Pyramid System

The D’Alembert System is also a negative progression system but instead of doubling your bet amount when you lose, you increase it by an increment equal to the bet start amount. When you win, you then decrease the bet by the same increment until you are back to the start amount. Obviously, the reason it is called the Pyramid System is that your bet amount steps up
then back down.

This system can be a little less stressful than the Martingale since the bets climb in a more manageable fashion. They can still grow quickly however, so you need to be prepared to deal with the consequences or establish a stop-loss point.

Let’s look at a Pyramid system example by keeping a running balance of our bank amount.

Let’s start out with a $100 bank and set our bet increment to $10. We will stop after 4 spins – losing the first two, and then winning the second two:

Spin Action Current Bet Lose Win Balance
1 10 10 -10 90
2 Increase by 10 20 20 -20 70
3 Increase by 10 30 30 100
4 Decrease by 10 20 20 120

Not bad. We lost twice and won twice, but still came away with a $20 profit. With a flat bet system, two wins and two loses would have gotten us back to our starting bank amount. Remember what we said earlier, however, there is no magic in the system itself. It is simply a condition of our escalating the amount that we are risking. This scenario could easily have gone sour. See what happens when we lose 4 times in a row – a 1 in 13 possibility:

Spin Action Current Bet Lose Win Balance
1 10 -10 90
2 Increase by 10 20 -20 70
3 Increase by 10 30 -30 40
4 Increase by 10 40 -40 0

Busted in 4 spins. Be prepared for this kind of outcome. You may want to pick a start amount that is a lower ratio of your bank amount – 1/20, for instance (or $5 in our scenario). This will help you to play longer and maybe hit that winning streak.

Another variation of the Pyramid system is to select an increment amount that is smaller than the bet start amount. Remember, while tables generally have a minimum bet limit, your bet does not have to be in increments of this limit. If you are at a $5 table, you can place a bet for $6 or $12. Just ask the dealer for chips in smaller units. For example, let’s look at our first Pyramid scenario, but this time change the bet by $2 increments:

Spin Action Current Bet Lose Win Balance
1 10 -10 90
2 Increase by 2 12 -12 78
3 Increase by 2 14 14 92
4 Decrease by 2 12 12 104

This time we take a $4 profit. However, if we lose
4 times again:

Spin Action Current Bet Lose Win Balance
1 10 -10 90
2 Increase by 2 12 -12 78
3 Increase by 2 14 -14 64
4 Increase by 2 16 -16 48

We would only be out $52.

Roulette Revenge supports configuration and testing of many Pyramid system variations.

Custom Negative Progression Systems

In the previous two systems, we saw two extremes in how bets can progress – exponentially as in the Martingale and linearly as in the Pyramid. If one is too aggressive for your tastes and the other is not aggressive enough then, there is nothing to stop
you from developing your own custom series or progression rules.

Let’s look at an example where the bet increment, instead of staying steady, increases in a linear fashion. So rather then adding 2, 2, 2, and 2, you would add 2, 4, 6, and 8. Let’s look at the chart again:

Spin Action Current Bet Lose Win Balance
1 10 -10 90
2 Increase by 2 12 -12 78
3 Increase by 4 16 16 94
4 Decrease by 4 12 12 106

With the same win-loss scenario, we now net $6.