Ask a croupier at a French table for “les voisins” and you will see nine chips spread across the layout in about two seconds. That speed is what the racetrack and call bets were built for, and it is half of what makes French roulette its own game. The other half is a single rule about zero that makes French tables the cheapest place to bet on red or black anywhere on the roulette menu.
Both halves are covered here in full, with the working shown. The comparison with the other wheels sits on our roulette variants hub.
Same wheel, different table
French roulette spins a European wheel: 37 pockets, a single green zero, and the order 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. Payouts match the European ones. The difference lies in what happens to even-money bets on zero, in the French labels on the cloth, and in the oval racetrack printed beside the grid.
The labels take a minute to learn. Rouge and Noir are red and black, Pair and Impair are even and odd, Manque covers 1 to 18 and Passe 19 to 36. The dozens are marked P12, M12 and D12, for première, moyenne and dernière. If you have read our table layout guide, everything sits in the place you would expect, just with different words on it.
La Partage: half back on zero
Under La Partage, when the ball lands on zero, every even-money bet loses only half its stake. The other half comes back.
The working, over 37 spins of C$1 on red with each pocket landing once: red wins 18 times (plus C$18), black comes up 18 times (minus C$18), and zero comes up once, which costs C$0.50 instead of C$1. Net: minus C$0.50 over C$37, or 1/74, which is 1.35 %. That is half the European edge of 2.70 %, and the lowest price on any standard roulette bet. If you bet on colours or on odd and even, a table with La Partage is simply the best deal roulette offers.
La Partage covers red, black, odd, even, 1 to 18 and 19 to 36. It does not touch dozens, columns or any inside bet. A straight-up on 17 at a French table costs 2.70 % like anywhere else on a single-zero wheel. Our house edge guide shows the same split for every bet.
En Prison: one more spin for your stake
En Prison reaches a similar place by a different road. When zero comes up, your even-money stake is not split; it is held, “in prison”, on its line for the next spin. If the next spin wins your bet, you get the stake back with no profit. If it loses, the stake is gone.
What happens on a second zero depends on the house rule, and the edge depends on that too.
- If a second zero re-imprisons the bet (it stays held until a non-zero result), an imprisoned bet is worth exactly half its stake on average. The overall edge on even-money bets is then 1/74, or 1.35 %, the same as La Partage.
- If a second zero takes the bet, the imprisoned stake survives only with a win on the next spin, which happens 18 times in 37. The edge works out to (1/37) × (19/37) = 19/1,369, about 1.39 %.
Here is the arithmetic behind the first case, because it surprises people. A held bet wins back its stake 18 times in 37 and loses it 18 times in 37; a further zero puts it back where it started. Ignoring the zeros, it is a coin flip between keeping C$1 and losing C$1, so it is worth C$0.50. The table took on average C$0.50 per zero, same as La Partage.
Read the rules panel to see which one a table uses. Some tables apply La Partage, some En Prison, and plenty of tables called French apply neither.
The racetrack and why call bets exist
The racetrack is an oval drawing of the wheel order. Because neighbours on the wheel are scattered across the grid, a bet on a slice of the wheel would take many separate chips to place by hand. The racetrack lets you place the whole slice with one click online, or one call at a floor table.
There are four named sections and one flexible bet. All of the numbers below refer to the European wheel; the American wheel’s different order makes these bets meaningless there.
| Call bet | Numbers | Chips | How the chips are placed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voisins du zéro | 22, 18, 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2, 25 (17) | 9 | 2 on the trio 0/2/3, 1 each on splits 4/7, 12/15, 18/21, 19/22, 32/35, 2 on the corner 25/26/28/29 |
| Jeu zéro | 12, 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15 (7) | 4 | Splits 0/3, 12/15, 32/35 and a straight-up on 26 |
| Tiers du cylindre | 27, 13, 36, 11, 30, 8, 23, 10, 5, 24, 16, 33 (12) | 6 | Splits 5/8, 10/11, 13/16, 23/24, 27/30, 33/36 |
| Orphelins | 1, 20, 14, 31, 9 and 17, 34, 6 (8) | 5 | Straight-up on 1, splits 6/9, 14/17, 17/20, 31/34 |
| Neighbours | Any number plus two either side (5) | 5 | Five straight-ups |
Voisins, Tiers and Orphelins together cover all 37 pockets: 17 + 12 + 8. Jeu zéro is a smaller slice inside Voisins, the seven numbers closest to zero.
What each call bet pays back
Since a call bet is a set of ordinary bets, its return depends on which part of it wins. Counting in chips:
- Tiers du cylindre (6 chips): any of its 12 numbers wins one split at 17 to 1, so 18 chips come back, a net gain of 12.
- Voisins du zéro (9 chips): 0, 2 or 3 hits the double-chip trio at 11 to 1, returning 24 chips (net 15). The corner numbers 25, 26, 28 and 29 return 18 chips (net 9), and so does any split number.
- Orphelins (5 chips): 1 returns 36 chips (net 31). So does 17, because it sits in two splits. The other six numbers return 18 chips (net 13).
- Jeu zéro (4 chips): 26 returns 36 chips (net 32); any split number returns 18 (net 14).
None of these changes the price. Each piece carries 2.70 %, so the bundle does too. What changes is how the wins are shaped: Tiers wins about a third of the time for a modest gain, Orphelins wins less often with two big outcomes. If you like to see the arithmetic behind each payout, our roulette odds page lists every bet on the layout.
A Voisins bet over a full cycle of the wheel
To watch the edge survive inside a call bet, play Voisins du zéro once against every pocket. Nine chips a spin over 37 spins is 333 chips staked. The trio numbers 0, 2 and 3 each return 24 chips, 72 in total. The other 14 numbers in the bet return 18 chips each, 252 in total. The 20 numbers outside Voisins return nothing.
Total back: 324 chips from 333, a loss of 9. Nine out of 333 is 2.70 %, exactly the single-zero edge, as it has to be.
Finales and other announced bets
Some French tables accept a few more announced bets beyond the four named sections. The best known are the finales en plein, a straight-up on every number ending in the same digit. Finale 4 covers 4, 14, 24 and 34, four chips. Finales 0 to 6 take four chips each, while finales 7, 8 and 9 take three, since there is no 37, 38 or 39 on the wheel. Like the call bets, a finale is a bundle of straight-ups priced at 2.70 %.
La Partage or En Prison: which to look for
Given the choice, La Partage and an En Prison table that re-imprisons on a second zero cost exactly the same, 1.35 %. La Partage has the practical edge of settling at once: half comes back and you start the next round with a clear layout. En Prison leaves a chip locked in place, which some players enjoy as a second chance and others find a nuisance when they want to change their bets. An En Prison table where a second zero takes the bet is a fraction dearer at about 1.39 %. That gap is tiny; the gap between any of them and a plain European table is not.
Who calls these bets, and where
On a land-based floor, call bets are announced to the dealer, who places the chips. Whether a given table accepts called bets is up to the casino; none of the Canadian venue pages we read mentions La Partage or En Prison, so ask at the table. The etiquette guide covers how to call a bet without holding up the game, and our land-based casinos page lists what each venue publishes about its wheels.
Online, the racetrack is a panel next to the betting grid. Pragmatic Play’s Mega Roulette, for example, offers Zero Game, Tiers, Voisins and Orphelins call bets on its European layout, and Evolution runs a French version of its Auto Roulette. Our live roulette guide compares the live tables available in Canada by studio and C$ limits.
French rules and betting systems
La Partage tempts people to pair it with a progression on even-money bets. It does make each bet cheaper, 1.35 % against 2.70 %, but it does nothing for the structure of a system: a Martingale on red at a French table still meets the same table limit after the same run of losses. The only effect is a slightly smaller average cost per round. Our roulette strategy guide has the numbers for each system, and the tools on the responsible gambling page help set a limit before the session starts.
A small aside on the names to finish: orphelins means “orphans”, because those eight numbers are what is left once the two big sections are taken. Nobody has come up with a better description since.