Roulette variants · French · one round
French Roulette: One Round, One Zero, Half the Stake Back
A single-zero wheel with one rule that changes the price of even-money bets. Watch a £1,000 bet on red meet a zero, compare it with a European table, then see a call bet on the racetrack that the rule does not reach. You watch; you do not play.
How one round of French roulette runs
This section shows roulette game visuals: a wheel, a betting layout, a racetrack and example bets. Are you 18 or over?
An explainer, not a game. Nothing can be staked or paid out here. 18+
The numbers for this step
Example table with illustrative limits. The bets are fixed, and this round's pocket is set to zero so the rule can be seen; on a real wheel zero comes up once in 37 spins on average. Every figure is computed in the page from the wheel and the payout table.
Step by step
01A French wheel has 37 pockets and one green zero, in the European order.
French roulette uses the single-zero wheel: the numbers 1 to 36 in red and black, and one green zero, 37 pockets in all. The order round the wheel is the same as on a European wheel. What sets the French game apart is not the wheel but a rule printed on the table for even-money bets.
02La Partage: when zero lands, an even-money bet loses only half its stake.
La Partage, French for the sharing, applies to the even-money bets: red or black, odd or even, 1 to 18 or 19 to 36. When the ball lands on zero, these bets are not lost in full. Half the stake is returned and the table keeps the other half. Every other bet on the layout is settled exactly as on a European table.
03£1,000 goes on red, an even-money bet covering 18 numbers.
One example bet is placed: £1,000 on red. Red covers the 18 red numbers and pays 1 to 1, so a red result would return the stake plus £1,000. A black result or zero settles it the other way. The bet is well inside this example table's £10,000 maximum.
04No more bets. The ball drops into one of 37 pockets.
The betting window closes and the layout is frozen. The wheel turns one way and the ball the other, until the ball falls from the rim and settles in a pocket. Each of the 37 pockets is equally likely, so zero comes up once in 37 spins on average, about 2.7% of the time.
05Zero: the ball settles in the one green pocket.
For this round the ball lands on zero, the outcome that shows the rule at work. Zero is neither red nor black, so a bet on red does not pay. On most tables that would be the end of the stake. On a French table with La Partage, the even-money bet is only half lost.
06Half the stake, £500, comes back; the other £500 is lost.
The dealer splits the stake on red. £500 goes back to the player and £500 is kept by the table. The player is still down on the round, but by half as much as the bet put at risk. This happens on every even-money bet, every time zero lands, without the player doing anything.
07The same spin on a European table: the whole £1,000 is lost.
Run the same spin on a European table, which has the same wheel but no La Partage. The ball lands on zero and the £1,000 on red is lost in full; nothing comes back. Same wheel, same bet, same pocket: the only difference between the two results is the rule on the table.
08Across all 37 pockets: 1/74 = 1.35% on red with La Partage, 1/37 = 2.70% without.
Settle £1,000 on red against every pocket once. Without the rule, zero takes one stake in 37: a 2.70% edge, or £27.03 on average. With La Partage, zero takes only half a stake: one in 74, 1.35%, or £13.51 on average. For even-money bets, that halves the cost of every pound staked.
09Voisins du zéro: the 17 numbers around zero, covered with 9 chips.
French tables have a racetrack, an oval of the numbers in wheel order, for call bets on sections of the wheel. Voisins du zéro, the neighbours of zero, covers the 17 pockets from 22 to 25. It takes nine chips: two on the 0/2/3 trio, two on the 25/26/28/29 corner and one on each of five splits.
10La Partage does not apply to the call bet: its edge stays 1/37 = 2.70%.
Voisins du zéro is built from splits, a trio and a corner, and none of them is an even-money bet. La Partage therefore never touches it. When zero lands, the trio simply pays 11 to 1 and the other chips are lost. Settled over all 37 pockets, the call bet carries the full single-zero edge of 2.70%.
How the numbers are made
Example table with illustrative limits. The bets are fixed, and this round's pocket is set to zero so the rule can be seen; on a real wheel zero comes up once in 37 spins on average. Every figure is computed in the page from the wheel and the payout table.