The Labouchere system is a staking plan sometimes used for football gambling, but it's most popular with roulette games.

It essentially works like a negative progression system, where stakes are increased every time you lose.

But the pattern of bets differs quite a bit from the Martingale or Fibonacci. Let's take a closer look at this intriguing and complex staking plan.

What is the Labouchere system?

Henry Du Pré Labouchere was a 19th century politician and writer who had built up incredible wealth from his family's background in banking.

His quirky staking plan was designed to maximise profits for a relatively small outlay.

Like the Martingale, the Labouchere system is played on even-money bets on the table like Red/Black and Odd/Even. These pay 1/1.

Players use a sequence of numbers to work out their initial bets and subsequent bets based on whether they win or lose.

There is no hard and fast rule on what sequence of numbers you start with, but it's ideal to write them down or use a word processing tool to keep track.

The higher the numbers in your sequence, the more you will bet.

Using the Labouchere system

Bets are determined by the FIRST and LAST numbers in your sequence. These are added together to create your stake.

For example, you write down the numbers, £1 - £2 - £3 - £4. Your first bet will be £1 + £4, or £5. If the bet wins, you scrub out the first and last numbers from the sequence.

If you lose the bet, you add your stake to the end of the sequence.

So our sequence would read:

Spin #1

After a win: £1 - £2 - £3 - £4

After a loss: £1 - £2 - £3 - £4 - £5

For your next spin, apply the same rules.

If you won the first spin, you would bet 2 + 3 = £5. If you lost your first spin, you would bet £1 + £5 = £6.

You can see that following a losing spin, the stake has increased slightly.

If you find you're left with one number in your sequence, you simply bet that amount instead. If it's a winning spin, you must cross out the final number and begin the sequence again.

Note that the sequence doesn't have to be in ascending order.

You could have a sequence running 2-1-2-4-1-4-1. Bigger gamblers can also opt for larger numbers if they want to bet higher. 

The goal of the Labouchere is to keep winning and end up with your final digit or digits removed.

With our first sequence, if you clear the numbers (1, 2, 3, 4) you end up with a profit (£10) equal to the sum of the numbers (1+2+3+4). That will be the case regardless of what numbers you choose.

In our table, over 10 spins we win five bets and also lose five.

The total losses are £40 and the total wins come to £50, so we're £10 in profit, which is exactly the sum of our first four numbers.

Advantages

With just 50% of bets winning, we still turn in a profit in our table.

By increasing the stakes relative to the sequence, we manage to keep a handle on what we are betting.

Disadvantages

As with all roulette systems, especially negative progression ones, there are drawbacks.

Two things that roulette players can't change are luck and the house edge.

It's possible for a player to go on a long losing streak, and it can get very expensive when you are constantly adding numbers to the Labouchere sequencee.

The house edge in European Roulette is 2.7%. Even when playing even-money bets (e.g. Red, Black, Odd, Even) the house wins if a green zero appears.  

Trying the Labouchere system

Like all roulette strategies, the Labouchere carries risks.

There's nothing to prevent long downswings, and you will also have to keep editing your number list as you go.

But with the goal of clearing the sequence in your mind, it gives you an alternative method to playing roulette.