What is French roulette? À l’aide !
French roulette has stolen the show from the American and European wheels, and, for once, fanciness has nothing to do with it. Like European wheels, French roulette comes with only one zero that slashes the casino’s odds from 5.26% to 2.7%.
But French wheels do something else. They chop the edge down to 1.35% through special player-friendly rules called La Partage and En Prison. In English, they more or less translate to “here’s either half or all of your money back.” Fine, the French are still fancier.
In this guide, we explain everything, from the special rules of French roulette to the payouts.
French Roulette Wheel and Table Design
The French roulette wheel is identical to the European wheel. It has the same 37 pockets numbered 1 through 36 with one green zero. It uses the red/black colors and the same layout. If you know how to play European roulette, then you know how to play French roulette. They operate mostly the same.
But look closer at the betting table, and you’ll begin to spot differences in the layout. Instead of the standard numbered betting zones you see on American or European roulette tables, French roulette uses its own labels for the outside bets, and their names sound like something you might accidentally order at a bistro as an exotic side to your CWAH-sah. But alas, they’re referring to a selection of numbers on the roulette wheel.
- Manque: 1 through 18
- Passe: 19 through 36
- Pair: Even
- Impair: Odd
- Rouge: Red
- Noir: Black
French roulette also includes a racetrack, an oval mirroring the exact wheel layout. This makes placing special bets like Voisins du Zero or Tiers du Cylindre much easier than mentally mapping the wheel because they appear on the racetrack in the exact order as the wheel.
French Roulette Compared to European and American Roulette
The biggest difference between French roulette and the other versions boils down to how many zeros are on the wheel and what happens when the ball lands on them.
American Roulette
American roulette has 38 pockets with both a 0 and a 00. The extra ‘00’ alone jacks up the house edge to 5.26% compared to 2.7% with European roulette.
Given the higher house edge, our advice is to avoid the American version. Run away as Julia Child would run from Velveeta. That is, unless you’re split-betting on green, which gives you two chances to hit zero instead of one.
European Roulette
European roulette drops the 00 gimmick, leaving 37 pockets and a 2.7% house edge. It’s roughly 2x better than American, which makes at least two things Europeans do better than Americans if we’re counting soccer. Pardon us—le football. Existential dread is also up there.
French Roulette
French roulette cuts the 2.7% edge in half to 1.35% thanks to the La Partage and En Prison rules (more on that below).
In practice, the difference in house edge means that if you bet $100 on red for 1,000 spins, you would lose about $5,260 on an American wheel, $2,700 on a European wheel, but just $1,350 on a French wheel with La Partage.
The La Partage Rule: Is It to Your Advantage?
La Partage is French for “the divide,” and it’s the rule that makes French roulette the best deal of all other wheels, unlike Triple Zero roulette, which offers the worst.
For La Partage, you place an even-money bet like red, black, odd, even, 1-18, or 19-36. If the ball lands on 0, instead of losing your entire bet, you get half of it back. The house takes the other half.
That cuts the house edge on even-money bets from 2.7% down to 1.35%, which is the lowest edge on any standard roulette wheel.
So is La Partage to your advantage? Absolutely. It still won’t allow you to beat the house long-term, but it does mean you lose less money and at a slower rate than at any other roulette table.
If you’re going to play French roulette online anyway, opting for a French wheel with La Partage is a pas de réflexion, aka a good old-fashioned no-brainer.
En Prison Rule
En Prison is the other special rule you’ll find at French roulette tables, and it produces the same 1.35% house edge as La Partage but arrives in a different way.
Instead of receiving half your stake back immediately when 0 hits, your bet with the En Prison rule gets locked for the next spin. And as long as you keep hitting 0, your stake stays in the slammer.
The only way to get it out is to win the next spin, which happens 48.6% of the time. At the point, you receive only your stake back, not a profit. If you lose, you simply lose, and you can say adieu to that twenty.
Bet Types and Payouts per Bet Type
Keep in mind that French roulette offers the same bets as European roulette because they’re essentially the same wheel (37 pockets, single zero) as opposed to the American variant. Below are the bet types and payouts on French Roulette.
Inside bets
Inside bets are placed on the numbered grid. They offer more impressive payouts because their odds of winning are lower. They’re the same as European and American roulette.
- Straight-up (single number): 35 to 1
- Split (two numbers): 17 to 1
- Street (three numbers): 11 to 1
- Corner/Square (four numbers): 8 to 1
- Six-line/Double Street (six numbers): 5 to 1
Outside bets
These classic bets cover larger groups and have the highest chances of winning. If we didn’t know any better, we’d think they were describing a classic PSG match.
- Dozens and columns (12 numbers): 2:1
- Red/black, odd/even, low/high (18 numbers): 1:1
The key difference is that even-money bets receive La Partage or En Prison protection, boosting their RTP to 98.65%.
French bets (or call bets)
These might also be referred to as “announce” bets or “sector” bets. They cover specific sections of the wheel, and you have to call them out to the croupier. Below are the standard call bets.
Voisins du Zéro (“Neighbors of Zero”)
Covers the section of the wheel around 0.
- Numbers: 22, 18, 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2, 25
Tiers du Cylindre (“Third of the Wheel”).
If the “third wheel” bet brings up memories of being the middle child, we apologize. In roulette, this call bet covers the opposite side of the wheel from zero.
- Numbers: 5/8, 10/11, 13/16, 23/24, 27/30, 33/36
Orphelins (“Orphans”)
The Orphelins numbers are not covered by the previous two bets; thus, they are “orphaned.” But don’t feel bad! Payouts are either 17:1 or 35:1. Oliver Twist would be delighted.
- Numbers: 1, 6/9, 14/17, 17/20, 31/34
French roulette wheels are rather hard to come by, which is a shame because you’re looking at the best odds on the wheel. But if you spot one in the wild, say oui, merci, and jump on it. You’ll slash the house edge by 2x and almost 4x compared to the alternatives. Slide your chips onto the table and give the ball its Jean-Paul Sartre moment with a reason to exist and the crisis of choice of where to land.