American Roulette or European Roulette?

Two of the most familiar versions of roulette are the American and European games. If a casino was to only offer two types of roulette, they would more than likely choose these two variants. Despite the fact that on appearance,both of the games have a lot in common, one of the games will be giving you much better odds than the other.

These games appear to be exactly the same... however, if you look toward the top of table table, you will notice that European roulette has one green '0', whereas American roulette has one green '0' along with another green '00'. And it is this small addition of one extra number that makes all the difference between the games.

On first impression, the American version looks a little more interesting with it's extra number to bet on. However, this innocent looking '00' reduces your odds of winning, and gives the house a much bigger edge than the European tables.

In both European and American roulette, the payout for betting on the correct number is 35:1 for both games. Now seeing as the American table has one extra number with the exact same odds as the European table, it makes it that little less likely that your number will come up, without having any better odds to compensate for it.

From a mathematical point of view, on the European roulette table the house has a 2.7% edge over the player, whereas on an American roulette table the house has almost double that, with a 5.26% edge. This means that over the long run, for every $100 you bet on both tables, you would lose $2.70 on the European table, and $5.26 on the American table.

As you can see, this makes the European roulette table a much better choice over the American table. Therefore if you are ever offered both European and American roulette tables at an online casino, you should go for the European one every time. The main (and probably only) reason why casinos still offer the American version of the game is to take advantage of the player's that are unaware of the the fact the American tables give a bigger edge to the house.

In fact, the American table plays host to the worst bet in roulette. The 'five number bet' at the top of table where you bet on numbers '0', '00', '1,' '2' and '3' gives the house a 7% edge, which is by far the worst odds of any bet you can make in roulette.

So use your head when you are playing roulette, and stick to the European version of the game.

En Prison

The 'En Prison' rule is a little rare, but is occasionally used on the European roulette tables. The En Prison rule applies to any outside even wagers (such as betting on red or black), where bets will not be immediately lost if the ball lands on '0'.

If you have an outside even money bet and the ball lands on '0', the bet will be held 'En Prison', where half of the bet will be lost, and the other half will remain for the next spin.

If on the next spin you win the even money wager, your original bet will be returned to you. However, if the wager is lost once again, you lose the remainder of that bet.

This is a pretty nice rule, as it further reduces the house edge on European tables from 2.7% to 1.35%. So if you ever see a table offering the En Prison rule, make sure you take advantage of it (after all, the lower the house edge the better). However, as I have mentioned, this rule is a little rare, and is not popular amongst online casinos.

There is also the 'La Partage' rule, which is very similar to En Prison, but instead of leaving the bet on the table for the next spin, you simply receive half of the amount you wagered back.