As opposed to European Roulette, the wheel of an American Roulette has 38 slots compared with its European counterpart which has 37. This is because of the extra zero – the Double Zero slot. In American Roulette the house has an advantage of 1/19 or 5.26%. On a five-number bet, 0-00-1-2-3 the house has an advantage of 7.89%.

The wheel
The wheel is arranged so that even numbers have the next highest number directly opposite them, i.e. 1 is directly opposite 2, 35 is directly opposite 36 and so on. As all even numbers are red and all odd numbers are black, there is also an even distribution of colours. 0 and 00 are green and are also directly opposite each other.