Understanding French Roulette Rules

There are three primary variations of roulette that can be found in casinos around the world. Although European and American roulette are the most popular, French roulette takes up a very close third. The game is more complex and comes with different rules than the other two variants, but people who have a firm understanding of the game often prefer the French option.

The French roulette wheel is a lot like the European wheel. It uses the numbers one through 36 as well as a single zero pocket. However, the way in which the numbers are placed on the actual wheel is a bit different. Although in all of the variations of roulette the numbers are situated in a way so that there is an even distribution of high, low, even, odd, red and black numbers, the French roulette rules include a wheel to do so in a way that is thought to increase the house edge just slightly. However, this is still an unknown as the odds of landing on certain numbers are the same as with European roulette.

Like European roulette, free French roulette games online offer players the opportunity to take advantage of the La Partage rule. With it, players who place even money bets--red or black, even or odd, first or last half of numbers--will have half of their wager returned to them if the ball lands on the zero pocket and the player did not bet on it. This helps to reduce the house edge somewhat and reduces the amount of loss players incur.