The type of roulette wheel you play on can make a huge difference to your chances of winning. Make sure you know the difference.

You only have to visit Vegas or Monte Carlo to see the money there is in roulette, these fantastic casinos were built on gambling and to be more precise – 'the house edge'. This is the statistical advantage that every Casino has in every game – in roulette it's provided by the roulette tables.

Mathematics isn't the most exciting subject for everyone but when you look at what it can achieve it suddenly develops a little more allure.

It's amazing to think that the whole of Las Vegas was built on the laws of probability, that is the probability that the house would win more than the punters. Having a basic idea of the probabilities involved in any game of chance such as roulette is always a smart move. Roulette is never going to be the professional gamblers choice as there are many other games with better odds – if we disregard the possibility of wheel bias or anything untoward – the one thing you need with roulette is luck.
With the growing popularity of online casinos, the consumer can force a choice of the way we play these games, if you play online roulette, choose your casino carefully.

However the choice of which roulette tables you play at makes a huge difference to the amount of luck you need – there are really two main tables you'll find in most casinos.

French or European Roulette Tables
By far the most important fact about the French Roulette Wheel is that it only has a single zero slot. This is primarily the 'house edge' – all your 50/50 bets on red/black or odd/even are biased towards the house because of this number. The zero didn't actually exist on the very first roulette wheels until some bright spark in Monte Carlo decided they weren't making enough – but that extra number means the Casino will always win overall if the laws of probability are true.

US Roulette Table

In America the French wheel was originally used but casinos then decided that the house advantage wasn't quite large enough (probably checked the real estate prices in Las Vegas). So they added the extra '00' slot which pretty much doubles the house edge. The distribution of the numbers and colors on both wheels are distributed in different ways but both so that there is an equal chance of red/black and odd/even combinations. To completely minimise the house edge also try and find a casino that operates the La Partage or En Prison rule. This rule means that you only lose 50% of your even money wagers if the ball land on zero – another significant statistical advantage. The difference is simple really – if you have a choice always play on a European table and on a
live roulette wheel as opposed to a computer generated one – the house edge is much smaller and you have a much better chance of Lady Luck shining on you.