American Roulette vs European Roulette: The Head-to-Head Numbers

American roulette vs European comes down to one pocket. European roulette has 37 pockets and a 2.70% house edge; American roulette adds a 00 for 38 pockets and a 5.26% edge, according to the Wizard of Odds. The payouts are identical, so every bet on an American wheel costs roughly twice as much over time.

This page puts the two games side by side: house edge and RTP, every bet's odds, the extra rules some European tables offer, and what happened when we simulated 100,000 players spinning each wheel 1,000 times.

The difference between European and American roulette at a glance

Everything else, from the betting layout to the payout scale, is the same. If you want the physical details of each wheel and the single-zero wheel's history, our single 0 roulette wheel guide covers them.

House edge and roulette RTP

The house edge is the average share of each bet the casino keeps; RTP (return to player) is the rest.

Both come from the same calculation. A winning straight-up bet returns 36 units (35 to 1 plus your stake), which would be fair on a 36-pocket wheel. Probability is favourable outcomes over total outcomes, as Britannica's guide to gambling odds explains, so:

Britannica's article on roulette house odds gives the same figures: about 5.26% for the American wheel and about 2.7% for the European.

Every bet side by side

The table shows each bet's payout, win chance and edge on both wheels, from our exact calculations. The last column is how much more each bet costs on the American wheel, in USDT per 100 USDT wagered.

Three points stand out:

• Win chances drop slightly on every bet. Red goes from 48.65% to 47.37%; a single number from 2.70% to 2.63%. The gap per spin is small, which is why many players don't notice it.
• The extra cost is the same for every standard bet: about 2.56 USDT more per 100 USDT wagered.
• The five-number bet is the worst on either table. It exists only on the American layout and costs 7.89%. Our American roulette wheel guide explains why.

Worked example: a 200-spin session

You bet 5 USDT on red for 200 spins, so you wager 1,000 USDT in total.

• European: 1,000 × 0.0270 = 27.0 USDT expected loss
• American: 1,000 × 0.0526 = 52.6 USDT expected loss

Same stake, same bets, same time at the table. The American session costs 25.6 USDT more on average.

Why the gap is easy to miss

On a single spin, the difference between the wheels looks trivial. Red wins 48.65% of spins on a European wheel and 47.37% on an American wheel, a gap of about 1.3 percentage points. Over a 20-spin session, luck swamps that gap completely, so many players never notice which wheel they're on.

The difference shows up in volume. Bet 1 USDT a spin for 100 spins and the expected gap is about 2.56 USDT. Bet 10 USDT a spin for 1,000 spins and it's about 256 USDT. The edge applies to every USDT you wager, so the more you play, the more the extra 00 pocket costs.

La partage and en prison: the European extras

Some single-zero tables add a rule for even-money bets (red or black, odd or even, high or low) when the ball lands on zero. Under la partage you get half your stake back; under en prison your stake is held for the next spin and returned if that spin wins. The Wizard of Odds puts la partage at about 1.35% on even-money bets, and Britannica gives the same figure for en prison.

If you bet on colours or odd/even and can find a single-zero table with either rule, that is the cheapest way to play roulette. Our roulette house edge guide goes deeper into how these rules work.

What our simulation shows: 1,000 spins on each wheel

Edges are averages. To see how the gap plays out for real bankrolls, we simulated 100,000 players per wheel, each betting 1 USDT on red for 1,000 spins.

European American

What the numbers show:

• About four times as many European players finished ahead: 18.68% against 4.35%.
• The median loss roughly doubled, from 28 to 52 USDT.
• Even the luckiest American players struggled. The top 5% on the European wheel were at least 26 USDT up; on the American wheel, the 95th percentile was still -2 USDT, a loss.

Which should you play?

On the numbers, European roulette wins every comparison. There's no bet, system or session length where the American wheel gives you better value. Our betting systems test found every system still lost about 2.7% of the amount wagered on the European wheel; on an American wheel, expect about twice that.

A few practical checks:

• Look for 00 on the betting grid. If it's there, it's an American wheel.
• Read the rules panel for la partage or en prison if you bet on even-money outcomes.
• Run the numbers first. Our roulette payout calculator lets you switch between wheels and see the expected loss for any stake.

American vs European roulette with USDT

With a USDT bankroll, the wheel choice and network fees are the two costs you control. At 5 USDT a spin, switching from an American to a European wheel saves about 0.13 USDT per spin on average (5 × 0.0256), which adds up to 25.6 USDT over 200 spins. That is often more than a network fee, but on small sessions fees can still match or exceed the edge. Our USDT TRC20 guide covers one low-cost network, and our crash gambling guide shows a crypto-native game with a 1% edge for comparison.

Common mistakes

• Assuming "roulette" online always means the European version.
• Making the five-number bet on an American table.
• Thinking the difference is too small to matter: over 1,000 spins it roughly doubled the typical loss.
• Ignoring la partage or en prison where they're offered.
• Expecting a betting system to close the gap between wheels.

For every roulette guide in one place, visit the roulette hub.