American and European Roulette – Which should you play?

If you’ve ever been into a casino no doubt you’ve seen the excitement around the roulette tables and know that big money can be won (and indeed lost) on the simple spin of a wheel.

Roulette is never going to be the professional player’s game of choice as there are so many more games with better odds. However, if you are going to play roulette you should consider which variation you want to play. The most common variants are American roulette and European roulette and which one you should play basically comes done to simple mathematics. All casinos – whether bricks and mortar or virtual – are built on probability. That is, that the player has a greater chance of losing than winning. So the trick for the player is to find away to lower this house edge. The single most important difference between the two roulette variants is that European roulette has only one zero whereas American roulette has an extra pocket with a double zero yet the odds paid are exactly the same (that is 35 to 1). The extra pocket pretty much doubles the house edge. Thus, whether you should play European or American roulette is a simple equation. You should always play European roulette over American roulette as it offers a lower house edge.