Report No. 186

Double Zero Roulette Wheel: Pocket Order, Payouts and Rules

New Jersey's code puts 00 between 1 and 27 on a 38-pocket wheel. How that pocket shapes each payout, the 6 to 1 five-number bet and even-money losses.

Filed by The SonicBet DeskOct. 16, 20265 min read

A wooden American roulette wheel with the green 0 and 00 pockets and a white ball, with stacks of chips behind it.

Photo: Derek Lynn on Unsplash

The brief

A roulette wheel double zero layout is the American wheel: 38 equally spaced compartments under New Jersey rules, with 0 and 00 in green and the numbers 1 to 36 alternating red and black. The verdict is short. The 00 pocket adds a second losing pocket for nearly every bet while the minimum straight payout stays at 35 to 1, and the one wager built around it, the first five numbers, pays less than buying the same five numbers one at a time.

The rules below come from the published regulations of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, as of October 2026.

Section 01 of 07

How the double zero roulette wheel compares with a single zero wheel

The two wheels differ by one pocket and one color rule. A double zero wheel has 38 pockets with two greens, while a single zero wheel has 37 compartments with only the 0 in green.

Feature	Double zero wheel	Single zero wheel
Pockets	38	37
Green pockets	0 and 00	0
Clockwise order starts	0, 28, 9	0, 32, 15
Where 00 sits	Between 1 and 27	Not present

Section 02 of 07

Where double zero sits in the pocket order

In New Jersey, 00 sits between 1 and 27, directly across the wheel from the 0. Unless the Division of Gaming Enforcement approves a different arrangement, the code prints the full clockwise order: 0, 28, 9, 26, 30, 11, 7, 20, 32, 17, 5, 22, 34, 15, 3, 24, 36, 13, 1, 00, 27, 10, 25, 29, 12, 8, 19, 31, 18, 6, 21, 33, 16, 4, 23, 35, 14 and 2.

Massachusetts does not write its own sequence. Its rule describes the same 38-compartment double zero wheel in the same order unless its Bureau approves otherwise, and it also sets a wheel of at least 30 inches in diameter. Wheel position matters for one optional bet: New Jersey lets a casino offer five straight wagers on adjacent pockets, so the neighbors of 00 on the wheel (13, 1, 27 and 10) are the numbers that bet would cover alongside it.

Section 03 of 07

What double zero in roulette does to each bet

Payouts are set as minimums per bet, and none of them grows to account for the second green pocket. The table uses New Jersey's paytable, with Pennsylvania's figure for the six numbers bet, which sits in Pennsylvania's minimum payout table.

Bet	Numbers covered	Minimum payout
Straight	1	35 to 1
Split	2	17 to 1
First five numbers (0, 00, 1, 2, 3)	5	6 to 1
Six numbers	6	5 to 1

The first five numbers bet is the clearest cost of the extra pocket. New Jersey defines the first five wager as a bet on any one of 0, 00, 1, 2 or 3, and both New Jersey and Pennsylvania set it at First Five Numbers paying 6 to 1. Compare it with five separate one-unit straight bets on those same numbers: one wins 35 units and four lose, for a net of 31 units on 5 staked, while the first five bet with 5 units at 6 to 1 returns 30 units. Same numbers, one unit less.

The 00 also creates bets that a single zero layout does not have. On a double zero layout, a three-numbers wager can cover 0, 2 and 00, or 00, 2 and 3.

Section 04 of 07

Double zero roulette rules for red, black and other even-money bets

What happens to an even-money bet on a green pocket depends on the state, and in New Jersey on the table. When the ball lands on 0 or 00 in New Jersey, the casino chooses half loss or full loss on red, black, odd, even, 1 to 18 and 19 to 36. Pennsylvania leaves no choice: those wagers are lost outright on 0 or 00.

A table's posted rules therefore change the real cost of outside bets on the same wheel. A half-loss table returns half the stake on every green result, a full-loss table returns nothing.

One more case. A casino can run a double zero wheel as a single zero game, and in New Jersey a ball that settles in 00 on that table is declared void and respun.

Section 05 of 07

Common questions

What number on roulette pays the most?

No single number pays more than another. A straight bet on any one pocket, 00 included, pays at least 35 to 1, the highest payout on the layout.

What are the odds of hitting red on a roulette wheel?

On a double zero wheel, red covers 18 of the 38 pockets: half of the numbers 1 to 36. Both green pockets lose a red bet, in full or in half depending on the state and table rules.

What is the smartest bet in roulette?

No bet removes the green pockets from the math. On a double zero table, the first five numbers bet pays less than the same five numbers played straight, and a New Jersey table that takes only half of even-money bets on 0 or 00 costs less on those bets than one that takes them all.

What are the basic rules of roulette?

Players bet on the compartment where the ball will come to rest, on a single number or a group, and winning bets are paid at no less than the state's posted paytable.