The roulette payout calculator above returns three things for any standard bet: what it pays, how often it wins, and the house edge that applies. The first two are what people look for. The third is the one that matters, and it is the reason this page exists — because the edge is identical across almost every bet on a wheel, and no way of arranging bets changes it.
Arb Digital builds free calculators that show the arithmetic rather than dressing it up. Everything below is enumerable: a European wheel has 37 pockets, an American wheel has 38, and every probability on this page is a count of winning pockets divided by the total. There is no model, no assumption and no estimate anywhere in it.
What This Roulette Payout Calculator Does
Choose a wheel and a bet, and the tool counts the pockets that win, divides by the pockets on the wheel, and applies the published payout. From that it derives the total return, the profit, the win probability, the house edge and the expected loss over however many spins you enter. It also reports the chance of seeing at least one win across that run, which is the figure people intuitively confuse with the per-spin probability.
The bets covered are the standard inside and outside bets: straight up, split, street, corner, six line, the American five number bet, dozens and columns, and the even money bets on red, black, odd, even, high and low. Their payouts are the ones set out in the standard reference on roulette, and the edges the calculator returns match the figures published there exactly.
The House Edge, Stated Plainly
On a European single zero wheel the house edge is 2.70% on every bet listed above. On an American double zero wheel it is 5.26% on every bet except one. The exception is the five number bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3, which pays 6 to 1 and carries a house edge of 7.89% — the worst bet on the table.
Those numbers mean that for every 100 units staked, the wheel is expected to keep 2.70, 5.26 or 7.89 units respectively. The expectation applies to every spin independently, and it applies to total amount staked, not to the amount you brought with you. A player who repeatedly recycles the same 100 units through 50 spins has staked 5,000 units, and the expected loss is calculated on the 5,000.
No betting pattern changes any of this. That includes the Martingale system, which doubles the stake after every loss so that a single win recovers all previous losses plus one unit. Martingale does not touch the house edge, because the edge applies to each spin separately and doubling a stake doubles the expected loss on that spin along with the potential recovery. What Martingale actually does is reshape the distribution of outcomes: it converts a moderate chance of a moderate loss into a high chance of a small win and a small chance of a catastrophic one. Both table maximums and finite bankrolls guarantee that the catastrophic outcome eventually arrives, and when it does it wipes out every small win that preceded it. The same is true of every reverse, cancellation and progression system.
How to Use It
- Pick the wheel. If you are unsure, count the green pockets: one is European, two is American.
- Pick the bet type. The five number bet exists only on the American wheel and the calculator will say so if you select it against a European wheel.
- Set the zero rule. La partage returns half the stake when the zero lands on an even money bet, and it is the only rule here that changes the edge.
- Enter your stake per spin and how many spins you want to model.
- Read the house edge and the expected loss together. The expected loss is the honest headline; the payout is only what happens in the minority of spins that win.
The Formula and How It Is Calculated
For a bet covering n pockets on a wheel of N pockets paying k to 1, the win probability is n / N and the expected value per unit staked is:
EV = (n / N) × k − (1 − n / N), and the house edge is the negative of that.
Work a straight up bet on a European wheel. One winning pocket out of 37 gives a probability of 1/37 = 2.7027%. The expected value per unit is (1/37) × 35 − (36/37) = (35 − 36) / 37 = −1/37 = −2.7027%. A 10 unit stake returns 360 when it wins — 350 profit plus the stake back — and over 100 spins at 10 a unit the expected loss is 100 × 10 × 0.027027 = 27.03.
The same arithmetic on an American wheel gives (1/38) × 35 − (37/38) = −2/38 = −5.2632%. And the five number bet gives (5/38) × 6 − (33/38) = (30 − 33) / 38 = −3/38 = −7.8947%.
Every other bet on a wheel produces the same fraction because payouts are set so that n × (k + 1) equals 36 in every case. A corner covers 4 pockets and pays 8, so 4 × 9 = 36. A dozen covers 12 and pays 2, so 12 × 3 = 36. The edge is then 1 − 36/N, which is 1/37 on a European wheel and 2/38 on an American one. The five number bet breaks the pattern: 5 × 7 = 35, not 36, and that missing unit is the extra edge.
La partage changes the loss side rather than the win side. On an even money bet the zero returns half the stake instead of taking all of it, so the expected value becomes (18/37) × 1 − (18/37) × 1 − (1/37) × 0.5 = −1/74 = −1.35%, exactly half the standard European edge.
Why "Pays 35 to 1" Is Not "35 Times Your Money"
A straight up bet pays 35 to 1, which means 35 units of profit for each unit staked, with the stake also returned. A 10 unit bet therefore returns 360, not 350 and not 3,500. The calculator shows both the total return and the profit for that reason, because "to 1" and "for 1" are different conventions and the difference is exactly one stake.
The mismatch between 35 to 1 and the true odds of 36 to 1 is the entire house edge on a European wheel. There are 36 losing pockets for each winning one, and the payout behaves as though there were 35. Our odds to probability converter moves between those two ways of writing the same thing, and the implied probability calculator shows the general version of the same trick: any quoted price implies a probability slightly higher than the real one, and the gap is the margin.
What a Run of Spins Actually Looks Like
The per-spin probability and the run probability get confused constantly. A straight up bet on a European wheel wins 2.7% of spins, but across 100 spins the chance of hitting at least once is 1 − (36/37)100, which is about 93.4%. Almost certain to hit — and still expected to lose money, because the 93.4% figure says nothing about how many times it hits or what it cost to get there.
The even money bets invert that intuition. Red wins 48.6% of spins on a European wheel, which feels close to a coin flip, and the expected loss over 100 spins at 10 a unit is still 27.03 — precisely the same as the straight up bet, because the edge is the same. What differs is the variance, not the expectation. Our coin flip probability calculator is a useful comparison here, because it shows what a genuinely fair 50/50 sequence looks like, and the difference between that and red is the whole business model.
If you want to see this arithmetic in its general form, the expected value calculator takes any table of outcomes and probabilities, and the probability calculator handles combining independent events across a run.
Common Misreadings of the Numbers
The first is treating past spins as information. A wheel has no memory, and a pocket that has not appeared in 200 spins is exactly as likely on the next spin as any other. Boards displaying recent results are decoration.
The second is thinking outside bets are safer in a way that matters. They win more often and pay less, which changes how a session feels but not what it costs on average. The 2.70% or 5.26% is the same figure.
The third is confusing the edge with the loss rate on money brought to the table. Losing 5.26% of total amount staked over a long session normally means losing far more than 5.26% of the money you started with, because the same money is staked repeatedly. This is the single largest gap between what the percentage sounds like and what happens.
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Browse the Free Tools Hub Talk to Arb DigitalCommon Mistakes to Avoid
- Reading "35 to 1" as the total return. It is the profit. The total returned is 36 stakes, because your stake comes back with it.
- Believing a betting system alters the edge. Martingale and every other progression change the shape of the outcomes, never the expectation.
- Playing the five number bet. It is the one bet on an American wheel with a worse edge than the rest, at 7.89% instead of 5.26%.
- Applying the edge to your starting bankroll. It applies to total amount staked, which after an hour of play is many times the money you sat down with.
- Treating a recent-numbers board as data. Spins are independent. Nothing in the last hundred results affects the next one.
Related Free Tools From Arb Digital
The probability calculator and expected value calculator generalise the arithmetic on this page, and the odds to probability converter and implied probability calculator handle the gap between quoted prices and real chances. For other enumerable games of chance, see the dice probability calculator, the lottery odds calculator and the coin flip probability calculator. Everything else lives on the free online tools hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
On a European single zero wheel it is 2.70% on every standard bet. On an American double zero wheel it is 5.26% on every standard bet except the five number bet on 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3, which is 7.89%. The edge is the share of total amount staked the wheel is expected to keep.
No. Martingale, Fibonacci, D'Alembert, cancellation and every other progression change how wins and losses are distributed, not the expected value of any spin. Because each spin carries the same edge independently, no ordering or sizing of bets can produce a positive expectation.
Because there are 36 losing pockets for every winning one on a European wheel, and 37 on an American one. Paying 35 instead of the true 36 is precisely where the house edge comes from, and the same one-unit shortfall is built into every other payout.
360 units in total: 350 units of profit at 35 to 1, plus the original 10 unit stake returned. "To 1" quotes profit, not total return, which is why the calculator shows both figures separately.
A rule offered on some single zero tables where a zero returns half the stake on an even money bet instead of taking all of it. It halves the house edge on those bets from 2.70% to 1.35%. It applies only to even money bets and only where the table offers it.
They win far more often and pay far less, so a session feels steadier, but the expected loss over the same total amount staked is identical. What changes is the variance, not the expectation.
No. A roulette wheel has no memory and each spin is independent. A number that has not appeared for two hundred spins has exactly the same chance on the next spin as any other number.
Because its payout does not fit the pattern. Every other bet satisfies pockets covered times payout plus one equals 36. The five number bet gives 5 times 7, which is 35, and that missing unit raises the edge to 7.89%.
This page is an arithmetic tool, not gambling advice or encouragement. Gambling is age-restricted and regulated, the house edge means the expected result of playing is a loss, and roulette is not a way to make money. If gambling is causing harm to you or someone else, the National Council on Problem Gambling runs a confidential helpline at ncpgambling.org on 1-800-MY-RESET, and equivalent services exist in most countries.
