The D'Alembert or 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.