La Partage and En Prison: Roulette's Hidden Edge-Cutters
Most players who compare American and European roulette stop at the wheel layout — one extra green pocket, roughly double the house edge, end of comparison. But there's a second, quieter rule that can cut a European wheel's already-lower edge in half again, and it only applies to a specific slice of bets. It's called la partage, or its close cousin en prison, and whether a table offers it is one of the few genuinely material differences between two tables that otherwise look identical.
In this guide
The baseline: what happens on a normal European wheel
A single-zero European wheel carries a house edge of about 2.70% across the board, on every bet type, because the single green zero is the only pocket that doesn't pay any of the standard inside or outside bets. That's already half the edge of a double-zero American wheel, which sits around 5.26% because it has two non-paying pockets instead of one — a difference we cover in more depth in our roulette basics guide. But 2.70% is only the baseline. On a table that offers la partage or en prison, one specific category of bet gets meaningfully cheaper than that baseline, while every other bet on the layout stays exactly where it was.
What happens to an even-money bet when zero hits
Even-money bets — red/black, odd/even, high/low (1-18 or 19-36) — pay out 1:1 whenever the ball lands on a matching number. On a standard wheel with no special rule, a zero is treated the same as any other losing result for these bets: the house simply keeps the entire stake, exactly as it would if you'd bet red and black came up. That's where all of a roulette table's edge comes from on these bets, since zero is the one outcome where neither red nor black, neither odd nor even, technically wins.
La partage: giving half the bet back
La partage — French for "the sharing" — is a rule some European and nearly all French roulette tables apply specifically to even-money bets. When the ball lands on zero, instead of the house keeping the full stake, the bet is split: half returns to the player, and half goes to the house. A $20 bet on red that loses to a zero under la partage costs you $10, not $20. Every other outcome resolves exactly as it normally would — la partage only ever activates on that one specific result, and only for even-money bets.
En prison: leaving the bet "imprisoned" for one more spin
En prison — "in prison" — is a close relative found mostly on French-style tables, sometimes offered as an alternative to la partage and occasionally alongside it. Instead of splitting the bet immediately, a zero result "imprisons" the wager on the table for exactly one more spin. If that next spin lands on your original bet's side (red, if you'd bet red), the full stake is returned with no winnings — you simply get your money back. If the next spin lands on the opposite side, or on zero again, the bet is lost entirely. Mathematically, en prison and la partage work out to almost the same long-run cost to the player; en prison just spreads the outcome across two spins instead of resolving it immediately.
| La partage | En prison | |
|---|---|---|
| When it triggers | Ball lands on zero | Ball lands on zero |
| What happens to the bet | Immediately split: half back, half lost | Held for one more spin, resolves win/push/loss then |
| Applies to | Even-money bets only | Even-money bets only |
| Effective house edge on those bets | ~1.35% | ~1.35% (long-run equivalent) |
| Most common venue | Select European & French tables | French roulette, some European tables |
The math: how much these rules actually save you
Without la partage or en prison, an even-money bet on a single-zero wheel loses outright to the zero roughly 1 time in 37 spins, on top of the normal near-50/50 split the rest of the time — which is exactly where that 2.70% baseline edge comes from. Add la partage, and the cost of hitting zero drops from losing the full stake to losing only half of it. Run that through the same math and the house edge on that specific bet category falls to roughly 1.35% — half of the wheel's usual number, and one of the lowest edges available anywhere on a casino floor, table games included.
That discount is narrow by design. It only applies to bets that pay even money in the first place; a straight-up single-number bet, a corner bet, or a column bet gets no benefit from la partage or en prison at all, because those bets already treat a zero result as a normal loss with no special carve-out. If you're mixing inside and outside bets in the same session, only the outside, even-money portion of your action is getting the discount.
Where you'll actually find these rules
American double-zero tables essentially never offer either rule — it's a European and especially French-table tradition, and it doesn't tend to travel to wheels built around the American layout. Even among European-style tables, la partage and en prison aren't universal; a fair number of single-zero games, physical and online alike, simply pay even-money bets zero on a zero like any other bet, with no split or imprisonment option at all. The only reliable way to know is to check: physical tables sometimes post the rule on a placard at the layout, and online casino platforms list it in the individual game's rules or paytable screen, usually under a name like "La Partage," "En Prison," or occasionally bundled into a game simply branded "French Roulette." It's worth the thirty seconds it takes to check before you sit down, since two games that look identical on the felt can carry meaningfully different math underneath.
For the wider picture on how bet types and wheel layout interact, see our roulette basics guide, or compare roulette's numbers against other table games in our house edge overview.
Frequently asked questions
Do la partage and en prison apply to inside bets like a straight-up number?
No. Both rules apply exclusively to even-money outside bets — red/black, odd/even, and high/low. A straight-up number, split, street, corner, or column bet treats a zero result as a normal loss regardless of whether the table offers either rule.
Is en prison better than la partage, or vice versa?
They work out to essentially the same long-run cost to the player. La partage resolves the zero result immediately by returning half the stake; en prison holds the bet for one additional spin and returns the full stake on a push. Some players prefer la partage simply because it settles faster.
Can a table offer both la partage and en prison at the same time?
Some French-style tables do offer both, sometimes letting the player choose, though it's more common to see one or the other rather than both together. Check the specific table's posted rules or the online game's paytable to confirm.
Does la partage change the house edge on American double-zero roulette?
In practice, American tables essentially never offer la partage or en prison, so the question is mostly theoretical — but if a double-zero table did offer it, the discount would only apply relative to that wheel's higher baseline edge, not bring it down to European levels.