Blaise Pascal accidentally invented the primitive roulette wheel when trying to build the perpetual motion machine back in the 17th century. By the 18th century, roulette was a popular game, featuring 2 sets of 0 on the table, now commonly known as American roulette.
But, over the years casinos have fine-tuned and tweaked this beloved game, bringing us a few different versions. Today, we’re looking at French roulette and explaining why it’s the best roulette you can play!
What is French roulette?
French roulette was born in 1893 when 2 Frenchmen decided to remove a 0 from the wheel to reduce the house edge and make it a more attractive game to play. Years later, the game was modified again, adding 2 rules that further increased a player’s chance of winning.
These 2 rules are known as La Partage and En Prison. To make use of the La Partage rule, you must place a bet that pays out at even money. If the ball then lands on the 0, you get half your stake back. En Prison takes this rule one step further, whereby if you place an even money bet and the ball lands on 0, a marker is put on your chips and if the next spin of the wheel turns out to be a winner, you get your stake returned to you. If you lose the second spin, you forfeit your stake.
The house edge equation
When you’re looking to pick a casino game to play, you should always find a variant with the lowest house edge. The lower the house edge, the better your chances are of winning. If being as profitable as possible is a crucial part of your roulette strategy, which it should be, then French roulette stands out as the best variant.
Roulette variant | House edge |
---|---|
American | 5.26% |
European | 2.7% |
French | 1.35% (even money bets) or 2.7% (all other bets) |
European roulette only has 1 0 on the wheel, but it doesn’t have the La Partage or En Prison rules, causing the house edge to be slightly higher than French roulette, but significantly lower than American.
Vlad Hategan
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In my career, I wrote for companies like Daily Coin or Crypto Banter while also writing social media content for a number of projects - including NFTs and tokens.
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