European versus American roulette
European roulette has numbers 0–36, or 37 pockets. American roulette adds 00, for 38 pockets. With standard payouts, the ordinary house edge is about 2.70% on European roulette and 5.26% on American roulette.
Outside bets
Red/black, odd/even, and 1–18/19–36 cover 18 numbers on a European wheel, pay 1:1, and lose when 0 appears. They win more frequently than a single-number bet but do not eliminate the house edge.
Straight-up numbers
A straight-up bet covers exactly one number and pays 35:1. It wins with probability 1/37 on a European wheel. A higher payout does not imply a better expected return.
Can a system beat roulette?
No progressive staking system changes the probability of the next independent spin. Systems such as Martingale increase exposure to table limits and bankroll depletion rather than changing the expected return.
For the same published bets, single-zero roulette has a lower house edge than double-zero roulette.
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