And you get an unfair payout for every roulette bet. The “house edge” basically means “unfair payouts”. Understanding Why No Bet Is Better Than Another
So even when you win, you still lose money. But the payout for a single number bet is an unfair 35-1. Your odds of wining are 100%, which sounds great. This slight difference is called the “house edge”.ĮXAMPLE 2: Now consider betting on all 37 numbers. Specifically, 48.65% of the time you’ll profit $100.
So there’s a slightly higher chance you will lose. But on closer inspection, you have a 48.65% chance of winning, and a 51.35% chance of losing. You know you have around a 50% chance of winning, which sounds like good odds. The more numbers you bet, the more likely you are to get get a hit.ĮXAMPLE 1: Consider betting $100 on red for a European wheel. But does better odds mean you are more likely to profit? No, and this is a common mistake players make. In the above table we see the more numbers we bet on, the better the odds of winning. So if the house edge is 2.7% and you bet $1, you can expect to lose $0.027 every 37 spins. European Roulette Odds (Chance of Winning)Īmerican Roulette Odds (Chance of Winning)
