Casino games have been around for many years and so have gambling strategies. The D’Alembert strategy is one of the most popular ones, right next to the Martingale strategy. It’s a negative progression system exactly like the Martingale. A negative progression means that you increase the stakes on your bet after you lose. However, this system also asks you to reduce your stakes when you win. This strategy got its name after Jean le Rond d’Alembert, a famous French mathematician. He used this strategy by claiming that if you flip a coin that previously landed on Tails, the chances are bigger that it will land on Heads. This belief is known as the Gambler’s Fallacy and it has been around for quite some time.
The Gambler’s Fallacy, otherwise known as the Monte Carlo fallacy is an incorrect assumption that if a certain outcome happens more often over a period of time that that same outcome will be less likely to happen in the future. However, this is not true because casino games are random, you can’t predict the outcome. In the case of a coin toss, there are two possible outcomes, either heads or tails and the chance for either of the outcomes to happen is completely equal. Nevertheless, the D’Alembert strategy became one of the most popular betting strategies for a lot of casino games, especially roulette. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about this strategy and how to apply it properly.
How does the D’Alembert Strategy work?
Just like the Martingale system, the D’Alembert strategy is used on even odds where an outcome has a 50/50 chance of happening. Another similarity is that it’s a negative progression system as well. So, players who want to use this strategy need to increase their stake every time they lose. However, unlike Martingale where you double your stake, with D’Alembert you only increase the stake by one unit. Additionally, you reduce the stake by one unit when you lose. Because of the gameplay, this strategy is considered to be the safest gambling system out there.
Since you increase the stakes only by one unit it’s nearly impossible for the stakes to get extremely high. Because of that, you will never reach the betting limit or go out of money while playing. However, since you reduce the stakes when you lose, the chances of making huge wins are also very small. Still, your losses will be minimal which is why the D’Alembert strategy is perfect for new casino players.
Advantages of the D’Alembert Strategy
There are positive and negative things that come with every gambling system in the world. The D’Alembert strategy is very easy to master because it requires no prior knowledge of other strategies. This is where some of the advantages come into play:
Your losses will be low regardless of the final outcome – Since you increase and decrease the stakes by only one unit if you go on a losing run, the losses happen gradually. Using other strategies will have you losing everything in just one round and that can never happen with D’Alembert. Also, you will never reach the table limit or go “bankrupt” while playing.
The perfect strategy for a beginner – As a new casino player, you won’t want to risk a lot of money on casino games. This is where the biggest advantage of the D’Alembert strategy comes into play. As a player, you don’t need a lot of money to use this system. Because the progression moves so slowly, your money will be safe.
Adds discipline to your betting habits – Last but not least, we have to say that this strategy makes you a more disciplined gambler. It prevents you from making rash and sudden decisions based on gut feelings. Instead, you never lose control of the game, and you follow a slow progression that will take you far. With D’Alembert, you will never lose control of the situation if you go on a bad run of results.
Disadvantages of the D’Alembert Strategy
Now that mentioned the advantages, it’s time to discuss the disadvantages of this strategy. Just like every other betting system, there have to be some bad sides to it. After all, you are using it on games of chance which means luck will be the biggest factor.
The house is always on top – Casino games have a house edge and it gives them an advantage over the player. The house edge reduces your chances of winning and the D’Alembert strategy can’t do anything about it. Make sure you take advantage of the winning streaks because the house will beat you if you play for too long.
Don’t expect to win a lot – As we already said, this is the gambling system that comes with the least risk out there. You increase your stakes by one unit and you bet small amounts. Based on that, when you win, you win small amounts. So, while you can’t lose a lot of money, you also shouldn’t expect huge wins because they will never happen when using this strategy.
D’Alembert Variations
Since the D’Alembert system has been around for many years, casino players have created some variations. Most of them and not good enough to be used as separate strategies but there are a couple that deserves consideration. Below, we will mention the most popular variants.
Bet Progression Modification
Currently, there are three modifications to the progression that comes with the D’Alembert strategy. The first modification is adjusting the stakes in a different way. So, instead of increasing or decreasing the stakes by one unit, you increase or decrease them by two or more units. By doing this, the risk increases but also if you win, your winnings will be bigger.
The next modification is introducing a stake level to the strategy. This stake level is a number and when your stakes reach that number you stop and go back to the base unit, basically restarting the progression. This modification makes the strategy even less risky because the chances of you running out of money will be drastically reduced.
The last modification is by combining the D’Alembert strategy and the Martingale system. It works by keeping the negative progression from the D’Alembert system which means you increase your stakes by one unit when you lose. However, you follow the Martingale approach when it comes to winnings. So, when you win, you go back to the base unit and restart the progression after each win.
Reverse D’Alembert
Most popular gambling strategies have a reverse version and that’s true for the D’Alembert strategy as well. So, the Reverse D’Alembert has a positive progression where you increase your stakes by one unit after getting a win and you decrease them by one unit when you lose. Based on that, the Reverse D’Alembert brings you profit when you are on a winning run. For instance, if you start by betting $5 and you win, your profit will be $5. At that point, you increase the next bet to $10 and if you win again, your profit will now be $15. Now, do this once again but increase your bet to $15 and if you win, the total profit you will have is $30.
If you continue with that progression and place $20 on the next bet and you lose, you will still have a $10 profit. In this example, we are increasing by 5 because roulette chips usually have a value of 5, 10, 20, etc. However, this applies if you increase or decrease the bet by only one unit as well. We can say that the Reverse D’Alembert strategy is a bit riskier because if you go on a long run of bad results, it might become impossible for you to recover your losses.
D’Alembert Strategy in Roulette
Just like the Martingale system, the D’Alembert strategy was mostly used for roulette. It requires even odds which is why roulette is the simplest option; however, other games that have even odds can use this strategy as well. If you are using this strategy in roulette you have three betting options. You can bet on color (red/black); bet on even/odd or bet on high/low. As we said several times in the article, learning this strategy is very easy, especially if you want to use it in roulette.
To start off, you need to set the base stake which will be your initial bet. This is the number you will be increasing or decreasing. Since, you need to reduce the stake if you win, make sure that you don’t start at the table minimum. For instance, if the table minimum is $1 and you place your first bet at $1 and you win, you have to place a $1 bet in the next round as well because the stake can’t go lower than that. So, make sure you start a bit higher than that to give yourself some room to use the D’Alembert strategy properly.
For example, start with a $5 bet on red or black. If you win, your next bet will be $4 (or $2.5 if that’s how that roulette table separates the stakes). On the other hand, if you lose with that stake, the next bet should be increased by one unit. The amount will depend on how that roulette table sets it’s stakes. In most cases, it will be $7.5 but it can also be $10 on tables with higher betting limits. One more thing you have to consider is the house edge. It will decrease your chances of winning by a certain percentage. In European roulette, the house edge is 2.7027% while in American roulette it’s 5.2632% because of the double zero slot. So, the chances of getting red or black are not really 50/50 but a bit less than that.