Add up every number on a European wheel and you get 666. Players call roulette the devil’s wheel for that reason, though the maths behind the game is far less sinister than the nickname. European roulette has one green pocket, 36 numbered ones and a fixed set of payouts. Outside a French table, it is the cheapest way to play the game in most places.
This guide covers the wheel, the bets, what each bet costs and where you meet single-zero tables in Canada. If you want the side-by-side view with the other variants, our roulette variants hub has it.
The European wheel, pocket by pocket
Starting from zero and going clockwise, the numbers run 0, 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2, 25, 17, 34, 6, 27, 13, 36, 11, 30, 8, 23, 10, 5, 24, 16, 33, 1, 20, 14, 31, 9, 22, 18, 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, 26. Zero is green. The reds are 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 30, 32, 34 and 36; every other number is black.
The order is not random. Colours alternate all the way round, and the designers spread low and high numbers, odd and even numbers, so that no stretch of the rim leans heavily one way. Neighbouring pockets on the wheel are far apart on the layout. That is the reason call bets exist: a bet on a section of the wheel cannot be placed with a few chips in one row of the table.
Bets, payouts and the real chance of each
Every bet on a European table falls into one of two groups. Inside bets go on the numbers themselves; outside bets go on the boxes around them. Our page on inside and outside bets explores the risk side in depth. Here are the payouts with the true probability on a 37-pocket wheel.
| Bet | Numbers covered | Pays | Chance per spin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight up | 1 | 35 to 1 | 2.70 % |
| Split | 2 | 17 to 1 | 5.41 % |
| Street, or a trio with zero | 3 | 11 to 1 | 8.11 % |
| Corner, or first four (0, 1, 2, 3) | 4 | 8 to 1 | 10.81 % |
| Six line | 6 | 5 to 1 | 16.22 % |
| Dozen or column | 12 | 2 to 1 | 32.43 % |
| Red, black, odd, even, 1 to 18, 19 to 36 | 18 | 1 to 1 | 48.65 % |
Look at the last column against the payouts and you can see the edge appear. An even-money bet would be fair if it won exactly half the time; it wins 48.65 % of the time, because zero belongs to neither side.
Where the 2.70 % comes from
Take a C$1 bet on red and imagine 37 spins in which each pocket comes up exactly once. Red wins 18 times, collecting C$18. It loses 19 times: 18 blacks and the zero. Net result: minus C$1 over C$37 wagered, which is 1/37, or 2.70 %.
Now do it for a straight-up. One win at 35 to 1 brings C$35; 36 losses take C$36. Again minus C$1 over C$37. The same sum works for splits, corners and dozens, and that uniformity is the neat part of European roulette: the price is the same whichever bet you pick. Your choice changes how bumpy a session feels, not what it costs on average. Our house edge guide shows the same working for the American and French wheels.
Pick a dozen or pick a single number, you are paying the same 2.70 %. People who tell you an “inside game” is better value or worse value are describing variance, not price.
Columns, colours and an odd imbalance
The layout hides one quirk that most players never notice. The three columns hold 12 numbers each, but their colours are not evenly split. The first column has six reds and six blacks. The second column, the middle line from 2 to 35, has only four reds: 5, 14, 23 and 32. The third column, from 3 to 36, has eight: 3, 9, 12, 18, 21, 27, 30 and 36.
Does that matter? Not for the price. A column bet pays 2 to 1 and covers 12 numbers, whatever their colour, so it costs 2.70 % like everything else. It matters only if you combine bets: black and the second column overlap on eight numbers, while black and the third column overlap on just four. The combined price never changes; only how often both bets win together.
How far a session swings on a European wheel
Same price, very different rides. Take 100 spins at C$5 a spin. Whatever you bet, the long-run average cost is C$500 ÷ 37, about C$13.51. How widely the actual result scatters around that figure depends on the bet.
On even-money bets, one standard deviation over those 100 spins is about C$50, so roughly two sessions in three finish within C$50 either side of the average. On a straight-up the standard deviation is about C$292, and the result hangs almost entirely on how many times your number lands. Two hits in 100 spins at C$5 a chip leaves you C$140 down. Three hits leaves you C$40 up. Four hits, C$220 up.
A straight-up player also has to live with long gaps. The chance that a chosen number appears at least once in 37 spins is about 63.7 %, so more than a third of the time it does not show up at all in those 37 spins. Over 100 spins it appears at least once about 93.5 % of the time. Pick 17 and wait, and expect to wait.
How a round runs at a European table
You place chips during the betting window, the dealer (or the machine, at an auto table) spins the wheel one way and launches the ball the other way, betting closes as the ball slows, and the winning number is marked on the layout. Losing chips are cleared first, then winners are paid. The how to play roulette guide walks through a first session step by step, and the table layout guide explains where each bet sits.
Online, the betting window is a countdown on screen. Pragmatic Play gives 18 seconds on its PowerUP Roulette table, for example, and Evolution’s Speed Roulette runs about 25 seconds from one spin to the next, roughly half a normal round. Those are the fast end. Standard live tables leave more time.
European roulette tables you will see online
The single-zero wheel is the base for most live roulette products. A few examples from the providers’ own pages, all single-zero:
- Crystal Roulette from Pragmatic Play Live is European roulette with a transparent wheel.
- PowerUP Roulette, also Pragmatic, uses a traditional 37-number wheel and adds PowerUP numbers on top.
- Immersive Roulette from Evolution is a presentation format with several cameras and slow-motion replays of the ball, on a standard table.
- Speed Roulette from Evolution is the same game with shorter rounds.
Some of these add features that change payouts, and once a table pays less than 35 to 1 on a straight-up it is no longer plain European roulette. Our multiplier roulette guide covers that family. A plain European table is the one to look for if you want the edge on the rules panel to be the edge you pay.
If you play from Ontario, our live roulette page compares the studios and the C$ table limits of the live tables available there.
Single-zero tables on Canadian casino floors
Land-based venues decide their own mix, and few say on their websites which wheel they use. Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls is one that does, naming European single-zero roulette in its high-limit Privé area. Where a venue does not state the wheel, ask at the table or count the green pockets. We collect what each venue publishes on our land-based casinos page.
A practical aside if you are at a busy floor table: some dealers accept call bets announced out loud on a European wheel even without a printed racetrack. Each casino sets its own policy, so ask before the spin, not after.
Call bets on a European wheel
Because the wheel order is fixed, sections of it have names. Voisins du zéro covers the 17 numbers around zero, Tiers du cylindre the 12 numbers opposite, and Orphelins the 8 left over. A neighbours bet covers one number and the two on each side of it, five chips in all. These bets do not change the edge. They are just bundles of splits, streets, corners and straight-ups placed in one go. The exact numbers and chip counts are in our French roulette guide, since the racetrack is a French-table tradition.
What European roulette cannot do for you
No sequence of bets on this wheel changes the 2.70 %. The ball has no memory, a run of ten reds does not make black more likely on the eleventh spin, and progressions such as the Martingale only rearrange the way losses arrive. Our roulette strategy guide goes through each system against the same edge. If a session is costing more than you planned, the tools on our responsible gambling page are the place to start.
Want to see the bets in action first? Our practice wheel is a European wheel with play chips only, so you can watch how often a dozen lands or how quickly a straight-up comes in, without staking anything.
The 666 total, for what it is worth, has a cousin on the same wheel: the reds add up to 332 and the blacks to 334, so black wins the numerology by two. That fact will help your results exactly as much as the 666 does.