American roulette explained
American roulette is the double-zero version of roulette, played on a wheel of 38 pockets: the numbers 1 to 36 plus a green 0 and a green 00. Because it pays the same odds as the single-zero game while adding that extra pocket, the house edge on almost every bet rises to 5.26%. The one exception is the five-number bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3, which costs more again. This entry shows where those figures come from and how the game differs from European roulette.
How the double-zero wheel sets the price
Every roulette payout is priced as if the wheel had only 36 numbers, so the green pockets are where the casino earns its margin. On an American wheel two of the 38 pockets belong to the house, and two divided by 38 gives the standard edge of 5.26%, which leaves a return to player of 94.74%.
A straight-up bet shows the arithmetic plainly. It pays 35 to 1, yet the true odds against a single number are 37 to 1, and that gap between the price and the chance is the house edge at work.
Put into money, a player staking €1 on red for 100 spins should expect to hand back about €5.26 on average, against roughly €2.70 on a single-zero table. That is a long-run average, never a forecast for one evening: a short session can finish well ahead or well behind, and neither result says anything about the wheel being hot, cold or due.
The edge does not change with the size of the stake.
Bets, payouts and the five-number exception
The table below sets out the common bets on a 38-pocket wheel, with each chance and edge worked directly from the pocket count and the standard payout. Most rows land on the same 5.26%, which is why one line stands out.
| Bet | Numbers covered | Pays | Win chance | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Straight up | 1 | 35 to 1 | 2.63% | 5.26% |
| Split | 2 | 17 to 1 | 5.26% | 5.26% |
| Corner | 4 | 8 to 1 | 10.53% | 5.26% |
| Red or black | 18 | 1 to 1 | 47.37% | 5.26% |
| Five-number (0, 00, 1, 2, 3) | 5 | 6 to 1 | 13.16% | 7.89% |
American roulette versus European and French
American roulette is most often confused with European roulette, which uses 37 pockets and a single zero. The payouts are identical, so the only difference in price comes from the extra pocket, and it is not a small one: one pocket in 37 gives the European game an edge of 2.70%, close to half the American figure.
French roulette also runs on a single-zero wheel, but tables using the la partage rule return half of an even-money stake when the ball lands on zero. That brings the edge on those bets down to 1.35%, while the inside bets stay at 2.70%.
The five-number bet, sometimes called the top line or basket, only exists on the double-zero layout. It pays 6 to 1 on five pockets out of 38, where a payout matching the standard formula would be closer to 6.2 to 1, and so it carries an edge of 7.89%.
Some land casinos in the United States offer a surrender rule on double-zero tables, returning half of an even-money stake on 0 or 00, but online availability varies by studio and operator and should be confirmed in the game’s own rules.
Where Irish players meet the double zero
Online lobbies tend to list American, European and French roulette side by side, and the names on the tile are not always clear. What I check first is the wheel itself, or the betting grid: a 00 box above the numbers marks the double-zero game, whatever the title says.
Studios publish the rules and payout table inside each game, and that help screen is where the return figure belongs. Where a game’s help leaves the RTP to the casino’s settings, the pocket count and payouts still fix the price exactly, so the arithmetic above holds.
A betting system cannot move these numbers.
Martingale, Fibonacci and similar progressions only change the size and timing of stakes, while each spin keeps the same 38 pockets and the same payout table, so the edge applied to every euro wagered stays at 5.26%, or 7.89% on the basket. Readers often ask whether the double-zero game is worth playing at all, and the plain answer is that it costs roughly twice as much per spin as a single-zero table offering the same bets.
