European Roulette Rules

There are additional optional rules that some casinos and houses play. Both the La Partage and the En Prison roulette rules effectively halve the casino edge on even-money bets. If playing at home, decide at the start which, if any of the following rules you would like to play.

‘En Prison’ Rule

This is a roulette rule that can be applied to even-money bets only. When a zero turns up, the player then has two options:

 
• Reclaim half the bet and lose the other half.
 
• Leave the bet (en prison = in prison) for the next spin of the roulette wheel for an all or nothing gamble. If the subsequent spin is again zero, or does not match the imprisoned bet, then the whole bet is lost. Otherwise, if the subsequent spin’s outcome matches the bet, the player’s money is then returned.

‘La Partage’ Rule

The la partage roulette rule is similar to the en prison rule, only in this case the player has no option when a zero turns up and simply loses half the bet.

Maximum and Minimum stakes

Casinos will normally post a maxi and a min stake for a roulette table and this is sometimes done for recreational play, too. Typically, for each spin of the wheel, if a player the total amount of a player’s inside bets must exceed the minimum stake. The listed max stake usually shows only the max allowed for a single number "straight up" bet. The max stakes for other types of bet increases proportionately e.g. The max bet allowed for a pair of numbers is double the max straight-up bet, the max allowed for a corner bet is 4 times the straight up max and so on. So that really the limitation is on the amount that the casino can lose!