Labouchère
Risk · Medium Negative ProgressionLabouchère is the written-line system: put down a short sequence, bet its two ends together, cross both off when you win, and add the loss to the end when you do not. You are not chasing a single unit here — you are clearing the line, and the line’s total is a target you set before the first bet.
It usually clears, and that is exactly what makes it convincing. On the 200x bankroll this page recommends the line survives 16 losses in a row, and the 16th bet is still only 20 units; a run that deep comes about once every 55,890 bets at the standard 49.5% dice chance. Two things the arithmetic will not do for you: none of the 6 casinos we cover can walk a written line on autobet, so this is played by hand, and a session abandoned mid-line leaves the debt unpaid.
How the ladder moves
7 published steps · one unit = the base betWin and loss are not recorded anywhere — they are read off the sequence. On a negative progression a bigger next bet means the one before it lost, and a smaller one means it won. The last step has nothing after it, so it carries no mark.
Works because
- Bets grow by addition, not doubling. At fifteen consecutive losses the next bet is 19 units; a doubling ladder from the same base would be asking for 16,384.
- One win cancels two entries and one loss adds one, so the line shrinks on any win rate above a third — a 49.5% dice bet clears it most of the time.
- The target is fixed before the first bet: clearing a 1-2-3-4 line wins exactly 10 units, in whatever order the results fall.
- The next bet is written down rather than judged, which removes the improvisation that ends most hand-played sessions.
Breaks because
- Most sessions finish the line; the ones that do not are the ones that count. A 200x bankroll absorbs sixteen consecutive losses, and past that the line survives while your funding does not.
- A losing run leaves a long line, and a long line needs many wins to clear. The session that looks nearly done is the one that runs out of money.
- No autobet builder we have audited can step through a written line: the flat-unit actions at Stake, Shuffle and BC.Game move by a fixed amount, everything else moves by percentage. This is played by hand.
- Negative expected value like every system here. The line changes the order of the bets, not their price.
Run the numbers
live · no calculate button01System
02Your numbers
Illustrative math, not advice: the house edge stays negative in both directions, and no line changes that. These are generic numbers — real casino limits and a live dice session are in the full calculator.
Illustrative equity curve
one seeded session · 12 sampled pointsOne seeded session, sampled at 12 points — the shape this system makes, not a forecast. It is not an average and not a projection: the dashed line is the $100 it started from, and the same settings run again land somewhere else entirely.
Variants
Reverse Labouchère writes the line the other way round: cross off on a loss, append on a win. That turns it into a positive progression — small controlled losses funding one long winning run — and it dies at the table maximum instead of at your bankroll. Shorter lines lower the target and the depth together: 1-2-3 aims at 6 units instead of 10, and it runs out of line later.
Problems & limits
The line usually clears, and that is what makes it convincing. One win cancels two entries while one loss adds one, so at a 49.5% dice chance the line shrinks on average. The rare deep run is the whole story: it leaves bets you cannot fund, and it is large enough to cancel every completed line before it. The edge is unchanged either way — only rakeback moves the price.
FAQ
3 questions- Does Labouchère win more often than martingale?
- Yes, and that is the trap. One win cancels two entries while one loss adds one, so at a 49.5% chance the line shrinks on average and most sessions finish it. The rare session that does not is large enough to cancel all of them, and the expected value stays negative.
- How big does the bet actually get?
- On the classic 1-2-3-4 line our engine gives 5, 7, 9 and 11 for the first four losses and 19 at the fifteenth. Because it grows by addition, a bankroll of 200x the base bet absorbs sixteen consecutive losses, against seven for a doubling ladder.
- Can I run it on autobet?
- No. The flat-unit actions at Stake, Shuffle and BC.Game step by one fixed amount, and the other three casinos step by percentage — neither can walk a written line whose bet changes every round. Labouchère is hand-played.
Part of Strategies — the dice betting-system hub.