£10 on red pays £10. The chance of red on a European wheel is 48.65%, not 50%, and that missing 1.35% is the single green zero. The roulette calculator above shows that for every bet on the table, along with the payout and what an evening of spins costs on average.
Switch to an American wheel with 0 and 00 and red drops to 47.37%. A hundred £10 spins on the European wheel costs about £27 on average. On the American wheel it’s about £53. Same table, same bet, nearly double the price.
Roulette payout chart
| Bet | Numbers | Pays | Chance (European) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight up | 1 | 35 to 1 | 2.70% |
| Split | 2 | 17 to 1 | 5.41% |
| Street | 3 | 11 to 1 | 8.11% |
| Corner | 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, high/low | 18 | 1 to 1 | 48.65% |
How the roulette calculator works out the edge
Every standard bet pays as if there were 36 numbers on the wheel. There are 37 on a European wheel, 38 on an American one. That gap is where the house edge comes from, and it’s the same for nearly every bet:
Payout = 36 ÷ numbers covered − 1 Chance = numbers covered ÷ pockets House edge = 1 − chance × (payout + 1)
European: 2.70% on everything. American: 5.26%, except the top line (0, 00, 1, 2, 3), which pays 6 to 1 and costs you 7.89%. That’s the worst bet on the table, and the calculator will tell you so if you pick it.
What this means at the table
There’s no bet that beats the edge. Covering more numbers wins more often and pays less. Covering fewer wins rarely and pays more. On average, every one of them loses the same 2.70% of what you put down on a single-zero wheel.
So the choices that actually matter are which wheel you play and how fast. Pick single zero over double zero every time. Some games give half your even-money stake back when the ball lands on zero, which cuts the edge on those bets to 1.35%. If you see that rule, it’s the best roulette deal around.
Thinking about doubling up after losses? Run it through the martingale calculator first.
No roulette system changes the house edge. Set a budget for the session and stick to it. BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential if it stops being fun.