The Reverse Labouchere system is often used because where the Labouchere list represents how much the player wants to win, a reverse Labouchere line represents the most that the player will lose during the betting cycle. It is with this that a player with a bankroll of x can create their own line, or lines, representative of the maximum amount that they can sustain in losses.

Additionally, a player does not necessarily have to continue the system until the table limit is met or exceeded, but could instead pick a single bet that the player does not wish to exceed and make that bet their own personal limit.

Unlike the Labouchere system which (when adhered to strictly) requires a winning percentage of at least 33.34% to complete, the winning percentage needed to complete a Reverse Labouchere line is going to be dependent on both the table limit (or the maximum single bet a player is willing to make) as well as the numbers on the initial line in relation to the table limit.

For instance, if a table had a limit of $500 and a player composed a Labouchere line as follows:

50, 50, 50, 50, 50

Nine consecutive wins (100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500) would cause the next bet in the system to exceed the table limit, and thus the line would be completed with a player profit of $2700.

In contrast, if a player composed a Labouchere line such as:

25, 25, 25, 25, 25

Nineteen consecutive wins (50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450, 475, 500) would cause the next bet in the system to exceed the table limit, thus the line would be completed with a player profit of $5,225.

The length of the line in the Reverse Labouchere system is also important as it relates to the percentage of wins necessary to complete the system. For instance, if a line of:

50, 50, 50, 50, 50

Suffers three consecutive losses as soon as the system begins, then the line is completed and a new line must be started, or the player may choose to quit.

In contrast, if a line of:

50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50

Suffers three consecutive losses, then there are still six numbers remaining on the list. In the line immediately above, it would take an opening streak of six consecutive losses for the line to be completed.

All other things remaining the same, the longer a player’s line, the more the player is risking losing, however, the longer the player’s line, the better winning percentage the casino need have in order to break the player’s line.

Advocates of this system point out that when a player uses the Labouchere System, where a streak in the casino’s favor, or many mini-streaks in the casino’s favor, will cause the player to sustain a huge loss, a single streak, or a few streaks in the player’s favor using the Reverse Labouchere system will cause the player to have a huge gain.

A formula that can be used to determine how this system could fail is as follows:

Where:

    x = Number of Wins
    y = Number of Losses
    Z = Numbers on original List

When:

    x + z ≤ y * 2

The system has failed, and all numbers on the line are crossed completely out.

Given an infinite line, the Labouchere System when played by the player requires a winning percentage of at least 33.34% to complete. In contrast, for the Reverse Labouchere to fail requires only that the player lose 33.34% of the time.

Once again, the winning percentage necessary for the system completing to success depends upon a number of variables.

References

1. ^ Ontario Problem Gambling Research Center

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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 the player 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 even though the payout is even money, the odds are clearly not 50/50. The Labouchere System attempts to offset these odds.

If a player were to play any one of the above propositions, there are eighteen individual results which result in a win for that player and twenty individual results that result in a loss for that player. The player has an 18/38 chance of success betting any of the above propositions, which is around 47.37%.

Theoretically, because the player is canceling out two numbers on the list for every win, and adding only one number for every loss, the player needs to have his proposition come at least 33.34% to eventually complete the list. For example, if the list starts with seven numbers and the player wins five times and loses three (62.5% winning percentage) the list is completed and the player wins the desired amount, if the list starts with seven numbers and the player wins 43,600 times and loses 87,193 times (33.34% winning percentage) the list completes and the player wins.

A formula to understand this is as follows:

     Where x = Number of Wins
     y = Number of Losses
     Z = Numbers Originally on the List

When

     ( y + z ) / 2 ≤ X

The result is the list being completed.

Assuming a player bets nothing but black (red/black proposition) and black can be expected to hit 47.37% of the time, but the system only requires that it hit 33.34% of the time, it can be said that black only need hit approximately 70.38% of the time (33.34/47.37) it can generally be expected to in order for the system to prevail.

An obvious downfall to the system is bankroll, because the more losses sustained by the player, the greater the amount being bet on each turn (as well as the greater the amount lost overall) is. Consider the following list:

10 10 20 20 20 10 10

If a player were to bet black and lose four times in a row, the amounts bet would be: $20, $30, $40, and $50. By taking these four consecutive losses, the player has already lost $140 and is betting $60 more on the next bet. Consecutive losses, or an inordinate amount of losses to wins can also cause table limits to come into play.

Occasionally, a player following this system will come to a point where he can no longer make the next bet as demanded by the system due to table limits. One work-around for this problem is simply to move to a higher limit table, or a player can take the next number that should be bet, divide it by two and simply add it to the list twice. The problem with the latter option is that every time a player commits such a play, it will infinitesimally increase the percentage of spins a player must win to complete the system. The reason this is so is because the player is adding two numbers (which both will be crossed out in the event of wins) where only one loss was sustained.

To prove this, if a player were to play the Labouchere System the same way with the exception being that the player always added half of the wager lost to the bottom of the list twice for every wager lost where:

    x = Number of Wins
    y = Number of Losses
    Z = Numbers Originally on the List

When:

    y + (z/2) ≤ x

The result is the list being completed.

The player would actually have to win in excess of 50% of the time (the actual percentage of wins necessary, given x and y, being dependent on z) in order to complete the list, or more than the player could actually be expected to win.

References

1. ^ Burrell, Brian. Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Everyday Math. Merriam-Webster.

• Tijms, Henk (2004). “Probabilities in everyday life”. Understanding probability: chance rules in everyday life. Cambridge University Press. pp. 91–93. ISBN 0-521-54036-4.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Horse racing betting systems are based on a number of criteria, some of which include analysis of the horses’ form.

Often horse racing systems are based on financial systems such as hedging (betting on multiple outcomes in a race) and arbitrage (lay the horse a low price and back it at a high price). Other horse racing systems exist which are based on items such as horse name, jockey form, trainer form, and lane draw. Modern horse racing systems can rely on specific betting possibilities only offered on betting exchanges.

Loss recovery systems such as Martingale can also be applied to horse racing.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

• Martingale – doubling bet after each loss until a win is achieved (or fails when the amount of the bet becomes excessive)
• Kelly criterion
• Split martingale
• Anti-martingale
• d’Alembert
• Contra d’Alembert
• Regression
• Paroli of Three

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A betting strategy or betting system is a structured approach to gambling intended to counter the inherent bias held by the house in casino and card games and by bookmakers in horseracing and sports betting. A successful strategy should increase the odds of winning in order to produce long term profits from a pursuit which under normal circumstances will only ever result in a long term loss.

All betting systems are predicated on statistical analysis, seeking to exploit the rare circumstances when the odds are in the favour of the player. Though the basis of all risk is fundamentally the same, betting systems vary in relation to the rules and circumstances of each particular game. The most established betting systems include:

• Card games – Card counting
• Roulette – Martingale
• Horse racing – Hedging, Arbitrage
• Sports – Handicapping^{[citation needed]}

Links

• The Truth About Betting Systems from Wizard of Odds

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.