Labouchère system
The Labouchère system, also called the cancellation system or split martingale, is a gambling strategy used in roulette. The user of such a strategy decides before playing how much money they want to win, and writes down a list of positive numbers that sum to the predetermined amount. With each bet, the player stakes an amount equal to the sum of the first and last numbers on the list. If only one number remains, that number is the amount of the stake. If bet is successful, the two amounts are removed from the list. If the bet is unsuccessful, the amount lost is appended to the end of the list. This process continues until either the list is completely crossed out, at which point the desired amount of money has been won, or until the player runs out of money to wager.
It should be mentioned that the Labouchère System is meant to be applied to even money Roulette propositions such as Even/Odd, Red/Black or 1-18/19-36. When any of these bets are made in the game of Roulette, a spin resulting in a “0” or “00” results in a loss, so even though the payout is even money, the odds are clearly not 50/50. The Labouchère System attempts to offset these odds.
Consider the following list:
10 10 20 20 20 10 10
If a player were to bet black and lose four times in a row, the amounts bet would be: $20, $30, $40, and $50. By taking these four consecutive losses, the player has already lost $140 and is betting $60 more on the next bet. Consecutive losses, or an inordinate amount of losses to wins can also cause table limits to come into play.
How it works
In the Labouchère system we choose what we want to win lets say 10$ and write a list of number with that sum
- 1+2+3+2+2 = 10
- you bet the sum of first and last with a win you delete this number , with a loss you add the sum at the end of list
Lets see an example
| Bet Amount | Bet Result | Total Profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1+2+3+2+2=3 | win | 3 |
| 2+3+2 =4 | loss | -1 |
| 2+3+2+4 =6 | loss | -7 |
| 2+3+2+4+6 =8 | win | 1 |
| 3+2+4 =7 | win | 8 |
| 2 | win | 10 |
While your bets won’t increase as quickly as in the Martingale, they can get quite large. Also, since a single win won’t bring you back down to your minimum betting amount, it will often take several large bets to get you back on track after a losing streak.