Casino Roulette wheel

European roulette

The European or French roulette wheel has a single zero, which makes it a better choice for those who want to offset the effect of variance. House edge is significantly decreased and on the long run, players will be winning significantly more, or at least mitigate loses. The zero slot is still green and the other 36 numbers are split in half, with 18 being black and the rest red. This is how the clockwise sequence of numbers looks like on the European roulette wheel, 26, 3, 35, 12, 28, 7, 29, 18, 22, 9, 31, 14, 20, 1, 33, 16, 24, 5, 10, 23, 8, 30, 11, 36, 13, 27, 6, 34, 17, 25, 2, 21, 4, 19, 15, and 32.

European wheel based bets

While on the American roulette one bet on the table, for the European there are some specific bet that refer to the wheel layout. These bets are placed by the dealer after a players orders him and gives him the chips. Then the dealer says the bet again, as to avoid any misunderstandings. The bets are:

Zero play
Numbers covered: 12, 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15.
Bet: (4 chips) 1 chip on 0/3 split, 1 on 12-15 split, 1 on 26 straight up and 1 on 32-35 split.

Orphelins (orphans)
Numbers covered: 17, 34, 6, 1, 20, 14, 31, 9
Bet: (5 chips) 1 chip on 1 and 1 chip on each of the splits: 6-9, 14-17, 17-20, 31-34.

Tiers
Numbers covered: 33, 16, 24, 5, 10, 23, 8, 30, 11, 36, 13, 27
Bet: (6 chips) 1 chip on each of the splits: 5-8, 10-11, 13-16, 23-24, 27-30, 33-36.

Neighbors
Numbers covered: five consecutive numbers on the wheel, the bettor indicates the middle number “and its neighbors”
Bet: 5 chips, 1 chip straight on each number

The logic of the wheel layout

In both American and European, the order of the numbers on the wheel-track is totally different than what their arithmetic value would suggest and totally different for each of the two types of wheels. This is one of the secrets why roulette is such an amazingly balanced game in theory. The succession of the numbers on the wheel is well thought out in order to accomplish four different things:
1. Confuse the player. It is very hard for the novice player to make a mental picture of the wheel and understand the relation of the numbers and sectors. This makes it very difficult to notice any bias or to bet on specific sectors. And the roulette table layout can add to the confusion. Experienced roulette players know the sequence of numbers on the wheel by heart. Often this happens naturally from experience, but you should try to get a pretty good idea, a mental image, where the numbers lay as soon as possible anyway.
2. The colors should alternate completely on the wheel. Two consecutive numbers should have different colors. This is an absolute condition for both types of wheels. Furthermore the color distribution on the table should be as balanced as possible, but this was a much lesser concern.
3. Low (1-18) and High (19-36) numbers should alternate as much as possible. In European roulette the only point where this condition is not met is the 5 next to 10. In the American wheel there are many sectors with adjacent Low numbers and adjacent high numbers. This is why the American wheel is not considered as perfectly balanced as the European.
4. Odd and Even numbers should be evenly distributed along the wheel with no more than two even or odd numbers adjacent to each other.