Labouchère System
Labouchère (also called the cancellation system) splits a target profit into a sequence of numbers. Each hand you bet the first number plus the last number in the sequence — not a fixed or doubling stake like Martingale.
How it works, step by step
- Pick a target profit and split it into a sequence of numbers that sum to that target (Gambargo does this for you, in units of your configured stake size).
- Each hand, the stake is the first number plus the last number in the sequence — or just that one number if only one remains.
- Win → cross out the first and last numbers. If two or fewer numbers remain, the sequence is empty and the cycle closes at exactly your target profit.
- Loss → add the amount you just staked to the end of the sequence, making it one number longer.
- Draw (game-dependent) → the target is recalculated as the current sum plus the loss, and re-split into a new sequence with the same number of parts.
A worked example
Sequence [1, 2, 3, 4] (target 10). First hand bets 1+4=5. Lose → append 5, sequence becomes [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Next hand bets 1+5=6. Win → cross out both ends: [2, 3, 4]. Continue until two or fewer numbers remain and clear.
Why it is different from Martingale
A loss adds one number to the sequence rather than doubling the next stake outright, so a losing streak grows the required stake more gradually. The trade-off: recovering a bad stretch can take many more hands than Martingale's "one win closes it" approach, and a long losing streak can still stretch the sequence a long way.
Neither system changes the underlying odds of the game — see the Martingale page for why any staking system eventually meets its limit, and try the free calculator to see a sequence build in real time.