Why Roulette Pays 35:1 on a Wheel With 38 Numbers
Last reviewed: November 2026
Every payout on a roulette table is calculated as if the wheel had exactly 36 numbers. The wheel actually has 37 or 38, and those extra green pockets are not just another way to lose: they are the mechanism that makes every single payout slightly too small. Once you see it, you can compute the house edge from the felt in your head.
The fair-payout test
A straight-up bet on one number wins 1 time in 38 on an American wheel. A fair payout, the one that would make the game break even, is 37:1. The table pays 35:1.
That two-unit shortfall, spread over all 38 outcomes, is the house edge:
(2 units short) ÷ (38 possible outcomes) = 5.26%
On a European wheel with 37 pockets, fair would be 36:1, the table still pays 35:1, and the one-unit shortfall gives:
1 ÷ 37 = 2.70%
Every bet on the felt fails the same test
The elegance (from the casino’s side) is that the entire payout table is built on the pretend-36 wheel, so every bet carries the identical shortfall:
| Bet | Numbers covered | Fair payout (38 pockets) | Actual payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight up | 1 | 37:1 | 35:1 |
| Split | 2 | 18:1 | 17:1 |
| Street | 3 | 11.67:1 | 11:1 |
| Corner | 4 | 8.5:1 | 8:1 |
| Dozen / Column | 12 | 2.17:1 | 2:1 |
| Red / Black | 18 | 1.11:1 | 1:1 |
Different odds, different frequencies, same 5.26% skim (with one infamous exception, the five-number bet, which manages to be even worse). This is why “which roulette bet is best” has a flat answer: on the same wheel, they all cost the same per dollar. The only real decision is which wheel you sit at.
Why the green pockets take the blame
People often say the zeros “cause” the house edge, and it is a useful shorthand: paint the zeros red and black and pay winners by the same table, and the game becomes fair. But the deeper point is that the casino could run a wheel with no zeros at all and simply pay 34:1 instead, and the edge would be almost identical. The zeros are just the most elegant way to shade every payout at once while keeping the payout numbers clean.
What to do with this knowledge
Nothing fancy: it will not help you win, because nothing changes the shortfall. But it immunizes you against every “guaranteed” roulette scheme, since any system is just a way of buying differently sized slices of the same discounted payouts. Test the arithmetic yourself on the free roulette table: track any bet type long enough and watch it converge toward the same 5.26%.
Educational explanation only. No real-money gambling happens on LearnTheOdds.
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