European Roulette

The difference between a European roulette wheel (also called ‘single zero roulette’) and an American roulette wheel (also called a double zero roulette wheel) is big enough that serious roulette players avoid the double zero wheel at all costs.

A standard European roulette wheel has just a single 0 space. Leaving out the American 00 slot decreases the house edge by half. That’s because a European or single zero roulette wheel only has 37 numbers total to wager on, 0-36. An American wheel has 0-36 like the European wheel, but a 00 is also included, increasing the number of potential outcomes from 37 numbers to 38 numbers.

Understand that some roulette games in Europe will have a 00 space and some roulette games in America will have no 00 space. These aren’t hard and fast rules. But they are standards, and you may have trouble finding games in each part of the world that don’t follow the local standard.

One place you’ll commonly find single zero roulette in America is in any highly competitive casino market. That means you can sometimes find single zero roulette in Las Vegas, regional gambling Meccas like the shores of Mississippi or Louisiana, and among the casinos in Atlantic City. The trick is not to fly to Europe to play roulette, but to look for European style roulette games here stateside.

European Roulette Odds

Since there are 37 potential outcomes in single zero roulette, the odds of a given number appearing on a single zero roulette wheel are 36 to 1. Since double zero roulette (also called American roulette) adds another space, the odds increase to 37 to 1. Notice that in both cases, roulette pays out 35 to 1 for a single number bet, so there’s no incentive to play the American game that offers worse odds.

Profit and European Roulette

Casinos make a profit on roulette thanks to the implied house edge. That house edge on American roulette or double zero roulette is a full 5.26%. That means for every $100 a roulette player bets on a double zero wheel, they will lose an average of $5.26 over time. Better odds on the single zero or European style roulette wheel decrease that edge to about 2.7%, meaning the same player will lose just $2.70 for every $100 he bets.

Which wheel do you think most people want to play?

Look at other casino games and compare their house edge. In blackjack, if you play with perfect strategy, the house edge is just 0.5%. Even a game like craps has better odds at face value than roulette: craps has a house edge of 1.4%. Remember, though, that both craps and blackjack have potential plays that are way worse in terms of their odds. Also, since there are fewer spins of the roulette wheel per hour than there are decisions in blackjack or craps, you’re simply going to have fewer chances to lose money. That means that roulette is just about as good, on a single zero wheel, as blackjack or craps in terms of how much money you’re going to lose per hour.

You can expect 50 bets per hour in blackjack, maybe more if the table isn’t full. It isn’t uncommon for blackjack players to place as many as 200 bets per hour if they’re playing at a table with no other players. Craps tables commonly roll the dice 100 times per hour. The most decisions you’ll see at a roulette wheel is about 65 or 70 per hour. Full roulette wheels offer one spin every other minute, for a total of 30 spins per hour.

Picture a blackjack player. He places $5 bets per hand and goes through 50 hands per hour. His $250 of action per hour, at an expected loss rate of 2% (he doesn’t know blackjack strategy), means he’s spending just $5 per hour to play blackjack. The same player, seeing 30 roulette spins an hour at $5 each, spends $150 for his action with a 2.7% edge. His total roulette cost is $4.05 an hour. If the casino comps a couple of beers while you play, you’ve actually earned a profit.

More on European Roulette Betting

Some single zero roulette games offer a rule known as ‘en prison,’ which lets players who lose an even money bet to leave his bet “in prison” on the board instead of losing it all. Should the next spin produce a winning result, the players wins back the imprisoned bet. If the player loses again, the bet is lost. This simple rule decreases the house’s edge on a single zero roulette game to 1.35%, making it one of the lowest house edges in the casino.

Since roulette is a negative expectation game (meaning the house has an edge, no matter how small), many people think they will lose all their money no matter how low you make that house edge. Yes, casino luck comes and goes, and all profits you make at one table could easily become casino profits at the next. But looking at how much it costs you per hour to play single zero roulette is an easy way of seeing the benefit of avoiding American roulette wheels and their two zero spaces.

Let’s say you’re playing at a single zero table with an ‘en prison’ rule in effect. You’re playing $5 per spin at a table that has a 1.35% edge thanks to ‘en prison. At 50 spins per hour (a little higher than average, but still possible), then you can expect to lose about $3.37 per hour, even with the advantage of the ‘en prison’ rule and the single zero wheel. Now let’s compare that to a wheel with two zero spaces.

A roulette game using a double zero wheel, holding a 5.26% house edge, will cost you $13.15 per hour under the exact same playing conditions as our single zero example. That’s further proof of the concept that playing roulette on any wheel besides a single zero one is foolish.