American Roulette vs. European Roulette: Who has the edge?
Roulette became very popular in the world during the later part of the nineteenth century. There are generally five version of the game and the more famous one includes the European and the American one. It is basically a casino game.

Similar Concepts in the Game
In both the European and American version, the croupier troughs a small ball on a spinning wheel from the opposite direction in which it is rotating. The players have to make a bet that the ball will strike the wheel pockets which are colored in and marked as different numbers. The numbers range from 1 - 37 in the European format and 1 - 38 in the American one.

The residents of America can never find a European roulette wheel in their country. As the government of United States of America has imposed certain restriction on gambling and online casinos giving scope for European roulette, Americans are finding opportunity to play it from their country.

Basic Difference between the two versions
There are some of the basic differences in the two versions of the roulette games:

American Version
In American roulette, the table has a numbered board laid out in the grids. These numbers in the grid are laid on the board ranging from 1 to 36, 0 and double 0. Apart from these on the sides of the board you can you are free to make some additional bets such as red or black, even or odd, 1 to 18 versus 19 to 36, first twelve numbers and the second twelve numbers, the third twelve numbers and the first 12 numbers, second twelve numbers and third twelve numbers. You can earn money by betting the number of chips on a single number.

Once you decide and place the bet, the croupier rotates the roulette wheel and then spins the ball and declares that no more bets can be made. After the announcement is made by the croupier, the additional chips cannot be placed by anyone. If the wheel stops rotating and the ball finally come to rest on the numbered slots in the wheel, the bets are being decided and finally the winning sum is paid off.

European version
In the European version of the roulette game also recognized as the French roulette, there are two basic differences from the American one. The biggest difference here is that the side bets that are made on the board are usually labelled in the French language (sometimes English as well). The second difference in the European roulette is that the spinning wheels has just one single zero and is without double zero. This means that for a single bet of 36 to 1 you are being paid 35 to 1 and not 37 to 1.
The additional zero in the American version makes a significant difference in the payment. Here, the house edge is double then what it is in the European roulette version.

Hence, the comparison clearly shows that which version of the roulette is better to play. As the players always want to minimize their house edge, European version has an edge over their American counterpart. However, being successful in both the games depends heavily on your luck and instincts with which you are playing them.