Roulette is a popular game at brick and mortar casinos and therefore all online casinos offer some variants of this game. If one sees the entire cross section of roulette variants at online casinos and then one can list out four games. The important issue is that each of the roulette variants is not equally favorable to the online casino player. This article will help Canadian online casino players to select the best online roulette variants.
European Roulette is the most common variant of this game at online casinos. Its defining feature is that the wheel has 37 numbers, which include numbers from 1 to 36 and 0. Players can wager on any of these single numbers and will receive a payout of 35 to 1. Players can also wager on blocks of larger numbers, which are more likely to win but offer lower payouts. If the ball comes to rest on 0 then all these bets lose. This is what gives the advantage to the online casino and is known as the house edge. European Roulette offers a house edge of 2.7%. This means that for every hundred credits wagered by the online casino player, he can expect to get back 97.3 credits in the long run. Comparison of house edges is the key to understanding which online roulette variant offers a greater advantage to the player.
French Roulette is another online roulette variant. It uses the same wheel as in European Roulette. The payouts in all the bets are also the same. What makes French Roulette different from European Roulette is a rule known as La Partage. This rule is applicable to even money bets. Even money bets are those that cover 18 numbers on the wheel and payout even money. Some examples of these bets are red, black, even and odd. In French Roulette if these bets lose due to the ball coming to rest on 0, the player is refunded half his wagered amount. Therefore the house edge for even money bets decreases to 1.4% and this gives the player an added advantage. The house edge for all the other bets remains at 2.7%. In French Roulette the labels on the layout are in French, but this should not bother most Canadian online players. The red and black numbers have a common background color on the layout. However, to regular online players this is a small inconvenience.
American Roulette is one of the avoidable online roulette variants. The wheel has 38 numbers, which are the numbers from 1 to 36, 0 and 00. The payouts are the same as in European Roulette, but because the bets lose when the ball comes to rest on either 0 or 00 the player has an added disadvantage. The house edge for American Roulette is 5.3%. The worst online roulette variant is Mini Roulette. In Mini Roulette the wheel has only 13 numbers, which are the numbers from 1 to 12 and 0. The disadvantage offered by Mini Roulette can be understood as follows. In European Roulette the player loses on 1 number and can win on 36 numbers. In Mini Roulette the player loses on 1 number but can win only on 12 numbers. Therefore the probability of losing goes up three times. The house edge offered by Mini Roulette is 7.7%.
All Canadian online casinos offer European Roulette and most of them offer French Roulette. Therefore players at these online casinos can easily avoid American Roulette and Mini Roulette.
