The main difference between American Roulette and the other two is the number of green zeros. Whereas the American Roulette wheel has two zero sockets, the European and the French ones have one. What makes the European and the French roulettes different is the table layout. For instance, the numbers grid is ordered horizontally, and the outside bets are on the sides.
Roulette Wheel Sections
Every roulette game has two main roulette wheel sections, a bowl, and a centrepiece that rotates called a wheel head. The bowl is entirely made of wood, and it includes a ball track. The wheel head is located inside the bowl, fitted with upper and lower ball-bearing mechanisms. The outer edge of the wheel head features a circle of numbers.
Inside the aforementioned numbers is where the ball sockets are placed. On the other hand, the central area of the wheel head is known as a cone. The cone has a decorative piece in its centre, called a turret, and inside of it is where you can find the height-adjusting mechanism for the wheel head.
Height adjustment is essential to make the ball fall into one of the sockets. If you are interested in knowing all about the roulette wheel, our roulette wheel guide will inform you properly. As you know, there are specific roulette elements, such as the diamonds, which are obstacles designed to alter the trajectory of the ball.
French Roulette is played on the same wheel as the European, which contains 37 sockets with one zero. Furthermore, the numbers on the wheel are displayed differently from the American Roulette wheel. The red and black numbers on the roulette wheel sections alternate, and each pair of even numbers is followed by a pair of odd numbers.
The exception to this comes with the few numbers placed right next to the green zero. By the way, betting on the zero on the roulette wheel is possible, and it’s the same as betting on a single number. No matter which roulette you play, roulette wheels are designed to ensure that all the numbers are evenly distributed.
Roulette Table Sections
Even though the French and the European Roulette wheels are the same, the roulette table layout is where you can tell the real differences between the two games. To start with, the French wheel is situated towards the centre of the table with the betting roulette table sections, or grids, on the sides.
The French roulette table sections are easy to distinguish because they are written in French. Therefore, Low/High bets are written as Manque/Passe, Odd/Even bets as Impair/Pair, and sometimes the Red/Black betting boxes may contain the translation Rouge/Noir. The three boxes where the Dozen bets are placed are written as P12, M12 and D12. Look at the meanings below:
- P12: For French “première douzaine”, first dozen in English.
- M12: For French “moyenne douzaine”, middle dozen in English.
- D12: For French “dernière douzaine”, last dozen in English.
Call bets are placed in a section of the layout called the racetrack. If you are interested in playing roulette, we suggest learning about all the types of roulette bets. There are three main types of bets: inside bets, outside bets and call/announced bets. However, there are many other bets that are worth knowing about.
French Roulette – Sector Bets
Roulettes with a single zero usually allow betting on a large sector of the wheel. Each sector bet covers a specific sequence of numbers on the wheel. These bets could be made by hand, but a table allows betting on the sections of a roulette conveniently divided into smaller wagers. See below how the sector bets are formed:
- Straight up: Wins pay 35 to 1 because a bet is placed on a single number.
- Split: Wins pay 17 to 1 because a bet is placed on two adjacent numbers.
- Street: Wins pay 11 to 1 because a bet is placed on a row of three numbers.
- Trio: Wins pay 11 to 1 because a bet is placed on three adjacent numbers, one of them is zero.
- Corner: Wins pay 8 to 1 because a bet is placed on four adjacent numbers.
The aforementioned wagers would work for the French Roulette game and the Premium European Roulette, but let’s take a step further by only focusing on French Roulette, its roulette sections and wagers. See below a table with the French Roulette sector bets explained:
| 0️⃣ Jeu Zero | Jeu Zero, “game zero” in English, covers the numbers from 12 to 15. Bets should be evenly divisible by four, and it’s achieved by dividing the total wager into splits (one unit on 0-3, 12-15, 32-35) and straight up (one unit on 26). |
| 🧍🧍 Voisins du Zéro | Voisins du zero, “neighbours zero” in English, overlaps the Jeu Zero sector by covering the numbers from 22 to 25. Bets should be evenly divisible by nine, and it’s achieved by dividing the total wager into splits (one unit each on 4-7, 12-15, 18-21, 19-22, 32-35), trio (two units on 0-2-3) and corner: (two units on 22-26-28-29). |
| 🎡 Le Tiers du Cylindre | Le Tiers du Cylindre, “third of the wheel” in English, covers the 12 numbers from 27 to 33. Bets should be evenly divisible by six, and it’s achieved by dividing the total wager into these six split bets: 5-8, 10-11, 13-16, 23-24, 27-30, 33-36. |
| 🧑 Orphelins | Orphelins, “orphans” in English, covers two roulette wheel sections which are not covered by any sector bets, like 1 to 9 and 17 to 6. Bets should be evenly divisible by five, and it’s achieved by dividing the total wager into splits (one unit each on 6-9, 14-17, 17-20, 31-34) and straight up (one unit on 1). |
Considering the sector bets mentioned, we will have what looks like a racetrack which includes all numbers from 0 to 37 in the same order as on the French Roulette wheel. The purpose of the racetrack is to bet any consecutive five numbers on the wheel, which are known as neighbour bets.
Here is an example: if you want to cover the five consecutive numbers (30, 8, 23, 10, 5), you would make a neighbour bet on the number in the middle, the 23. This bet should be evenly divisible by five, which divides into five straight-up bets on each of the five numbers in the sector.
As you have just seen, neighbours bet include a specific number located in the centre surrounded by an equal amount of numbers on either side of it. Aspects like this one should be known along with as many live roulette strategies as possible in order to be potentially successful at playing roulette.
Roulette Sections Strategy
Following a roulette sections strategy will not assure you any wins. Nevertheless, it might boost your chances to be successful in the long term. Now we are going to talk about a few strategies that work for French Roulette and other versions of the game. We will mainly describe progressive betting, flat progression and non-progressive betting.
Progressive strategies are about raising your bet size after getting the around-upshot. The most popular and widely used roulette strategy is the Martingale system. This method suggests doubling the bet after every loss. A modified version of the Martingale strategy is the Paroli system. The latter recommends doubling the wager after a win. These two strategies are mainly recommended for outside bets.
When it comes to inside bets, a flat progression strategy is better than progressive betting. The D’Alembert system is the most popular flat progression method, in which bets would be placed on even-money areas of the table. Then, one unit is either added when losing, and one unit is subtracted when winning.
Last but not least, we have the non-progressive betting strategy by Ian Fleming, also named the James Bond strategy. It’s about placing bets covering more than half of the table, with the intention of turning the odds in favour. Following the best roulette strategies tips will help you to choose the best one according to your situation and preferences.
Then, there’s the favoured strategy, which is only allowed in French Roulette. Here you must bet on neighbouring numbers, as we have mentioned in the section above. It consists of splitting the bet and placing it on five neighbouring numbers. The idea is to enhance the chances of winning in case the ball misses the selected socket.
Finally, remember that there’re no guarantees when following strategies, but, obviously, the chances of winning are higher. If you want to put into practice all what you have learned in this blog post, we recommend playing on the best roulette sites in the UK. They’re all licensed by the UKGC. Hence, they are legit, secure and safe to play at.
Frequently Asked Questions
This article about roulette sections has come to an end. However, we have created our frequently asked questions just in case you have been left with any doubts. Keep in mind that the answers will jump to the paragraph of interest for you to extend the information related to the topic. Have a look at them below: