ROULETTE GAMES – AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN ROULETTE: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

Although there are many variants of online Roulette that have been created and released into the intergalactic realms of the internet, American and European Roulette are definitely the most popular. Before you start playing either one of them, it’s definitely important to know the differences between them in regards to rules, strategy and house edge.Have a look below to find out all about the individual variants.

EUROPEAN ROULETTE

European Roulette takes its roots from France and Germany. This variant of the game has been around for a far longer time than American Roulette and this is perhaps why it’s regarded as the original game. The main thing that draws players to this casino game is predominantly the single zero present in the game. As you probably already know, the green zero pocket on the wheel represents the house edge which is about 2.70% in European Roulette. If there were no zeros on the roulette wheel, it would be a zero-sum game and the players and the house would break even in the long run. As we all know, casinos don't run that sort of business.

AMERICAN ROULETTE

The American roulette wheel has gone through quite a few transformations before reaching the game we today call American Roulette – a wheel with 36 numbered slots plus two green slots for 0 and 00. In the late 19th century, the most popular form of roulette had the numbers 1 to 28 plus 0, 00, and a slot with an American eagle. Since this roulette version only paid 27 times the wager for a bet on a single number, the house advantage was huge. About every 10th spin ended up on 0, 00 or the eagle, which resulted in the house raking in all the chips on the table. In consequence, very few players could walk away from the table with a profit in those days. Luckily the players' odds have improved since these early American roulette variations were developed in Louisiana and made their way up the Mississippi. The house still has an edge, of course, but in modern games it has been reduced significantly.

WHICH OF THE TWO ROULETTE VARIANTS SHOULD YOU PLAY?

In reality, there is only one real difference between the two and that is that the European roulette wheels have one zero pocket, while their American counterpart has two (as aforementioned, one pocket is a single zero pocket whilst the other is inscribed with a double zero figure). Arguably the most important part of a winning online Roulette strategy is probably choosing the right wheel to play on before you actually start playing your game. The reality is a simple one, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to play American roulette unless you’re feeling unnecessarily patriotic and don’t mind losing lots of extra money for nothing.

The sad reality is that the only thing that the double zero pocket does is just decrease your odds of winning substantially and since both games are easily available online why would you choose anything except the option that gives you the best odds of making a tidy sum? In addition to this, European roulette also offers other advantages such as the “En Prison” rule which comes into play when a player places an even-money bet with the ball landing on zero. When this bet is made, the player's money bet is “imprisoned” till the next turn and if the player’s original bet wins on the next spin, then the player will win his chips back! Unfortunately, although this rule is customary to the play of European roulette, it is not usually available to players of American roulette.