Roulette Variants Explained
Your guide to wheel variations
Roulette Variants
Roulette is one of the most popular casino games in the world and it has several variants. Originally, roulette was a game of the aristocracy but over history, the game has become accessible to anyone. Over the centuries roulette has become one of the most popular games of chance all over the United States. It then quickly became popular all around the world, from Europe to Asia and roulette is now available in a large number of online casinos.
Playing roulette is very simple and unlike blackjack or poker, it doesn’t require any skill from the player. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the basics of roulette and your probability of winning with different variants.
Here, we will explain each roulette variant and the way they work.
Main Roulette Types
Roulette wheels can come in different forms. They do share similarities but they are slightly different from one another and this difference impacts the gameplay and the payout to a certain extent. Being aware of the odds makes quite a difference and as you will see, playing American and European roulette can give you different returns.
European Roulette
The European roulette wheel is the original wheel. It has 37 pockets that are numbered 0 to 36. Red and black pockets alternate and each colour has 18 pockets. Pocket number 0 is green coloured.
This variant comes with a house edge of 2.70% which is represented by the single zero pocket. This variant is the most favourable to players in terms of odds. Players can place their virtual chips on the roulette mat where they find all the inside and outside bets.
French Roulette
French roulette uses the same wheel as European roulette does. The layouts of the mat and the bets are the same but two rules make a difference in the gameplay – the La Partage and the En Prison rules.
Both of these rules reduce the house edge by half on even money bets if the ball ends up in the zero pocket - players either get back half of their wager or the wager stays “in prison” for the next spin.
American Roulette
This version of roulette was developed in the USA and it is the most popular version in Las Vegas. This variant has two zero pockets which makes it the riskiest of the three main roulette variants.
This wheel looks similar to the European wheel, however, it has a zero and a double zero pocket. This increases the house edge to 5.26% and it reduces your odds of winning. For this reason, experts of the game recommend favouring games that use the European wheel.
Other Types of Roulette
In online casinos, you’ll find other creative variants of the three basic games, for example, Multi Wheel Roulette. This game includes up to 6 wheels and players can place separate bets on all of them at the same time giving them more chances to win.
There are many different variants using RNG technology and you can try them all here at RouletteStrategy. Live roulette games are also available but these games can only be played with real money.
