Any savvy player is keen to learn the house advantage before steeping up to any casino game. In roulette it makes an enormous difference. The two major versions are the American and European roulette games. If you look quickly at the two, you may miss the very major differences. They look the same, they sound the same, but they are not.

European roulette is simpler to look at. The roulette wheel has black and red numbers from 0-36. There is notably only one zero. The house edge on a single zero roulette table is 2.7%. This edge is even more greatly diminished by the special rules that are often found at the European roulette table.

The first is the "la partage" rule. This means that when the ball lands on zero, those players that placed an even-money "outside" bet are given half of their bet back. Nice, right? This takes the house advantage down to 1.35%. "En prison" offers a similar house advantage of 1.35% and, as its name suggests, you lost bet is put in prison. If the ball lands on zero, your money is "imprisoned" until the next spin. If the ball hits your bet on the next spin, your bet is returned to you with no what winnings. If it does not hit your number, you lose the bet.

American roulette is the simpler version of the two. There are no "en prison" or "la partage" rules to take into consideration. The wheel on the American version has a double zero (00), which takes the house advantage to 5.26%. Whether you are playing in an American or European version of roulette, it is important to understand which rules are in play.