Two tables stand ten steps apart, same C$10 minimum, same dealers rotating between them. One wheel has a single green pocket. The other has two, marked 0 and 00. Most people pick whichever table has an open seat. That choice roughly doubles what the session costs, and the reason fits on the back of a betting slip.
This guide works out the roulette house edge for each wheel and for the French even-money rules, then turns the percentages into dollars. For the full bet-by-bet table, go back to roulette odds and payouts.
What the house edge measures
The house edge is the share of every dollar wagered that the casino keeps on average, over a very large number of spins. It is a long-run number. Tonight you might be up C$200; next week you might be down C$150. The edge describes where thousands of spins converge, not what happens in an evening.
It is also measured against what you wager, not what you bring. A C$100 buy-in that gets turned over ten times at the table has C$1,000 of action behind it, and the edge applies to the full C$1,000. That is the part most players underestimate.
Single zero: 1 in 37
Take a C$1 straight-up bet on a European wheel. There are 37 pockets. One of them wins C$35; the other 36 lose C$1.
Expected value = (1/37 × C$35) − (36/37 × C$1) = (35 − 36)/37 = −C$1/37
That is about −2.70 cents per dollar, or a 2.70 % edge.
Now red. Eighteen pockets win C$1; nineteen lose C$1 (the eighteen blacks plus the zero).
Expected value = (18/37 × C$1) − (19/37 × C$1) = −C$1/37
Same answer. Run it for a split (2 winning pockets at 17 to 1), a street (3 at 11 to 1), a corner (4 at 8 to 1), a six line (6 at 5 to 1) or a dozen (12 at 2 to 1): the result is −1/37 every time. The payouts were set so that each bet returns 36 units for every 37 staked, and the missing unit is the zero.
Double zero: 2 in 38
Add a 00 pocket and keep every payout the same. The C$1 straight-up now wins C$35 once in 38 spins and loses C$1 the other 37:
Expected value = (35 − 37)/38 = −C$2/38 ≈ −C$0.0526
Red now wins 18 times in 38 and loses 20 times: (18 − 20)/38, the same −2/38. The edge is 5.26 % on every standard bet.
The exception is the five-number bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. It wins 5 times in 38 at 6 to 1 and loses 33 times:
Expected value = (5 × 6 − 33)/38 = −3/38 ≈ −7.89 %
It is the worst bet on any roulette table, and casinos print it on the layout anyway. Skip it.
A bit of history explains why both wheels exist. Early French wheels carried both a zero and a double zero. In 1843 François and Louis Blanc opened a casino in Bad Homburg with a single-zero wheel to pull players away from their rivals, and the single zero spread across Europe from there, Monte Carlo included. The double-zero wheel stayed in the United States, and that split has held for close to two centuries. Nobody has yet found a good reason, from the player’s side, for keeping it.
La Partage and En Prison: 1 in 74
On some single-zero tables, a zero does not simply sweep the even-money bets. Under La Partage, red, black, odd, even, low and high lose half their stake when zero comes up. The other half comes back to you.
Expected value for C$1 on red under La Partage:
(18/37 × C$1) − (18/37 × C$1) − (1/37 × C$0.50) = −C$0.50/37 = −C$1/74 ≈ −1.35 %
En Prison takes a different route to almost the same place. After a zero, your even-money bet is “imprisoned” for the next spin. If that spin wins, you get the stake back with no winnings; if it loses, the bet is gone. If the next spin is another zero, house rules differ. Where the bet simply stays locked up until a non-zero result, the edge works out to exactly 1/74, or 1.35 %. Where a second zero takes the bet, the edge rises to 19/1369, about 1.39 %. The difference is small, but if a dealer ever explains the rule, it is the detail worth asking about.
Neither rule touches inside bets, dozens or columns. They stay at 2.70 %.
The edge in dollars, per C$1,000 wagered
Swipe the table
| Wheel and bet | House edge | Average cost per C$1,000 wagered |
|---|---|---|
| Single zero, even-money bet with La Partage or En Prison | 1.35 % | C$13.51 |
| Single zero, any bet | 2.70 % | C$27.03 |
| Double zero, any standard bet | 5.26 % | C$52.63 |
| Double zero, five-number bet | 7.89 % | C$78.95 |
Read the table with a session in mind. Forty spins at C$25, or two hundred spins at C$5, both add up to C$1,000 of action. At a single-zero table with red/black under La Partage, that averages C$13.51. The same play on a double-zero wheel averages C$52.63, nearly four times as much. Our homepage calculator runs the same sum for your own stake, bet and number of spins.
One spin, a hundred spins, ten thousand spins
The edge is invisible on a single spin. A C$1 bet on red either wins C$1 or loses C$1; the 2.7 cents only exist as an average. What makes the edge matter is how the spread of results shrinks, relative to the average, as the spins add up.
The arithmetic is simple enough to follow. For C$1 even-money bets on a single-zero wheel, the average result after n spins is n ÷ 37 dollars down. The typical spread around that average (one standard deviation) is about the square root of n, in dollars.
- After 100 spins: average C$2.70 down, typical spread about C$10. A result anywhere from C$12 ahead to C$17 down is unremarkable. The edge is buried in the noise.
- After 1,000 spins: average C$27.03 down, typical spread about C$32. Roughly one session in five still ends ahead, down from about one in three after 100 spins.
- After 10,000 spins: average C$270.27 down, typical spread about C$100. Ending ahead now needs a run nearly three spreads better than average, which almost never happens.
That is the whole business model of a casino in three lines. Any single player can walk away ahead tonight, though the chance of it falls with every hour played. Across thousands of players and millions of spins, the totals land very close to 2.70 %, and the casino plans its year around that number. For a player the lesson runs the other way: a good night proves nothing about the game, and neither does a bad one.
Mixing bets does not change the total
A common idea at the table is that a clever combination, a dozen plus a few corners plus a split on zero, can “cover” the edge. Expected value does not work that way. Each chip carries its own −1/37, and the expected value of several bets is the sum of their expected values. Spread C$20 across six bets on a European wheel and the average cost is 2.70 % of C$20, whatever the pattern.
The same goes for sequences. Doubling after a loss, raising after a win, waiting for a colour to “come due”: each new bet is a fresh −1/37. Our roulette strategy guide takes the best-known systems one at a time and shows the edge staying put in every case. The plain judgement: no betting system changes the house edge, and anyone selling one is selling the shape of the losses.
House edge and RTP are the same number seen from two sides
Online games often quote RTP, return to player, in place of the edge. RTP = 100 % − house edge, so a standard single-zero game returns 97.30 % and a double-zero game 94.74 %.
Branded variants publish their own figure, and most live roulette providers do not publish one at all. Pragmatic Play is an exception for Mega Roulette 3000, where it states a 97.50 % RTP, an edge of 2.50 %. For any game with multipliers, the classic 2.70 % cannot be assumed, because the straight-up payout is usually cut to fund the multiplied numbers. The rules panel inside the game is the place to look.
Where each wheel turns up in Canada
Online, single-zero roulette is the norm, and French tables with La Partage turn up in some live lobbies too. Our live roulette guide compares the studios and the table line-ups, including which casinos list French and European tables for your province.
On casino floors the mix varies. In Ontario, Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls lists European single-zero roulette in its Privé high-limit area. Casino Rama lists a “Double 00 Roulette - Auto Mode” game with a printed limit of $3 to $100. Venue pages change, so check the table placard before buying in. The placard names the wheel, and the wheel tells you the edge before the first chip goes down.
Electronic terminals deserve a note of their own. Many Canadian casinos run stadium-style terminals that bet on a live or automated wheel, and the edge on those follows the wheel they are linked to, single or double zero. The screen usually shows the wheel type in its help menu. Because terminals let you bet every round without waiting for a seat, they also tend to raise the number of spins you play per hour.
If you keep track of your sessions, track total wagered as well as the result. It is the only number you can multiply by the edge, and after a month it tells you more about what roulette costs you than any single win or loss. Our responsible gambling page has deposit and time limit tools by province.
One last quirk, for anyone who plays French tables: the layout labels the even-money boxes in French (rouge, noir, pair, impair, manque, passe), and La Partage only ever applies to those six boxes, never to the douzaines beside them.