La Partage is the French roulette rule that gives back half of an even-money stake when the ball lands on zero. Under single-zero French roulette rules, that cuts the house edge on those bets from 2.7% before the rule to 1.4% after it, with both figures rounded.
The reason is small and exact. A single-zero wheel has 37 pockets. An even-money bet, such as red or black, covers 18 of them. Without a special zero rule, you win on 18 pockets and lose on 19, because zero is a loser. La Partage changes only that last pocket. Zero becomes a half loss, not a full loss.
The figures worth quoting are the figures you can check. The 1.4% number assumes a single-zero wheel, standard even-money bets, and La Partage applying only when zero lands. Change any of those rules and the edge changes with it. An edge quoted without its rules is wrong more often than right.
What does La Partage actually do to your bet on zero?
La Partage applies only after one event: you have made an even-money bet, and the ball lands on zero. Instead of losing the whole stake, you lose half. The other half is returned to you.
Take a £10 red bet. If the ball lands on a red number, you win £10 profit and keep your £10 stake. If it lands on black, you lose the £10 stake. If it lands on zero under La Partage, you lose £5 and get £5 back. The same treatment applies to the even-money outside bets: red or black, odd or even, 1 to 18 or 19 to 36.
The rule does not make zero favourable. Zero still costs you money. It just costs half as much on the bets the rule covers. That distinction matters, because the edge is not removed. It is reduced.
On a single-zero wheel there are 37 possible landing spots. An even-money bet covers 18 numbers and misses 18 opposite numbers, plus zero. Standard European-style single-zero roulette treats all 19 misses as full losses. That gives the casino an edge of 2.7% on those bets. La Partage turns the zero miss into a half loss, so the average loss is cut in half, to 1.4%.
The phrase la partage is French for sharing. In practice, the zero loss is shared between player and house. The house takes half the stake; the player keeps half.
Which French roulette rules does that figure assume?
- One zero only. The 1.4% figure assumes a single-zero wheel with 37 pockets: numbers 1 to 36 plus zero. It is not an American double-zero figure.
- Standard even-money coverage. The bet must cover 18 numbers and pay 1 to 1. Red, black, odd, even, 1 to 18, and 19 to 36 are the usual examples.
- La Partage applies on zero. When zero lands, the player loses half the stake and receives the other half back. There is no extra spin and no delayed settlement.
- Normal single-zero payouts apply elsewhere. Straight-up, split, street, corner, line, dozen, and column bets keep their usual payouts. The La Partage calculation does not change them.
- No double zero and no special payout changes. Add a double zero, alter payouts, or apply the rule to a different class of bets, and the stated house edge no longer follows.
- The percentage is rounded to one decimal. The exact expected loss is 1/74 of the stake. Stated as a percentage to one decimal, that is 1.4%.
Those assumptions are the whole point. “French roulette rules” can mean layout, wheel, call bets, table language, La Partage, the en prison rule, or some mixture of them. The house edge figure only belongs to the exact rule set above.
Why does La Partage cut the house edge to 1.4% on even-money bets?
Start with the wheel. A single-zero roulette wheel has 37 pockets. An even-money bet covers 18 winning pockets. The other 18 non-zero pockets lose, and zero is the extra pocket that gives the house its edge.
Without La Partage, a £1 red bet has this expectation: 18 results win £1, and 19 results lose £1. Add them up and you get 18 minus 19, which is minus £1 across 37 equally likely outcomes. That is an average loss of 1/37 of the stake, or 2.7%.
La Partage changes only the zero result. The 18 wins still win £1. The 18 opposite-colour results still lose £1. Zero now loses 50p, not £1. So the total is 18 minus 18 minus 0.5, which is minus £0.50 across 37 outcomes.
Minus £0.50 divided by 37 is minus 1/74 of the stake. As a percentage to one decimal, the expected loss is 1.4%. That is exactly half of the single-zero even-money edge before rounding, because the only remaining mathematical advantage is half of the zero pocket.
This is also why the rule is easy to overstate. La Partage does not improve your chance of winning the spin. Red still hits on 18 out of 37 pockets. It improves the result when the one special losing pocket appears. The probability is unchanged; the payout on zero is softened.
How is En Prison different, and why do people mix them up?
| Point | La Partage | En Prison |
|---|---|---|
| What happens on zero | Half the even-money stake is returned at once; the other half is lost. | The even-money stake is held for the next spin under the en prison rule. |
| How the bet is settled | The zero result is settled immediately, so the player knows the loss. | If the next spin wins, the original stake is usually returned with no profit; if it loses, the stake is lost. |
| Common house edge | 1.4% on even-money bets, assuming a single-zero wheel and standard La Partage. | Also commonly 1.4% on even-money bets under the usual one-spin version. |
| Where rules vary | Variation is mostly about whether the table offers the rule at all. | Variation matters more: some tables differ on repeated zeros or how long a stake remains imprisoned. |
| Why players confuse them | Both are French roulette rules that reduce the cost of zero on even-money bets. | Both trigger only on zero and often produce the same quoted edge, so casual explanations blur them. |
The practical difference is timing. La Partage gives a definite half-stake refund immediately. En Prison delays the decision. You are not choosing a better percentage in the usual version; you are choosing a different treatment of the zero result.
Because en prison details can vary by table, the safest habit is to read the displayed rule. If the rule does not say what happens after a second zero, do not assume. The evidence on historic and online usage is uneven, and many summaries flatten the differences.
Which bets benefit, and which ones do not?
La Partage benefits the even-money bets only. These are the wagers where a normal win pays 1 to 1 and the bet covers 18 of the 37 pockets on a single-zero wheel.
- Covered: red, black, odd, even, 1 to 18, and 19 to 36.
- Not covered: straight-up numbers, splits, streets, corners, six-lines, dozens, and columns.
- Result on covered bets: zero becomes a half loss, cutting the edge to 1.4% under the rule set used here.
- Result on uncovered bets: the ordinary single-zero house edge remains 2.7% with standard payouts.
- American Roulette comparison: a double-zero game with standard payouts has a 5.3% edge on the usual bets, because there are two house pockets rather than one.
Dozens and columns are a common trap in explanations. They look broad because they cover 12 numbers, but they are not even-money bets. They pay 2 to 1, and La Partage is not normally applied to them. The same goes for a straight-up number: zero is already just one of the available numbers, and the payout structure carries the edge.
If your aim is to play the lowest-edge roulette bet, the answer is narrow: use even-money bets on a single-zero French Roulette table with La Partage. If the table lacks La Partage or uses American double-zero rules, you are no longer looking at the same figure.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. In French Roulette at Veena Games, La Partage is part of the rule set, so you do not need to click a switch or claim anything after zero lands. If you have an even-money bet down, zero takes only half of that stake. Other bets still lose in the normal way.
£5 is returned to you, and £5 is lost. That is the whole point of La Partage: an even-money bet is shared when the ball lands on zero. Without the rule, the full £10 would be lost. With it, the damage from that one zero result is cut in half.
The common misconception is that La Partage turns zero into a helpful number. The correction is duller but more useful: zero is still bad for the player, just less bad on even-money bets. You do not win the spin. You recover half your stake, which is why the edge falls rather than disappears.
You put £10 on black, the wheel stops on 0, and £5 comes back to your balance. On another £10 black bet, a red number costs you the full £10. A black number pays £10 profit. La Partage changes only that zero result, which is rare but important because it is the casino's built-in advantage on a single-zero wheel.
It depends on your bet type: La Partage matters only if you place even-money bets such as red, black, odd, even, high or low. If you mainly play single numbers, splits or dozens, the rule will not improve those bets. For outside-bet players, a single-zero French table with La Partage is the best roulette price.
American Roulette is harsher because it has 38 pockets, including 0 and 00, and even-money bets lose on both. French Roulette has 37 pockets and La Partage gives back half your even-money stake on 0. That is the practical difference: fewer losing zero results, and a softer rule when the single zero appears.
The short rule: La Partage improves the price of an even-money bet, not the logic of a staking system. The exception is narrow: if your system uses only even-money bets, La Partage reduces the cost of zero compared with ordinary single-zero roulette. It still does not change losing streaks, table limits or the risk of running out of stake.
Most people compare the winning payout and stop there. Red still pays 1 to 1, black still pays 1 to 1, so La Partage looks invisible until zero lands. The value is in the losing column. One result out of 37 is made half as expensive for even-money bets, and that is enough to halve the edge on those bets.
An even-money bet is a bet that pays 1 to 1 when it wins. In roulette, that means red or black, odd or even, and low 1-18 or high 19-36. These bets cover 18 numbers each. They do not include columns, dozens, single numbers, splits, streets or corners.
Use the even-money bets: red, black, odd, even, low or high. Keep your stake size boring enough that a normal losing run does not force you to stop. Do not mix in inside bets and then credit La Partage for protecting the whole layout. It only softens the zero result on the qualifying outside bets.
Nobody knows precisely, because your session length and the order of spins are random. The best available figure before play is the wheel probability: zero is 1 pocket out of 37, so about 2.70% of spins. Each time it appears, La Partage returns half of an active even-money bet.
French casino vocabulary gave the rule its name: La Partage means “the sharing”. The exact early history of the rule is not well pinned down in ordinary player sources, and it is better not to pretend otherwise. The useful meaning is clear. When zero lands, the even-money stake is shared between player and house.
The cost is paying for protection you do not actually have. A £10 straight-up number bet still loses the full £10 on zero. So does a split, street, corner, dozen or column. If you build your expectations around the 1.35% even-money edge while playing other bets, your mental arithmetic is wrong from the first spin.
Final thoughts
The useful thing about La Partage is not that it makes roulette generous. It does not. The useful thing is that it makes the price of a simple roulette bet unusually clear. On the right table, the cost of choosing red, black, odd, even, low, or high is 1.4% of stake in the long run.
That is still a negative expectation. A £10 stake does not “cost” exactly 14p on the next spin, because one spin is lumpy: you win £10, lose £10, or lose £5 on zero. Expected value is the average after the wheel has had enough chances to show its full shape. It is a pricing tool, not a prediction of the next result.
If a friend asked what to do with this information, I would say this: stop treating all roulette tables as interchangeable. Single zero beats double zero. La Partage on even-money bets beats single zero without it. Inside bets may be more dramatic, but they do not receive this discount. Once you know that, the choice becomes honest. You can still play the bet you enjoy, but you are no longer mistaking a worse price for the same game.
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