Although there are many variations on how to play online Roulette created and released in the intergalactic realms of the internet, American and European are definitely the most popular.
Before you start playing any of them, it’s definitely important to know the difference between them in terms of rules, strategy and house advantage. At Casinos Brasil, we played both and did our research in order to distinguish the two. Look below to find out all about the individual variants.
European Roulette
The European has its origins in France and Germany. This game variant has been around for much longer than Americano, and that is perhaps the reason why it is seen as the original version of the game.
The main feature that attracts players to this game is predominantly the only zero present in the game. As you may already know, the green space containing zero on the disk represents the house advantage, which is 2.7% in the European.
If there were no zeros on the Roulette wheel, it would be a zero-sum game and the players and the house would tie for long-term wins and losses. As we all know, casinos don’t use this type of business model.
American Roulette
The American went through several transformations before becoming the game we now call Americano, featuring a disc with 36 numbered spaces plus two green spaces for 0 and 00.
In the late 19th century, for example, the most popular shape had the numbers 1 through 28 plus 0 and 00, as well as a space with a bald eagle. Given that this version of Roulette only paid 27 times a bet on a single number, the house edge was immense. Every 10 spins the result was 0, 00 or water, which resulted in the house getting all the chips from the table.
As a result, few players profited at that time. Luckily, players’ odds have improved since those early variations on American were developed in Louisiana and made their way to Mississippi. The house still has the advantage, of course, but in modern games that advantage has been drastically reduced.