, as it’s known.)

When you encounter a losing spin (in this example, a spin of 19 or higher), you double your next even-money bet. However, after each winning spin, you remove one unit from your next wager. So, if you lose 5 on the first spin, you bet 10 on the next one. However, if you win on your first 5-token bet, your next bet is only 4 tokens.

The logic behind the D’Alembert betting system is that a player is more likely to lose on a 50/50 spin after winning the previous one, and vice-verse. As each spin of a Roulette wheel is a discrete random event, however, this logic is not grounded in reality—in fact, it’s commonly known as the “Gambler’s Fallacy!”

We would suggest that you try this betting system out for yourself via the free-to-play options at any of the online casino sites we review. By testing it out it in free play mode, you can see for yourself just how much or little you like the system, without having to risk any of your own money to find out!