Spin the Wheel Games Explained: Roulette, Prize Wheels and What Each One Pays

Search spin the wheel and you’ll land on two very different kinds of game: a roulette table, where the wheel decides every bet on the layout, and a prize wheel, where a single spin hands out one promotional reward. Both are wheels, both involve spinning, and mixing them up is an easy mistake to make. Here’s what each one actually is, how a spin gets decided, and what it pays.

The Roulette Wheel

On a roulette table, spinning the wheel is the whole game. A dealer or the software spins it one way and rolls a ball the other; wherever that ball lands decides every bet placed on the layout at once — inside numbers, outside groups, everything settles against the same single result. The odds on that spin are fixed by the wheel itself and don’t shift based on anything that happened on a previous spin. Our roulette page covers exactly how a round runs from the betting window through to payout.

The Prize Wheel

Away from the table, a prize wheel is a promotional mechanic: one wheel, unlocked after a qualifying deposit or a play milestone, that pays a single prize per spin — commonly a batch of free spins, a bonus credit, or a cashback percentage. The segments on the wheel are shown before you spin, so the range of possible outcomes is known going in, even though the specific result isn’t. It’s a completely separate system from table roulette, run on its own trigger and its own schedule.

What Each One Actually Pays

A roulette table pays according to fixed, published odds: 35 to 1 on a straight-up number, 17 to 1 on a split, down to even money on red/black or odd/even, with the house edge built in at 2.70% on a single-zero wheel or 5.26% on a double-zero one. A prize wheel pays whatever prize it lands on, and that prize carries its own separate terms — a bonus credit typically comes with a wagering requirement, stated as a multiplier and a deadline, before any winnings from it become withdrawable. Free spins won from a prize wheel behave like any other free spins: a win from them posts as bonus funds with its own wagering requirement attached, not straight cash.

Fixed Odds vs Promotional Odds

The distinction that matters most: table roulette odds are fixed, published, and identical every time you sit down, regardless of promotions running elsewhere on the site. Prize wheel odds are set by whatever promotion is currently live, can change between promotions, and apply to exactly one spin per qualifying trigger — they’re not something you can grind for a better outcome by playing more roulette.

Which One You’re Looking For

If you want the table game with fixed, math-based odds you can actually study — our wheel variants page has the real numbers for European, American and French wheels — that’s roulette, covered in full on our roulette hub. If you’re after the promotional prize wheel, check the current promotions page for eligibility and the segments on offer; the two never overlap, and clearing up which one you actually mean is the first step to finding it.

One Rule Applies to Both

Whichever wheel you’re spinning, the terms are shown before you commit: a roulette table’s odds are posted on the layout itself, and a prize wheel’s segments — plus any wagering condition on what you land — are shown before you spin, not after. Reading either before you play is the one habit worth carrying between the two.