Labouchere Didn't Actually Invent His Labouchere Roulette System

Henry Du Pre Labouchere is best known for two things: drafting the Labouchere Amendment and creating a mathematical system to beat roulette.

If Labouchere’s position on sexual rights was conservative, everything else about him was libertarian: pro-gambling, anti-war, anti-colonialism, anti-racism, an agnostic, and an advocate for animal rights.

After graduating from Cambridge University, he travelled extensively in South America, hung out with indigenous tribes, joined the circus, and spent six months in a camp with Chippeway Indians.

He served as a diplomat and as a theatrical impresario, showcasing his actress mistress Henrietta Hudson as the leading lady. What a guy.

However, it is Labouchere’s work as a journalist, between 1870 and 1871 that really made his name. It is also where he stumbled across the roulette strategy that’s had his name ever since.

In 1870, Paris was under siege; the city and its population were enduring the final stages of the Franco-Prussian War.

The city was cut off by Prussian troops, from September 19, 1870, until January 28, 1871. Food ran out and people were forced to eat horses, rats, and even elephants from the zoo.

Labouchere was in Paris when the war broke out. He would send his dispatches, by messenger or balloon, which were published in the Daily News.

They were a sensation and were eventually complied into the best-selling ‘Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris’.

This is from the intro: “I was residing there (Paris) when the war broke out; after a short absence, I returned just before the capitulation of Sedan – intending only to remain one night. The situation, however, was so interesting that I stayed on from day to day, until I found the German armies drawing their lines of investment round the city.

“Had I supposed that I should have been their prisoner for nearly five months, I confess I should have made an effort to escape, but I shared the general illusion that – one way or the other – the siege would not last a month.”

Labouchere’s reporting, and his eye-witness accounts of Paris’s starving inhabitants, is considered one of the first examples of real-time journalistic war correspondence and an important cultural work.

After Labouchere’s death, his grandson, Algar Labouchere Thorold, wrote his biography: ‘The Life of Henry Labouchere’, which is available to read online.

There are many references to his problem with – and love of – gambling.

When he was at Cambridge University, he ran up debts of more than £6,000 betting horses at Newmarket. Fortunately, daddy bailed him out.

In the book, published in 1913, a roulette system championed by Labouchere, is revealed for the first time. He also explains that he stumbled upon it, purely by chance.

Here’s the man, in his own words:

“I used at one time to take the waters every year at Homburg, and I invariably paid the expenses of my trip out of my winnings at the gambling-tables. It may have been luck, or it may have been system; but I give my system for what it is worth.

“I used to write the following figures on a piece of paper: – 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. My stake was always the top and bottom figure added together.

“If I won, I scratched out these figures; if I lost, I wrote down the stake at the bottom of the figures, and I went on playing until all the figures on my piece of paper were erased. Thus, my first stake (and I played indifferently on red or black) would be ten.

“If I won it, I scratched out three and seven. My next stake would be ten again, as four and six make ten. If I lost it, I wrote down ten at the bottom of my list of figures, and played fourteen, being the addition of the first and last figure on the list, viz. fourteen.

“The basis of the “system” was this. Before reaching the maximum, I could play a series of even chances for about two hours, and if during these two hours I won one quarter as many times as the bank, plus five, all my figures were erased.

“During these two hours an even chance would be produced two hundred times. If, therefore, I won fifty-five times, and the bank won 145 times, I was the winner of twenty-five napoleons, florins or whatever was my unit.

“Now let any one produce an even chance by tossing up a coin and always crying “heads,” he will find that he may go on until Doomsday before the “tails” exceed the “heads,” or the “heads” exceed the “tails,” by ninety-five.

“I found this system in a letter from Condorcet to a friend, which I read in a book that I purchased at a stall on the “Quai” at Paris. It may have been, as I have said, only luck; but all I can say is, that whenever I played it I invariably won.”

There it is, in black and white: Labouchere credits Condorcet as the creator of his preferred roulette system.

So, who is Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet?

A quick Google reveals Condorcet was an 18th century French mathematician, best known for his voting system: the Condorcet Method.

marquis de condorcet — Image: World History Encyclopedia

The mathematical formula has all the hallmarks of the Labouchere roulette system; a string of numbers manipulated to create an outcome.

It’s plain to see Condorcet was the innovator.

Bonus fun fact: Condorcet was an advocate for women’s rights and equality. On this, he would have been at odds with Labouchere.

So, it’s not the James Bond system. It’s not the Labouchere system. It is – in fact – the Condorcet System.

And the evidence suggests: he created it first.

If Labouchere’s explanation of the system has left you scratching your head, read our in-depth guide to the Labouchere system which includes examples of it in action.

It’s basically a mathematical formula that extends your time at the roulette table or the best online casinos and keeps you in control of your bankroll. You will need deep pockets to play, though.

Computer simulations have demonstrated that this system wins more than 95% of the time. Of course: a run of losses, a couple of zeros, and it all goes south.

Remember folks: whatever way you skin it, in the long run, the house always wins.

This system is simply a mathematical gimmick that helps you keep track. It gives you a good excuse to step away from the table, with cash in hand.

Albert Einstein had the right advice: “The only way to beat roulette is to steal the money when the dealer’s not looking.”