Roulette Wheel

"Roulette" is actually a French term that literally translates to "small wheel".

The Premise

In roulette, an electronic or live dealer (also called croupier) will spin a wheel into one particular direction, and spin a white ball into the other direction. This ball will roll around the wheel a lot of times prior to slowing down and falling into a slot on the wheel.

The Different Wheels

Two different kinds of wheels exist for roulette: the American one and the European one.

European one

The European wheel has 37 pockets with numbers, while the other has 38. There is one difference here: the American roulette wheel has an extra green pocket marked "00".

This extra pocket is actually what makes American roulette wheels much less profitable, as a whole, for players of the game and much more profitable, as a whole, for casinos. This is why you should always choose European roulette whenever you can.

Roulette wheel "pockets" usually alternate between black and red.

As mentioned earlier, European wheels have one green "0" pocket.

American one

Conversely, American wheels have an additional green "00" pocket.

Uniformly, roulette wheels have the exact same sequence of numbers.

The single-zero roulette wheels begin at 0 (going clockwise) and stop at 26.

The double-zero roulette wheels, on the other hand, begin at 0 while stopping at 2. This is because the double-zero roulette wheels have that extra "00", which lies between 1 and 27.

Another difference that exists between the American and European roulette wheel is the fact that the European roulette wheel has a house advantage of 2.7%. Conversely, the American roulette wheel has a house advantage of 5.26% - a massive difference, which has to be kept in mind on your next casino visit. If ever given the chance, make sure you choose to play like a European when it comes to roulette.

Again, always choose European wheel when it comes to roulette because the chances of winning more money will be much higher for you. Good luck!