European roulette: the single-zero wheel explained
A clear guide to the wheel, table layout, pocket colours, standard payouts and the small mathematical difference one zero makes.
European roulette is the familiar single-zero version of the game. The wheel has 37 pockets: 0 through 36. Numbers 1 to 36 are coloured red or black, while 0 is green and belongs to neither colour.
Why one zero matters
Red and black each cover 18 pockets, not 18 of 36. A fair-looking even-money bet therefore wins on 18 of 37 outcomes, or about 48.65%, rather than exactly half. That difference is the standard 2.70% house edge on a European wheel.
European versus American roulette
American roulette adds a second zero, written 00. That gives the wheel 38 pockets and makes the usual odds less favourable. If you are comparing tables, check the wheel before you look at the felt: one green zero is the detail that matters most.
The wheel order
The pockets are not arranged in counting order. Starting at zero, the traditional European wheel runs 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 and 26. The table layout is arranged differently so that bets can be placed quickly.
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