The First Thing to Check at the Table
You sit down at a roulette table and the first thing worth noticing is not the felt colour or the chip stack in front of you. It is the wheel itself, and specifically whether it carries one zero or two. That single pocket changes how many numbers are in play, and it changes the rate at which your bankroll drains over a long session. The question sounds like trivia, but it is the most practical piece of information a new player can take to the table.
A European roulette wheel has 37 pockets: the numbers 1 through 36, plus a single zero. An American roulette wheel has 38 pockets: the same 1 through 36, plus a zero and a double zero. The numbered pockets alternate red and black; the zero pockets are green. That is the whole answer to the headline question, but it is only the beginning of what the difference means.
Why the Second Zero Changes the Odds
Roulette pays out as if the zero pockets did not exist. A straight-up bet on a single number pays 35 to 1, which would be a fair price on a wheel with 36 pockets. On a European wheel the extra zero pocket means the payout is slightly short of true odds. On an American wheel the double zero makes that shortfall larger still.
House edge and Return to Player are complements: they sum to 100% for the same bet under the same rule set. The extra pocket on the American layout increases the house edge relative to the European layout. That does not mean an American wheel is rigged or that a European wheel is generous; it means the arithmetic of the two games is different, and the player's expected loss per unit wagered is higher on the American layout on most bets.
Volatility does not change any of this. A wheel with more pockets does not become more or less streaky; it simply charges a different mathematical price for the same bets. Two players can sit at two different wheels, place identical wagers, and walk away with wildly different session results. Over a very large number of spins, the player on the wheel with the extra pocket will, on average, lose more per unit wagered.
Reading the Wheel and the Layout
The numbers on the wheel are not arranged in numerical order. They are placed to spread high and low, red and black, odd and even around the circumference. The layout on the table, by contrast, is arranged in numerical rows and columns. The wheel decides the outcome; the layout is where you place the wager. New players sometimes confuse the two, but they serve different functions.
Every bet on the layout maps onto a set of pockets on the wheel. A straight-up bet covers one number. A split covers two adjacent numbers on the layout. A street covers a row of three. A corner covers four. A six-line covers two adjacent rows. The outside bets cover broad categories: red or black, odd or even, high or low, dozens, and columns. Each bet has its own probability of winning and its own payout, and the house edge is not identical across all of them on the same table.
Bet Types and Where the Edge Sits
The table below compares the main roulette bet types on a European wheel. The edge figures are not printed here as percentages because they vary by the exact rule set in use; what matters is the relationship between the bets.
| Bet type | What it covers | Payout | How the edge compares |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight-up | One number | 35 to 1 | Baseline for comparison |
| Split | Two adjacent numbers | 17 to 1 | Same edge as straight-up on European wheel |
| Street | Three numbers in a row | 11 to 1 | Same edge as straight-up on European wheel |
| Corner | Four numbers in a block | 8 to 1 | Same edge as straight-up on European wheel |
| Six-line | Six numbers across two rows | 5 to 1 | Same edge as straight-up on European wheel |
| Red/black, odd/even, high/low | 18 numbers each | 1 to 1 | Same edge as straight-up on European wheel |
| Dozens, columns | 12 numbers each | 2 to 1 | Same edge as straight-up on European wheel |
On a standard European wheel, most bets carry the same house edge. The exception is the five-number bet on an American wheel, which covers 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 and pays 6 to 1; that bet carries a higher edge than the other bets on the same layout. It is the one wager on the table a new player is best off avoiding entirely, not because it is unlucky but because its arithmetic is worse than everything else around it.
The Sequence of a Round
A roulette round moves faster than most new players expect. Understanding the sequence before you sit down prevents the most common procedural fumbles.
First, you buy in. You place cash on the table, never into the dealer's hand, and the dealer exchanges it for roulette chips. These chips are colour-coded to you and have no value printed on them; their value is set at buy-in and applies only at that table. You cannot cash them at the cage. When you are done, the dealer converts them back into standard casino chips.
Second, you place bets while the dealer announces that betting is open. You may place bets until the dealer calls no more bets or waves a hand over the layout. After that point, touching chips is a serious procedural error.
Third, the dealer spins the wheel and launches the ball in the opposite direction. The ball loses momentum, drops into a pocket, and the dealer marks the winning number on the layout with a marker.
Fourth, the dealer clears losing bets first, then pays winning bets. You should not reach for your winnings until the dealer has finished paying the entire layout and removed the marker. Grabbing early is the single most common new-player mistake at a roulette table.
What the Zero Does to Your Outside Bets
Outside bets feel safer because they cover nearly half the wheel. A red bet covers 18 red numbers. On a European wheel, the 18 red numbers sit alongside 18 black numbers and one green zero. When the zero lands, red loses, black loses, odd loses, even loses. The zero is the reason an outside bet that feels like a coin flip is not one.
Some European tables apply a rule that softens this: when the zero lands, certain even-money bets may be held in place for the next spin rather than lost outright, or half the stake may be returned. The exact treatment depends on the table rules in force. If you play outside bets, ask whether such a rule applies before you sit down, because it changes the arithmetic of those bets specifically.
Choosing a Wheel
If a venue offers both wheel types, the European layout is the better choice for most bets because the house edge is lower. That is not a promise of a winning session; it is a statement about the rate of expected loss per unit wagered. A lower-edge game still loses in the long run, but it loses more slowly.
The decision between wheels is one of the few genuinely controllable choices in roulette. You cannot control where the ball lands, and no betting pattern changes the built-in edge. You can control which wheel you sit at, which bets you place, how many spins you play, and how much you stake per spin. Those choices, not any system, determine the shape of your session.
FAQ
Why does an American roulette wheel have more numbers than a European one?
The American layout adds a double zero pocket alongside the single zero, bringing the total to 38 pockets. The extra pocket exists as a design difference between regional game traditions, and its effect is to increase the house edge on most bets compared with the 37-pocket European wheel.
Are the numbers on a roulette wheel in order?
No. The wheel is arranged so that red and black, high and low, and odd and even numbers are distributed around the circumference rather than grouped together. The table layout is in numerical order, but the wheel itself is not.
Does the number of pockets affect which bets I should place?
It affects the house edge on each bet, and on an American wheel the five-number bet covering 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 is worse than every other wager on the layout. Beyond that, the number of pockets does not change the payout schedule, so the broad advice is to prefer the wheel with fewer pockets when both are available.
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