European roulette online

European roulette has been around in some form or another for more than two hundred years and the game continues to compel and excite gamblers around the world to this day. Known to many as the “Game of Kings” is being offered in online casinos as well, the appeal of the free European roulette or real money game seems to be increasing by the minute.

Commonly associated with the glamour of Monte Carlo, and offering players increased odds over the double-zero tables of the U.S., European roulette shows no signs of losing its long-running popularity with casino visitors all over the world, whether it is live roulette or on the web.

Play European roulette in online casino for real money

European roulette is not simply a more stylish version of American Roulette. There are a few significant differences between the two versions that make European Roulette a more dramatic and exciting version of the game.

You don’t have to head to a Parisian casino to play the game when you can enjoy it at online casinos like Volt or Cashmio. At these UK casino websites, you can place a bet, spin the wheel and experience the excitement of online roulette like at any glitzy casino in Europe!

Roulette has been a captivating game since 1796 when it was first played in Paris in a form similar to today. The game continued to be popular and spread across Europe and America in slightly different forms.

Objectives of European roulette

The object of both the free European and American versions of the roulette game is the same. You have to predict which pocket on the Roulette wheel the metal ball will come to rest in. The Roulette wheel consists of 36 pockets colored black and red alternately. There is also the green-zero’ pocket. This offers better odds than the double zeros of American Roulette, increasing your chances of winning!

Basic rules of online European roulette

The rules for European roulette are very similar to those in the American take on the game, with a couple of notable exceptions. Bets are placed in the same method, with chips on the numbered spaces of the game’s layout. There are two main categories that wagers fall into in roulette, inside and outside bets, and then there are a variety of subcategories after that.

  1. First are the inside bets, which cover all wagers placed on specific numbers or sets of specified numbers. These are called inside bets because they are placed on the layouts inside numbered blocks. These wagers have the lowest odds of winning and subsequently offer the highest payouts to players when they do hit. Gamblers can bet what is called a straight, or single, bet by placing their chip in the center of a numbered square. This type of bet covers that number only and it offers a 35 to 1 payout, the best of the game.
  2. Setting your chip on the vertical or horizontal line between two numbers is referred to as a split and it indicates a bet on both of those numbers. It also reduces the payout potential to 17 to 1, just as it increases your overall odds of winning. A street bet, meanwhile, covers all three of the numbers on a horizontal line and it is placed by putting your chip on the outside edge of the row. For example, if a player wanted to cover the numbers 4, 5 and 6, which all appear on the same horizontal row, they would place their chip at the outside edge of the number 4 or the number 6 to show their bet. Street bets pay players at 11 to 1 odds.
  3. There are specific wagers with regards to the single-zero in European roulette. A trio is when the player places their marker on the intersecting lines of the 0, 1 and 2 or of the 0, 2 and 3 spaces. A basket, on the other hand, covers all of the first four numbered spaces in the layout, including the 0, 1, 2 and 3 for another 11 to 1 payout.
  4. A corner bet, or square bet, is placed when you set your marker on the intersecting lines of four numbers, thereby covering all of them during the next spin. Corner bets bring the payout down to 8 to 1, but they remain a very popular wager in the game for their ability to cover a wide range of numbers and still offer a decent win. The same goes for a double street or six-line wager, wherein players can cover six numbers on the board by placing their chip at the end of two streets, on their intersecting lines. This bet pays 5 to 1, still much better than the highest win on an outside bet.
  5. Outside bets refer to the bets that are placed on the outside boxes of the roulette layout. They cover larger groups of numbers, as well as the opportunity to wager on whether the ball will land in a red or black pocket. These are easier to hit and therefore, they pay out less. The best that a player can hope for on an outside bet is a 2 to 1 win, a substantial drop from the bigger money that can be picked up by hitting the riskier inside wagers. There is a wide range of outside bets that can be placed in roulette and they are a little simpler than inside bets for beginners to grasp at first. This is due to the fact that all outside bets are plainly printed on the table, with no coded placements to remember or to try to decipher.
  6. First, players can bet that the ball will drop into one of the pockets representing either the first, second or third set of twelve numbers. This means that one chip can cover numbers 1 through 12, 13 through 24 or 25 through 36, for a 2 to 1 payout on any wins. These blocks run along the foot of the roulette layout and are labeled P12, M12 or D12 for “premiere douzaine,” “moyenne douziain” and “derniere douzain,” French for “first dozen,” “second dozen” and “third dozen.”
  7. Similarly, gamblers can choose to place a bet on whether one of the first eighteen numbers will hit with a Manque wager, referring in French to their “shorter” numbers. A Passe bet, meanwhile, is an indication that the player believes the ball will land in the pocket of one of the last eighteen numbers on the board, with Passe a reference to their position as the “next” set of numbers. These wagers also pay 2 to 1 on any wins.
  8. The vertical columns of numbers on the roulette layout can also be grouped into one bet. Placing one’s chip below the last number in the column covers all of the numbers in that row, so a marker below the first column on a roulette table would place a wager on the numbers 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31 and 34. It should be noted that column wagers round out the types of outside bets that pay 2 to 1 on any wins.
  9. Bets on whether the ball will drop into a red or black pocket or into one with an even or odd number attached only payout 1 to 1, making them a slow journey to winning any real money at roulette, but because they offer such easy odds on winning, they have remained some of the most popular bets on the table.

The En Prison Rule

Some European roulette games operate using the optional en prison rule, which is a way for players to cut their losses anytime that the zero comes up and they haven’t wagered on it. After a spin where zero is the selected winner, a marker is placed on any chips that are on the layout that wasn’t on zero as an indication that these bets are “in prison” through the next round.

The wheel is spun, the ball is thrown and new bets can be placed, just as with any other round. The only difference is that if the ball lands in the slot of any number with an imprisoned wager on it, that player receives their bet amount back in full. Any numbers that have been wagered that it doesn’t land on are swept clean, so the gamblers of these bets have lost the same money that they would have lost on the original spin.

When you take into consideration that the house edge in American-style roulette is 5.26%, a relatively high number that indicates an average £5.26 loss for the player on every £100 that they risk in the game, most gamblers think of roulette as fairly lousy odds for the player. But European roulette drops that house edge to 2.7% with the elimination of the double-zero and the implementation of the en prison rule improves the player’s situation even more.

European roulette that features this option has a house edge of only 1.35%, which brings into more into the range of blackjack, traditionally thought of as one of the games with the best odds for players.

Strategies and systems for European roulette game

Progressive betting techniques are the most popular systems for wagering on the roulette wheel and includes strategies like the Martingale method. This system stipulates that with every loss in the game, the player should double their next bet. If you risk £10 on the first spin and then lose, you’re instructed to put down £20 for the second spin in an attempt to win back the initial £10 bet. If you lose on that second £20 spin, however, the Martingale system suggests that you double your wager again and put down £40 for the next round. Lose again and you should bet £80 on the next spin, and so on and so on.

Wagering

This exponential increase in a player’s bets can get pretty costly pretty fast, so it remains a very questionable strategy and one that’s unlikely to be tested much in real-life. Most players who step into a roulette sites UK with a £10 wager are unlikely to embrace throwing down a £160 bet on their fifth losing round. There is another system for wagering in roulette that is called the maximum boldness strategy and its advantage over the progressive betting systems is its acknowledgment and acceptance that this is a negative expectation game.

That means that in roulette, with time, any player can expect to lose more often than not and the longer that you play, the more likely you are to lose. In essence, this theory goes that it is best to keep your playing time in roulette as short and sweet as possible. By putting a lot of money on the game’s easiest odds, picking just the color that will win and whether or not the number will be even or odd, and then walking away win or lose, you won’t necessarily increase your odds of winning, but you can manage to decrease your odds of losing at roulette.

Basically, every spin that you face in roulette is gradually increasing your odds of losing in the long run. Unfortunately, there really isn’t a winning strategy for roulette, be it European or American-style. Regardless of how you bet, the house has a winning edge in this game and over time, that edge will almost certainly clean you out.

Winning edge

The fact of the matter is that a good, old-fashioned streak of dumb luck is unquestionably at least as effective at helping you walk away with any serious winnings as any developed strategy is when it comes to roulette, if not more so. Today roulette remains a favorite game in casinos all over the world, thanks to the compelling action of the wheel and the inventive number combinations that allow players to feel a sense of control over this game of random chance.

The European-style version’s layout and rules that reduce the house’s edge only add to the appeal of roulette and give gamblers a good excuse to play the wheel one more time, in an effort to increase their winnings and recoup their losses. For those who have only ever tried their luck at the American version of the game, online European roulette is a great chance to try this fixture of the casino once again, but this time with a decreased chance of losing and an increased chance of fun.