Labouchere is one more roulette betting system, just like Martingale and Fibonacci, but much different with its meaning. This is actually quite an interesting system, as the player is able to designate how much he or she wants to win in advance, and the system follows those guidelines. The system is named after a French minister of finance to the late Queen Victoria called Labouchere, who was rather too fond of gambling. The system is sometimes referred as the “Cancellation System” or “Split Martingale”.

To play the Labouchere roulette betting system successfully takes just a bit of time and effort. This system is a bit like Martingale in some cases, but is it less risky. So here is Labouchere explained:

The theory behind this strategy is that since the player is crossing two numbers off of the list (win) for every number added (loss) that the player can complete the list, (crossing out all numbers) thereby winning the desired amount, even though he or she does not need to win as much as expected for this to occur. It should be mentioned that the Labouchere 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 although the payout is even money, the odds are clearly not 50/50. The Labouchere System attempts to offset these odds.

So, you write a sequence of numbers down on paper: 1 2 3 4 5 6. When you bet you use the first and last numbers in the sequence. Your first bet using the numbers above would be $1 + $6 = $7. You would bet $7, and if the bet won you would cross out the numbers you’ve already used (1 and 6). Your next bet would be the sum of the new first and last digits (2 and 5). Your second bet would be $7 again. If the second bet wins again, you would repeat the process, cross off 2 and 5, and bid 3 and 4. Once again, the bid would be $7. At the end, you would be $21 dollars up, and successful.

On the other hand, if your bet loses you add the total to the end of the number series, and then bet again. In the example above, if you lost the first bet, the new number series would be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Your next bet under the Labouchere betting system would be 1 + 7, or $8. The pitfall here is that if you have a long string of losses, you can have a very long number series – and no money left to bet with. With this said, the player would actually have to win in excess of 50% of the time in order to complete the list, or more than the player could actually be expected to win.

However, like all betting systems, the Labouchere system has its drawbacks as well, mainly because players have limited bankrolls and roulette games have table limits. Obviously when a player’s bankroll is lost, the system fails. Likewise, when the bettor runs into a losing streak, where he loses five, six or even up to ten bets in a row, then the system becomes unwieldy, and it’s quite possible the bettor could run into the table limit. But the idea is not to lose courage earlier than your money!