The concept of return-to-player (RTP) is an important one to get a handle on if you want to enjoy slot machines and not get stung.
There is a lot of confusion around what RTP really means, so to dispel common myths and bring you up to speed with the ins and outs of this aspect of slot design, let’s look at what’s actually going on behind the scenes.
Playing the percentages
RTP is usually expressed as a percentage, and this figure indicates how much of the money which a slot machine makes from players will be paid out in prizes.
It’s essentially a way of seeing exactly how much cash the game operator is creaming off the top, both to cover the costs of running the machine and to account for a slice of profit.
When people ask are slot machine odds fair or not, they often get misled into thinking that RTP means that this type of gambling is deliberately fixed to prevent payouts until certain conditions have been met, such as an amount of time passing or a number of coins being pumped in.
The reality is that gambling laws prevent slot machines from being fixed in this way. Sure, the odds of a jackpot being achieved are heavily stacked against the player, but regulators won’t stand for outright rigging.
Understanding odds
Another important distinction to make is that the RTP percentage offered by a machine doesn’t have anything to do with the odds of winning.
So even if a machine has an RTP of 97 per cent, meaning that the operator takes just a three percent slice of the game’s earnings, that could indicate that it has one very large, very hard-to-win jackpot.
Thus thousands of people could pour money into a machine, and so long as one hits a winning symbol combo and the jackpot is equivalent to 97 per cent of the game’s take that week, month or year, everything is above-board.
This is where averages enter the equation. Players don’t have a right to expect that if they put £1 into a game, they’ll receive 97p back if the RTP is 97%. Rather the payout just has to hit this over lots and lots of spins, regardless of who is playing.
Of course another way of looking at it is that the machine is essentially telling you how much money you will lose if you did nothing but put cash into it indefinitely.
Eventually you would come away with whatever RTP percentage is listed by the manufacturer, and the rest would remain with the operator. This applies even if you won jackpots.
The phrase ‘the house always wins’ exists for a reason; if it didn’t, then every casino on the planet would have to close its doors immediately.
Exploring wagering requirements
As a rule of thumb, regulators require that slots have an RTP of at least 75 percent. In most cases, because the casino market is so competitive, RTPs are set much more generously than this, in order to attract players.
The catch is that to enjoy the highest RTPs of 95 percent or more, you will need to accept that there will be a higher minimum wagering amount for each spin. You can find machines with lower wagering requirements, but these will come with a stingier RTP to temper this.
Once again it all comes down to reading the small print and recognising the risks you’re taking when playing slots. So long as you do all this, and stick to your budget, you can gamble responsibly and have fun without it becoming a drag.
Investigating variance
RTP percentages tell you the average payout proportion that a slot provides, but they don’t do much to suggest how regularly you are likely to actually win.
This is where variance is a useful aspect to consider. Variance is another vague-sounding term that actually has a straightforward meaning in a slot machine context.
High, medium and low variance games are out there, and this is essentially an indication of the frequency of wins and the size of jackpots.
High variance means wins are rare, but prizes are sizable. Low variance means wins are more common, but payout amounts are limited.
For players who just want to have a few spins on a casual basis and have a decent chance of winning, without that prize being life-changing, should choose low variance slots with as high of an RTP rate as possible.
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