What is the RTP of a slot game and why is the term often misunderstood?

Often when you will see a review of a slot game, the reviewer may well make a big deal about what the "RTP" is of a certain game. For example, on Mega Moolah slot games, the RTP is rated at between 92 and 96 percent for the different games in the network.

Quite often in reviews, you will often read a comment about what an RTP means in terms of the payouts a player will receive and some reviewers link RTP closely to the volatility of a slot game.

For example, if a slot has a high RTP, it will be a low variance game, whereas if it has a lower RTP, it will be a higher variance game offering.

Unfortunately, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the RTP percentage actually means and, more importantly, how it affects the game you are playing. In actual fact, the RTP of a slot can have absolutely no influence on whether it is a low, medium or highly volatile offering. You can (and do) get Highly volatile slots that offer a high RTP, while some lower volatility games will offer lower RTP.

Perhaps understandably given what we have mentioned above, there is a lot of confusion about what the RTP of a slot actually is, what it means in terms of the slot game you are playing and how it is linked, or not, to the volatility of a slot game.

In this article, we will seek to give you a definitive guide to the whole issue of what the RTP percentage is, what the percentage actually means in terms of the slot, what you can (and perhaps more importantly, cannot) infer from that and what you should really use RTP as a guide for when deciding whether to play a slot.

So, let's begin by clearly defining what RTP actually means and how it is calculated.

What does RTP mean?

The phrase RTP is an acronym that stands for "Return to Player". Essentially, it is recorded as a percentage and that percentage gives player a general idea of how much the slot game will pay out from the entire amount of money that it collects over millions of spins or more.

So, for example, if in testing a slot game played through a million spins at £1 per spin and at the end of those spins, the slot had paid out £950,000 in prizes back to the player, then this slot game would have a RTP percentage of 95.

One thing to note here is that the RTP of a slot is determined in the testing for the game and is influenced by the game design. It is not determined by real play in casinos. As such, in testing, while we have used the example of at least a million spins above, in testing, many more spins may be run to give a more accurate picture of what the slots actual RTP percentage is. The more spins you can test a slot with before its release, the more accurate the RTP percentage will be.

That all sounds pretty straightforward and it stands to reason that a slot offering a 96 percent RTP will pay more money to a player playing a game that has a 92 percent RTP. However, that is not always the case for reasons we will make clear below.

The RTP confusion

There are number of common misconceptions people have about what the RTP actually means and how it will manifest itself in their choice of game. We will look at the different types of incorrect assumptions people make based on RTP below.

1. A 96 percent RTP means that if I bet 100 on 1 spins, I should get around 96 back.

This is perhaps the most fundamental people make with the RTP percentage. They assume that because the stated RTP is 96 percent, that they will get back 96 percent of what they bet on the game. That is indubitably not the case.

All slot games, regardless of their RTP, have a built-in level of variance in their game play and this means that if you have 100 spins one day, you may win a large amount of money, maybe even more than you bet. However, on the same slot at another time, 100 spins may see you lose a large proportion of that money.

The RTP percentage is not a guide as to how much a slot will pay out each time you play. It is a guide of how much the slot will pay out over its lifetime. Within that period, there will be sessions where players win a lot more than the RTP amount, and where they win a lot less. That is true regardless of whether a slot is a higher or lower variance machine.

2. If I play a game with high RTP, I will win more than if I play a game with a lower RTP

The logic seems to follow right? Play a game that tends to give more back than another with lower RTP, then you will win more on that game. While that would be the case if you were going to play, say a million spins on the game, when you are dealing with tens, hundreds or even thousands of spins, the variability built into slot games means that you could win more on a lower RTP game than a higher RTP game.

This is where the variance of a slot and, perhaps more importantly, its hit rate come into the equation as it is not just the RTP of a slot that determines how much and how often you will land a win. Once again, the variations in built into slots mean that there is no guarantee you will win more playing a high RTP slot over a relatively small number of spins.

To be sure of earning more, you would need to play hundreds of thousands of spins, if not more and that just isn't practical for any slot player to do on their own.

3. Higher RTP means lower variance, whereas Lower RTP means higher variance

I've often read that RTP is an indicator of variance in reviews and I am afraid that this is not always the case. While there are higher variance slot that offer low RTP, and lower variance slots that offer a hjgh RTP, you can also find high variance slots that offer a high RTP and the vice versa for lower variance slots too.

The key thing to remember here is that RTP refers to how much the game will return to players over its lifetime as a stated amount. Variance describes how that amount will be paid to players and that can differ very much from game to game.

For example, on a progressive jackpot slot like Mega Moolah, you may find the game pays out around 5,100,000 to 1,000 players. 997 of them may win small amounts up to 10, but a couple may win significantly more, say 10,000 and one player may win the progressive jackpot prize of 5,000,000. You can see that how that slot pays out its money would be different to another game where the highest jackpot prize awarded is 5,000, but the 5,100,000 is paid out across many more customers.

In this crude example, you can see that the variance of the second slot is lower than the first as more players get paid a share of that 5.1 million paid out. Both slots would have similar RTP, but the variance would be very different for each.

4. Lower RTP games are just a way for casinos to rip off customers

One of the most common complaints I have seen from players is that it is not worth playing lower RTP slots as they just rip off players compared to high RTP slot games.

Of course, this doesn't take into account the variance of a slot, or the hit rate (how often, on average you land a win). It is entirely feasible that a lower RTP slot can offer a player better long-term value than a higher RTP game due to its hit rate and the volatility of the slot.

In addition, some slots that offer lower RTP. offer players a chance at some huge jackpot prizes that can literally make them a millionaire from a single spin. Those games are hugely popular with players and of course, lower RTP games may not be able to offer this.

So there you have all you need to know about the RTP percentage of slot games. It is an important part of the slot, but be careful you don't misinterpret what that data is telling you and remember playing a slot game will give you a much greater appreciation of what it has to offer, than simply measuring it's potential value to you in terms of RTP.