When you play roulette it is important to understand the house edge and how it affects your overall profit or loss. The house edge is the casino’s built in advantage that is incorporated into every wager you place. This edge can be found in all casino games and is a necessary part of running any type of gambling establishment. It is impossible to beat the house edge, but you can minimize your losses by understanding how it works and using a strategy that will not put you at a disadvantage over time.
The easiest way to explain the house edge is through a simple example. Say you place a bet on red or black at the roulette table. You will win some of the bets you place and lose others, but if you make enough of these bets over a period of time then you will end up losing money over the long haul. This is because the house edge, which is 2.7% in European roulette and 5.26% in American roulette, will eventually eat away at your profits.
To calculate the house edge you simply take the odds of a particular outcome occurring and compare them with what the house pays out for that bet. For example, an American roulette wheel has 38 pockets including the zero and 00. The odds of hitting a single number on a spin are 1 in 36, but the house will only pay out 35 to 1. That’s $2 less than the true odds which is the house edge.
You can use this same formula to calculate the house edge for any bet in the game of roulette. The house edge for individual numbers is 2.7%, for the black and red bets it is 5% and for the even/odd bets it is 2%.
If you are serious about beating the house edge in roulette then there are a few strategies that can be used. One is to avoid betting on the zero and only bet on the black and red numbers. This will cut the house edge by about a third. The other is to employ a system of bets that will help you win more often than not. You can find these systems on the internet but many of them are scams and should be avoided.
There are also some rules in French roulette that can be employed to further reduce the house edge. This rule, known as la partage, allows players to recover half of their initial stake if the ball lands on zero. This helps to minimize the impact of the green zero segment in American roulette and the double-zero segment in European roulette.
There are a few other things that can be done to limit the impact of the house edge on your bankroll. For instance, some casinos offer a single-deck version of blackjack which can lower the house edge by 0.25 percent. This is because dealers would have a harder time hitting strong totals like 21 with fewer cards in hand.
