Labouchere Roulette Strategy

Sometimes known as the Cancelation System or Split Martingale, the Labouchere roulette strategy is definitely one of the more popular betting systems used when playing online games.

Despite being a negative progression strategy, it’s far less risky than Martingale and it has the potential to return better profits than the traditional D’Alembert. Let’s take a close-up look at this system in action, so you can judge if it’s the right one for you.

The Labouchere strategy should only be used on even money bets on the roulette table. These are odd/even, high/low and red/black. To kick things off, you must decide how much you would like to win from your session of play. For this, you must factor in the size of your bankroll and how much time you have to play. 

To demonstrate the betting system, let’s say we want to win £10 from our session of play and we will bet in units of £1 or multiples of. The next thing to do is write out a sequence of numbers, in any order, that total £10. 

We are now ready to start playing roulette. If you haven’t joined an online casino yet, check out one of the sites we recommend as they all offer a superb range of RNG and live dealer roulette tables. To calculate how much you need to bet, you must add the leftmost and rightmost numbers together from your sequence (in bold, below).

If you win that round, you cross-off (cancel-out) those two numbers. Leaving you with: 

Repeat the same procedure again, adding the leftmost and rightmost numbers:

On this occasion we lose, so we don’t cross-off any numbers. Instead we add the size of the wager (£2) to the end of the sequence:

That means the next bet will be for £3. You simply follow these rules until you have crossed-off all the numbers and you will end up with a profit of £10. The Labouchere roulette odds must still compete against the casino advantage, also known as the house edge. But, as betting systems go, this is one of the better ones to use.

It’s clear to see the benefits of this strategy. Our Labouchere roulette system review found this to be a neat and well-organised method of betting. The theory of crossing-off two numbers for winning rounds but only adding one if you lose a round is built on sound logic using the even money bets available playing roulette.

Given that you are supposed to win (just under) 50% of the rounds, Labouchere can have sessions where it works like a dream. Take for example our original sequence of numbers above, there are 8 individual bet units adding up to the total of £10. You win the first round, then you only have 6 bet units in the sequence, lose the next and it increases to 7, win and it goes down to 5 and so on as the table below demonstrates.

However, like every other roulette strategy known to man, it’s not ironclad. Long losing streaks will happen. The probability of winning a red/black bet is based on the lifetime of the game. All seasoned roulette players will tell you that over the course of a 100 round session, you can, and will, have days where you win 75% and other days where you lose 80% of your bets.

And, it’s those bad days that can make even this solid strategy weak at the knees. A run of losing hands can make the number sequence too long for you to come back from. If you take our original 8-number chain and add 10 losing bets (yes, it can happen), you have a mighty 18-number chain to cancel-out. The silver lining is that the progression is not nearly as aggressive as the Martingale roulette strategy, so you should still remain within the table betting limits, but you still need the bankroll to fight back.

During the sessions when this system works, there are no shortage of Labouchere roulette success stories to be told. Supporters of this strategy state the need to be flexible. 

For instance, don’t be afraid to insert a zero in your sequence from time to time. Naturally, this method works both ways. It keeps the bet size down, but you are actually only crossing 1 number off from your list. Another popular tactic is to change your sequence mid-game. Let’s assume you started off looking to win £50 and after playing 30 - 40 rounds, your sequence of numbers adds up to £38, meaning you are in profit by £12. You can revise the order of your sequence, and as long as it totals 38, you will end up with the same result at the end.

Furthermore, it’s advisable to test a few sequences out to see which one suits your style of play, budget and bet limits. Obviously, the shorter, the better, but this means higher stakes. This is where it’s useful to take advantage of the casino’s free games, or use bonus credits instead of your own cash to do a few test simulations. 

Summing up, the Labouchere roulette strategy is definitely one of the top betting systems to use, but don’t be fooled into thinking you will win every time. Know when to stop on the bad days, and secure profits on the sunny days and you’ll have plenty of entertaining fun using it.