Roulette Wheel
The regular players of roulette will be well aware of two types of roulette - American and European. European roulette happens to be the oldest and most popular version throughout the world. It is because of better odds in European roulette. Otherwise there are not many major differences between them.
Since many of you may not have much knowledge about European roulette, the same is explained in detail. In order to enable you to compare the two, we would first give you information about American roulette. American roulette, having a wheel, has thirty eight numbers. The numbers are from 1 to 36 and two slots of zero (0 and 00).
Zero is colored green but remaining numbers are black and red alternatively. Numbers are evenly distributed between odd and even numbers. Half of these are odd and remaining is even. The house gets advantage of 6% because of zeros on wheels. It is because of the fact that bets are paid by the table as if no additional zero was on the wheels. Thus a bet of 37 to 1 is paid on straight bet only.
European Roulette
European roulette has just one zero on wheel. This makes a very big difference in house advantage between both types of roulette. The single zero provides the house over 2% advantages. Thus in European roulette table you have double chances of winning. European tables have many playing options which increase your chance of winning.
European roulette provides En Prison as first special option. En Prison gives players an opportunity to regain their bet after spinning zero, if you bet on outside bets like high/low, even/odd or red/black. This rule allows bet to be left till next spin. This is marked by dealer with special marker to indicate being in prison.
One or two chances are there after next spin. If bet wins, you would get your money back. Incase bet is lost it goes to house. Thus it gives the player extra chance to win. Tables using this rule have house advantage of just 1.5%. La Portage rule is a variation of En Prison rule. The only difference with this rule is that in place of complete bet moving to next spin, just half of it moves. The remaining portion goes to house.
European roulette is not easily available in normal American casinos. These casinos are not very happy with improved odds. To solve this problem of Americans, a large number of online casinos offer these tables.