The Contra D'Alembert Strategy/System in Roulette
While the point of playing any casino game is to win money, there have been many strategies and theories devised to help players recover losses or to simply “break even”. It is a well known fact that the “house” or casino will always have a winning advantage of some sort or another over any kind of game they sponsor, and this is just as true in the popular game of Roulette.
The traditional expectation for any player is to anticipate a loss of almost six percent of their initial wager. While many players walk away with a large profit in their hands the casino would still have protected itself by the percentage of their own advantage.
When players began to examine the game of Roulette it was only just beginning to become a popular casino game in Europe. During the late 1700s a French philosopher named D’Alembert devised his “pyramid” system that effectively worked to help a player quickly recover their losses. He based his theory of betting on a balanced design of losing and winning spins.
D’Alembert’s system is employed in even bets, like the black and red, and is a very cautious method of regaining lost wagers. Fundamentally the system says to reduce a wager by one “unit” on each winning spin, and increase the wager by one “unit” on each losing spin. While this may make a winning player’s wager very low, it will also quickly regain losses and leave a player with a balanced game.
A secondary theory developed out of D’Alembert’s, and it is called the Contra D’Alembert because it proposes a contrary practice to the more conservative original one. This system asks the player to double their bets when they win, and continually double them until they should hit a losing bet or spin.
This system also relies on the even betting of black and red, and tries to take advantage of winning as quickly as possible. Basically a player could place a bet of two dollars on red and win. They would then take their four dollars and place it on red again. Should they win they would place their eight dollars in winnings on the same red spin. If they lose they simply take their original bet and start all over again.
Some players suggest a “cut off” point where wagers are taken off of one color and switched to another, or where a player admits they are playing a game of chance and good luck and takes their winnings. Some players use a combination of both systems, switching out during more comfortable periods of good luck and working to make their winnings increase rapidly or conservatively trying to win back losses. While still other players rely on the three spins rule of good luck and change their wager from red to black after three winning spins.
Either way a player must also realize that in a game of Contra D’Alembert Roulette they are regularly placing all of their profits or winnings at risk for loss on a single spin. For this reason it is important to know when to call it a day.