Every bet, every wheel, one table

Let's start with the basics: inside vs outside bets

It's always good to start with clear definitions. Inside bets sit on the numbered grid itself, straight up on a single number, split across two, street across a row of three, corner across a block of four, and six line across two adjoining rows of six. Outside bets sit around the edge of the layout, a dozen, a column, red or black, odd or even, high or low. The table above lists every one of them, and the wheel selector switches the underlying pocket count and, where relevant, the La Partage rule and the American-only top line bet.

Why every bet has the same edge, except one

You might be right to wonder why anyone would ever bet a single straight-up number at 35 to 1 instead of a safer even-money bet, since a single number is so much less likely to hit. The honest answer is that it doesn't matter for your long-run result, the payout on each bet is set precisely to offset how unlikely it is, so the house edge lands on exactly the same number, 2.70% on a standard European wheel, regardless of which one you pick. What changes is variance, a straight-up bet loses far more often but pays out far bigger when it hits, while an even-money bet wins close to half the time for a much smaller reward. The one genuine exception in the table is the American-only top line bet, covering 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 for 6 to 1, its payout doesn't track its true odds quite as closely as the rest, pushing its edge up to 7.89%, the worst number on the table.

European vs American, the one change that matters most

There are some rough edges worth naming plainly here: the single biggest lever on your odds isn't which bet you choose, it's which wheel you're sat at. Adding a second zero pocket for the American wheel, with no payout adjustment anywhere to compensate, very nearly doubles the house edge across every single bet, from 2.70% to 5.26%. If a European or French wheel is available, it is simply the better game, full stop, no bet-selection trick closes that gap.

La Partage, the one rule that genuinely helps

French wheels commonly carry a rule called La Partage, which returns half your stake on an even-money bet when the ball lands on zero, rather than taking the whole thing. It's the one adjustment on this page that actually changes a bet's underlying edge rather than just its variance, cutting even-money bets from 2.70% down to 1.35%, among the best odds you'll find on any standard casino game. It only applies to even-money bets specifically, dozens, columns and every inside bet still carry the full 2.70% on a French wheel.

None of this depends on prediction or strategy, these figures are fixed by the bet and the wheel. If you're curious whether AI, "hot number" tracking or a genuinely biased wheel can shift any of it, the roulette AI hub page and the bias wheel checker work through that honestly.