What Is RTP Rate and What Are the Real Chances of Winning In Online Slots?

Many online casino gamblers that start their gambling way to successful winnings obviously start with slot games, because slots are plenty and are pretty easy to play (and win!). However, many beginner gamblers quickly notice that not all slots are created equal, and besides choosing a game by its pretty design, it eventually comes down to paying attention to its tech specs and features, as well.

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Many online casinos with best payout rates have thousands of slot games in their lobbies, and going through each is impossible only to choose a couple of games for real money play. Therefore, the gamblers seeking well-paying slots should, first of all, learn what aspects influence their potential success, and how to choose a good game that pays well.

The very first aspect to assess when choosing slots is the RTP rate. It indicates how well the game pays, and can immediately give a better understanding of the math behind the beautiful design.

What Is RTP Rate and How It Works

If you look through the slot games in the these casinos or generally any reliable casino sites, you will see the RTP rate indication among other tech specs that characterize the game.

The RTP rate is Return To Player rate; it shows how much of the invested money the player can return by playing the game in the long term (in other words, by playing the game long enough). The RTP rate is indicated in percent; most games have from 85% to 95% RTP rates. The higher the rate, the better; if you invest $100 into the slot with an RTP rate of 93%, you can return $93 eventually, if you don’t hit any big wins. Quality bonus features or being lucky enough to hit a bigger win returns even more money to the player.

The RTP rate has math behind it, and it cannot vary from time to time. Some providers allow online casinos to decrease the initial RTP rate of the game slightly to increase the house edge, but this does not exceed 1-3%. For example, if the game initially has an RTP rate of 93%, an online casino may offer it on their platform with the RTP rate of 91%, but such cases are rare and very specific.

Another thing one needs to know about an RTP rate is that progressive jackpot slots, and regular slots that have a jackpot feature, often have much lower than average RTP rates, like 78%, compared to other games. This is the case because the goal and the main attraction of a progressive jackpot is to eventually hit a huge jackpot, not just get back the money invested into betting.

What Impacts the Chances of Winning?

Not many things really impact the chances of winning slots, because this is a game of chance, not a game of skill. The only skill needed is the skill to choose the games that pay better, and have a higher RTP rates, obviously. In other aspects, the player has to depend on their luck in order to win.

There are two other aspects that can help the player to choose the games more efficiently, and also to use the given tech specs more to their advantage. These aspects are, firstly, volatility, and secondly, in-game bonus features.

Volatility

Volatility indicates the ratio between the frequency of wins and the sum of the winnings. The higher the volatility, the higher the potential winnings per bet, but the number of winning bets will be smaller. The lower the volatility, the smaller the potential winnings per bet, but the frequency of the winning bets will be higher.

Volatility also partially depends on the number of paylines in the slot; as a rule, the more paylines the lower the volatility, and the other way round. However, this is not a 100% rule because some math models do not have this interdependence between the number of paylines and the level of volatility. Also, some software providers develop slots that allow the player to customize the level of volatility according to their budget.

What volatility level shows to the player immediately is whether a big budget is needed to enjoy the game. Low volatility allows enjoying the game longer even with a small budget because the player has a chance of covering their losing bets with small but frequent wins of the winning bets. However, for higher volatility slots, a bigger budget is recommended.

Bonus Features

This aspect is very simple. The more bonus features there are in the game, the more chances the player has of hitting more wins and possibly hitting bigger wins. Not all bonus features are created equal, but the rule of thumb is that they make the game better, and improve the players’ chances a lot.

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Holli Greaves: Meet Holly, our versatile freelance journalist and featuers writer who has a passion for dissecting the ever-evolving landscape of business and technology. Your guide to understanding the forces driving our digital age with insightful perspectives and in-depth storytelling.