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Full List of Roulette Terms

Roulette may not be the most complicated gambling game in the world, but those who play it have developed plenty of terms to describe different bets, parts of the wheel and other relevant details. If you are going to play roulette, you should understand some basic terms first, so here is a list of those you will need and explanations for each one of them:

  • Inside bets: A term used to describe all the bets that are made on the inner part of the roulette betting table such as straight bet or split bet.
  • Straight bet: A bet placed on a single number. This bet offers a return of 35:1 in the European version and is the highest return bet you can make.
  • Spilt bet: A bet made on two numbers by placing chips on the line separating them. Often also called “cheval”, which is the French term for the split bet.
  • Outside bets: A term used for all the bets that are placed on the outer parts of the betting table. This includes bets such as red/black and odd/even.
  • Zero game: A part of the roulette wheel around the zero number. Announcing this bet will let the dealer know you wish to bet the zero and the six numbers around it.
  • Voisons du zero: Refers to extended version of the zero game, which adds more numbers and has the player betting on 17 numbers closest to zero at once.
  • Orphelins: Another announced bet which includes 7 numbers which belong to neither of the two major series, making them “the orphans”.
  • Tiers du cylindre/Small series: A series of numbers opposite to the zero slot, which includes numbers such as 5, 8, 10 and 11 and is a common roulette announced bet.
  • American roulette: An extended version of the classic European roulette, American roulette adds another slot to the wheel in the form of the double zero.
  • French roulette: A version of the game in which players get to take advantage of two additional rules related to even money bets.
  • En prison: The first of the two French roulette rules, it allows the player to repeat his red/black or odd/even bet when the ball lands in zero.
  • La partage: The second special rule in French roulette, la partage allows the player to simply take back half of his even-money bet when the ball lands in the zero slot.
  • Martingale system: A progressive betting strategy that has the player doubling and repeating his bet until it lands, restarting the process after every hit.
  • Parlay bet: A common strategy among roulette players, the parlay bet refers to a doubled bet that is usually made after the ball hits one of the numbers the player was betting on.
  • House edge: The term used to describe the advantage that the house has over the players in roulette. In European roulette, the house edge stands at 2.7%, in American roulette at 5.4% and in French roulette, it can be as low as 1.35%.
  • Multi wheel roulette: An online roulette game in which the player bets on spins of multiple wheels at the same time.
  • Multiball roulette: An online roulette game in which two balls are used within the same wheel on every spin.