Labouchere is a challenging and fun strategy that may be a bit complicated. In fact, it requires you to continuously note and calculate as you play.
So, although there is a bit of brain gymnastics involved with Labouchere, it is one of the most popular strategies that can be used in roulette as there is a high chance of a profitable game.
However, the strategy’s great advantage also has a downside. We will take a closer look at the details of Labouchere, which can bring us profit in the majority of rounds, and at the same time can have a certain cost. You’ll also get the background of the strategy and the way to use it in online or live casino.
Where do Labouchers come from?
The Labouchere strategy is named after Henry Labouchere, who lived in the 1800s. He was an extremely wealthy English politician and journalist who had a great passion for gambling of all kinds. Roulette, however, was the game he loved the most.
He gained a certain reputation for having invented an interesting and special roulette strategy, which is known today as the Laboucher strategy.
How does Laboucher work?
Laboucher’s strategy can be applied to all types of bets in roulette, but it works best in the types of bets that return double, i.e. the red/black squares and the single even/odd numbers.
To play with Laboucheres method, you must be able to note and edit numbers while playing. For online casino roulette and live casino roulette, it is easy to use pen and paper, or a small text document on your PC or mobile.
With this strategy, you first need to consider how big a bet you want to play with. You do this by writing down a number of digits. You can write any numbers and you decide how long the sequence of numbers should be.
The most important thing is that you always want to place a bet that is equal to the sum of the leftmost number and the rightmost number in the sequence. The higher the numbers, the higher the stakes.
Each time you win, you must remove the two digits that added up to your bet. If you lose, add the bet as a new digit to the right.
Let’s illustrate this with a small six-digit example:
2-1-3-2-1-1
This is the leftmost and rightmost number, so in this example your bet is 3.00 DKK (2 + 1 = 3).
If you win the round, you have to remove the two numbers you put together. You will then have the following numbers left:
1-3-2-1
Labouchere functionality
The next bet is now 2,00 DKK (1 + 1 = 2). These are again the two numbers on the outer wings. If you now lose this round, the bet you placed (it was 2) must be added to the row of numbers, on the right, like this:
1-3-2-1-2
The goal of Laboucher’s strategy is to eliminate all numbers. If that happens, the result is a surplus equal to the sum of the numbers from the first sequence of numbers you wrote down.
In our example, where the original sequence was 2-1-3-2-1-1, the profit is 10 DKK if we manage to remove all the numbers. If you end up with a single number left, that will be your bet in the following round.
Advantages and disadvantages
The big and obvious advantage of the Laboucher strategy is that it doesn’t actually require winning in more than about 33% of the bets to create a profit. To be precise, it is 33% plus 2 bets. So, for example, if you play a full 75 rounds, you only need to win in 25 + 2 rounds to make a profit. That’s a pretty small fraction, which means that most of your bets will turn a profit.
Now, it almost seems like this strategy is perfect if you only need to win a third of the rounds to make a profit.
The probability of winning a round is about one in two on average (18 out of 37 numbers if you bet on fields that pay double). What we’ve forgotten here is that each round is unique and random, and it’s therefore inconceivable that you won’t lose some of your rounds.
Labouchere pros & cons
As the stakes for each round you lose get higher and higher, losing will end up with very high stakes. They can be so high that you don’t have the funds in your budget to continue, or so high that the table doesn’t allow the bet.
For example, if you start with a bet of 1-1, this will result in a win of 2.00 DKK – assuming you win. Now, if you are unlucky and lose the following 20 rounds in a row, the sequence would look like this:
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21
Over the time it takes to build up this sequence, you will have lost 231 DKK, and you will now need to win many times in a row just to make a profit of 2.00 DKK. And this is even with a bet of 1,00 DKK.
20 losses in a row is of course rare, but statistically it will happen sooner or later, and then you will lose the profit that previous wins have given you.
Do I need Labouchers?
Whether the Laboucher strategy is right for you depends entirely on the kind of roulette experience you enjoy. There’s no magic behind the method that can give you an advantage over the house, but there are certainly clear benefits.
Since a game can end in a profit with only 33% + 2 rounds won, many of your games will be able to make a profit even if you have a number of rounds where you lose.
You can control the risk by choosing low and high numbers respectively. The higher the numbers, the higher the risk, as the stakes will increase more in the rounds where you lose. Conversely, higher numbers also mean that the potential winnings will be higher.
Labouchers are therefore a good choice if you don’t mind sticking to the notation and you want to have some influence on the risk, while most of your bets can be profitable.
However, you should also be prepared to accept big losses when rounds come along where you are not lucky. Even if you pick some relatively low numbers, the stakes along the way can get very high.
Conclusion
Labouchere is not a strategy that can guarantee you a profit in the long run. In fact, there is no strategy that can. Nevertheless, it is a roulette strategy that is very suitable for anyone who wants to increase the chances of a profitable game, and at the same time have an influence on the risk, by choosing high or low digits in the noted sequence.
Moreover, the strategy is actually really unentertaining, as you will find that you are more in the game. Conversely, for some players, having to note and calculate can seem annoying. Further, the increased chance of profits means greater losses when you don’t win the rounds.