The Extra Pocket That Changes the Table
You sit down at a roulette table, and before you place a single chip the wheel already tells you what kind of game you are playing. Count the green pockets. If there is one, you are looking at a European-style wheel with a single zero. If there are two, the second one is the double zero, and that second green pocket quietly changes every bet on the layout.
The double zero is not a special bet and it does not trigger a bonus. It is simply an additional numbered pocket, marked 00, sitting opposite the 0 on an American wheel. The wheel carries 38 pockets in total: the numbers 1 through 36, the single zero, and the double zero. A European wheel has 37 pockets because it stops at the single zero.
That one extra compartment matters because roulette pays most winning bets as if the wheel still had 36 numbers. A straight-up bet on any single number pays 35 to 1. On a 37-pocket wheel the house keeps its edge from the single zero. On a 38-pocket wheel the house keeps that same edge from two pockets instead of one, which means the expected rate of loss on most bets is higher on the double-zero layout.
How a Round Plays Out
A round of roulette moves through the same sequence whether the wheel has one zero or two. The dealer opens betting, players place chips on the felt, the dealer spins the wheel and releases the ball in the opposite direction, and at some point the dealer calls no more bets. The ball loses momentum, rattles across the frets, and settles into a pocket. The dealer marks the winning number, clears losing bets, and pays winners.
Buy-in happens before any of that. 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 your seat so the dealer can tell your bets apart from everyone else's. You cash them back at the table before you leave; they have no value at other tables.
Inside the betting window you can place chips on individual numbers, on lines between numbers, on corners where four numbers meet, on red or black, odd or even, high or low, and on the zero or double zero themselves. Each position has its own payout and its own probability, and on a double-zero wheel every one of them is priced against 38 possible outcomes.
Where the Double Zero Sits in the Odds
The cleanest way to see what the double zero does is to compare the same bet on the two wheel types. The table below shows the probability of winning and the payout for several common bets, along with what those numbers imply for the house edge on each layout.
| Bet | Payout | Winning pockets, European (37) | Winning pockets, American (38) | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Straight up (single number) | 35 to 1 | 1 | 1 | Same payout, one extra losing pocket |
| Split (two numbers) | 17 to 1 | 2 | 2 | Same payout, one extra losing pocket |
| Red or black | 1 to 1 | 18 | 18 | Same payout, one extra losing pocket |
| Dozen (12 numbers) | 2 to 1 | 12 | 12 | Same payout, one extra losing pocket |
| Zero or double zero | 35 to 1 | 1 (zero only) | 2 | Two pockets available instead of one |
Notice the pattern. The payouts are identical on both wheels. The only difference is that the American wheel adds one more pocket that loses for every bet except the zero and double zero themselves. That is the entire mechanism: the double zero does not change what you are paid, it changes how often you are paid.
House edge and return to player are complements. For the same bet under the same rule set they sum to 100%. On an American wheel the house edge on a straight-up bet is higher than on a European wheel because the bet wins 1 time in 38 instead of 1 time in 37, while the payout stays at 35 to 1. The same arithmetic applies to red, black, odd, even, high, low, and every inside bet.
The One Bet That Behaves Differently
The zero and double zero are the exception to the pattern above. On a European wheel you can bet the single zero as a straight-up number. On an American wheel you can bet the zero, the double zero, or both together with a split bet across the two green pockets. A straight-up bet on 00 wins only when the ball lands in that one pocket, exactly like a bet on 7 or 23. A split across 0 and 00 covers two pockets and pays 17 to 1, the same as any other two-number split.
What the double zero is not is a multiplier. Landing on 00 does not double your payout, does not trigger a respin, and does not move your bet anywhere else. Some tables carry a side bet or a progressive feature that references the green pockets, but the pocket itself is just another losing number for every bet that does not include it.
Reading the Table Before You Sit Down
The wheel type is visible the moment you look at the layout. The felt shows a 00 position on an American table and does not on a European one. The wheel itself has the extra green pocket. If you are playing online, the game information panel or rules screen states the wheel type, and the table limits and any special rules are posted in the same place.
Some American tables soften the double zero with a rule change on even-money bets. A handful of layouts return half the stake or hold the bet in place when the ball lands in a green pocket, a condition sometimes described as a surrender or en prison variant. Whether a table offers that rule is printed in its own rules, and it changes the arithmetic on red, black, odd, even, high and low bets specifically. It does not change the payout on inside bets.
Strategy charts for roulette are not like blackjack basic strategy. There is no decision tree that changes the house edge on a straight-up bet, because the player has no choices after the spin begins. What a player controls is which bets they place, how much they stake, and how long they stay. On a double-zero wheel, every bet except one carries a higher expected rate of loss than the same bet on a single-zero wheel, and no staking pattern alters that.
Mistakes That Cost More Than the Double Zero
The first procedural mistake new players make is not checking which wheel they are on. A player who has learned the odds for a single-zero game and then sits at a double-zero table is playing a different game with the same name. The fix is simple: count the green pockets before the first chip goes down.
The second is confusing the zero bet with an insurance bet. Covering 0 and 00 with a split while also betting red or black does not protect the even-money bet. The split pays 17 to 1 when it hits, but it loses on the other 36 pockets, and the even-money bet loses on both green pockets. The two bets are independent wagers with their own edges, and adding one does not cancel the other's expected loss.
The third is assuming all roulette tables in the same building or the same app use the same wheel. A venue can run European and American layouts side by side, and an online lobby can list both. The wheel type is a property of the individual table, not of the operator, so the check has to happen every time you move tables.
FAQ
Is double zero roulette worse than single zero roulette?
For most bets, yes, in the sense that the expected rate of loss is higher. The payouts are the same, but the extra pocket means each bet wins slightly less often. The difference is built into the wheel, not into the player's choices.
Can I bet on the double zero by itself?
Yes. The 00 is a straight-up number like any other, paying 35 to 1, and you can also split it with the 0 or with a neighbouring number. It wins only when the ball lands in that pocket.
Does the double zero change the payouts on red or black?
No. Red and black still pay 1 to 1. What changes is that there are now two green pockets that lose for both colours, so the bet wins 18 times out of 38 instead of 18 times out of 37.
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