Roulette RTP: 97.30% European, 94.74% American (2026)

Why is European roulette 97.30%?

A European wheel has 37 pockets: the numbers 1 to 36 plus a single zero. A straight-up bet pays 35 to 1, so a winning unit comes back as 36 units once the stake is returned. Exactly one pocket in 37 wins.

RTP = 36 / 37 = 0.972973 = 97.30%
House edge = 1 / 37 = 0.027027 = 2.70%

That is the whole calculation. There is no paytable variant, no studio configuration and no version history to check, which is what makes roulette different from every slot on this site.

Which roulette bet has the best odds?

The payouts are built so that each bet covers its share of the wheel and pays as if the zero were not there. Cover more numbers and you win more often for less; the product is identical every time.

Bet	Numbers covered	Pays	Calculation	RTP
Straight up	1	35:1	36 × 1/37	97.30%
Split	2	17:1	18 × 2/37	97.30%
Street	3	11:1	12 × 3/37	97.30%
Corner	4	8:1	9 × 4/37	97.30%
Six line	6	5:1	6 × 6/37	97.30%
Column or dozen	12	2:1	3 × 12/37	97.30%
Red, black, odd, even, high, low	18	1:1	2 × 18/37	97.30%

Computed from the standard European paytable. Every row resolves to 36/37.

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This is why no betting pattern changes anything. Splitting a stake across several bets averages identical numbers, and a progression such as the Martingale changes the shape of the swings, never the 2.70%.

How much worse is American roulette?

An American wheel adds a double zero, so 38 pockets pay as if there were 36. Every standard bet returns 36/38 = 94.74%, a house edge of 5.26%, almost double the European figure for the same game.

One American bet breaks the pattern. The five-number bet covering 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3 pays 6 to 1, which does not fit the geometry:

RTP = 7 x 5/38 = 35/38 = 0.921053 = 92.11%
House edge = 3/38 = 7.89%

It is the worst bet on a standard roulette table and it exists only on the double-zero layout. Triple-zero wheels, which some venues now run, take the same idea further: 36/39 = 92.31%, an edge of 7.69% on every bet.

What is French roulette RTP?

French roulette uses the single-zero wheel plus a rule called la partage: when the ball lands on zero, even-money bets lose only half the stake. That changes the arithmetic for those bets alone.

RTP = (18 x 2 + 1 x 0.5) / 37 = 36.5 / 37 = 0.986486 = 98.65%
House edge = 1.35%

The en prison rule is close but not identical. Under re-imprisonment, where a bet can stay locked over repeated zeros, the imprisoned unit is worth exactly half and the figure matches la partage at 98.65%. Under the commoner single-spin version, where the bet is freed or lost on the next spin, the imprisoned unit is worth 18/37 and the return is 98.61%, an edge of 1.39%. Bets that are not even money keep the ordinary 97.30%, so a French table is two different propositions depending on where the chips sit.

What does the difference cost per 1,000 staked?

Wheel and bet	RTP	House edge	Expected loss per 1,000 units staked
French, even money (la partage)	98.65%	1.35%	13.5
European, any bet	97.30%	2.70%	27.0
American, standard bets	94.74%	5.26%	52.6
Triple zero, any bet	92.31%	7.69%	76.9
American, five-number bet	92.11%	7.89%	78.9

Expected loss is the stake multiplied by the house edge, the long-run average rather than a session result.

Two players betting the same money on the same game, one on a French table and one on an American one, part with roughly four times different amounts over the long run. Choosing the wheel is the only decision in roulette that moves the number.

What are call bets and do they change the return?

French and European tables carry a racetrack for bets defined by position on the wheel rather than on the layout. They are the standard vocabulary at a tier-1 European table and they change nothing about the return.

Call bet	Numbers covered	Chips	Coverage	RTP
Voisins du Zero	17	9	45.95%	97.30%
Tiers du Cylindre	12	6	32.43%	97.30%
Orphelins	8	5	21.62%	97.30%
Jeu Zero	7	4	18.92%	97.30%

Coverage is pockets divided by 37. Every call bet is a bundle of ordinary splits and straight-ups, so each resolves to the same 36/37.

The wheel sequence itself is fixed and is the reason these bundles exist. A single-zero 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, 26. Red and black alternate, and consecutive numbers sit opposite each other, which is what makes a section of the wheel a meaningful thing to bet.

Why does the Martingale fail?

Not because the edge grows, which it never does, but because the table stops you. On a table with a 1 to 100 spread the doubling sequence 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 reaches the ceiling on the seventh step, so six consecutive losses end the system with 63 units gone and no legal next bet. On a European wheel six losing even-money spins happen about once in every 75 sequences, which is several times an evening.

Quick answers

What is the RTP of roulette? 97.30% on a European wheel, 94.74% on an American one, and 98.65% on even-money bets at a French table with la partage.

Which roulette bet has the best odds? On a European wheel every bet returns 97.30%, so none is better. On an American wheel, avoid the five-number bet at 92.11%.

Can an operator change the RTP of roulette? Not without changing the wheel or the paytable. Unlike slots, there is no configurable return setting.

Does a betting system improve roulette RTP? No. Every bet on the layout already returns the same figure, so combining or progressing them changes only the variance.

Why do some live roulette variants show a different return? Multiplier variants such as Lightning-style tables reduce the straight-up payout to fund the multipliers, which lowers the straight-up RTP. Of the sixteen Evolution game pages we read on 14 August 2026, only Crazy Time states any RTP at all and none of the roulette tables does, so we do not quote a figure for them.

Reviewed by the PlayStories editorial team. Last updated August 14, 2026. Numbers verified per our methodology. Informational only, not betting advice. 18+. Play responsibly.

How the numbers on this page were produced

RTP = payout including stake x pockets covered / total pockets

Nothing on this page is taken from a source. Every figure is arithmetic from the wheel and the published paytable: a European wheel has 37 pockets and pays a straight-up winner 36 units including the stake, so the return is 36/37. The American figures use 38 pockets, the French even-money figure adds the half-stake refund on zero. Any reader can recompute all of them.

Full verification method · Editorial standards · Corrections are logged on the method page.

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