Which online slots pay out the best?

It is one of the biggest questions that every slot gamer has asked themselves at one time or another; which type of slot games are the ones that are going to give me the best pays?

It seems at first to be a simple question, after all, we all like to win some money when we are playing slots and of course, the more you can win and the more often you can win, then the happier players are going to be!

However, in actual fact, the way that slot games are made up nowadays makes this a much more complicated question to answer than it first appears and there are a number of reasons for this. Not least because of the different types of slot now available to play online nowadays, but in addition to this, you also need to consider how each slot game is structured and how it pays out its prizes.

Another thing to consider is what we actually mean by 'the best'. Do we mean a slot that pays out the largest possible jackpot prizes, one that pays prizes most frequently? Do we prefer a slot that has a big jackpot hit once every so often, or a slot that has a much smaller jackpot prize, but which is won considerably more often?

In this article, we will answer all these questions in due course but to begin, let's assume that what we mean by online slots that pay the best, meaning those slots that pay the largest amount of money and the good news is that there is a very simple answer to this question.

What online slots pay the largest jackpot prizes?

The answer to this is quite simple and that is that progressive jackpot games such as the Mega Moolah slot, Mega Vault Millionaire slot, Atlantean Treasures slot and the new Wheel of Wishes slot are the types of slots that are most likely to offer the biggest jackpot prizes.

Why is that? Well the first and perhaps most important thing to note is that these games come with a huge amount of money placed in their largest jackpot prize pool. On the Mega Moolah, Mega Vault Millionaire and Atlantean Treasures slot, which all pay into the same prize pool, that largest jackpot, the Mega jackpot prize, is seeded at 1 million.

However, on the new Wheel of Wishes slot, its largest jackpot prize, the Wowpot! is seeded at an even greater amount of 2 million, while its Major jackpot is seeded at 50,000 (in contrast, the Major Jackpot on the other slots is seeded at 10,000).

So, these progressive jackpot games come seeded at an amount of money that is already life-changing for the vast majority of slot players. However, it is the nature of these games that these prizes can still grow far in advance of the seed amount.

As progressive jackpot games, a small proportion of every single cash spin on the game is added to the progressive jackpot fund. That is every spin, at every casino, every where in the world adds a little more to the progressive fund. Over time, this means that these progressive funds can increase massively from their seeded amount, especially if a few weeks or months passes in between triggers of the jackpot.

While Wheel of Wishes is a new slot and there is no substantive record of historical wins available for this slot as yet, we can take a look at how the Mega Moolah top progressive jackpot has paid out over the years and there are times when the jackpot has reached over 10 million, a few times it has climbed to over 15 million and on one occasion we have seen an incredible 20 million jackpot prize paid out.

Of course, not all progressive jackpot games offer such large jackpot prizes. Just a small number (including those listed above) have seed amounts around the million mark. Some other progressives, such as Major Millions, can see its progressive jackpot climb to over the million mark from time to time too.

Are there any standard slots that offer non-progressive prizes that are comparable to the amounts available in progressives? The answer to that is that there are, but you tend to need to bet more money per spin in order to achieve wins anywhere near approaching the amounts you can win for far less per bet on a progressive.

For example, on all the Mega Moolah family of games, you can win the progressive jackpot on a spin worth 0.25. On Wheel of Wishes, you can even land the jackpot on a spin costing 0.10. However, on a standard slot that offers a high value jackpot such as Thunderstruck II, Immortal Romance or similar, you need to bet a much larger amount to win significant amounts and in truth, those amounts seldom get close to the cash you can win on progressive jackpot games.

The reason for this is that jackpot prizes in these games are displayed in 'coins' not currency. So the 3 million-plus jackpot on Immortal Romance for example is 3 million coins. In the game a coin value can be set by the player and can be worth as little as 0.01p, which means 3 million x 0.01p. That equates to £30,000, a nice amount, but not nearly as much as you would get if you landed the top prize on a big progressive jackpot slot.

So now we know what slots to target if we mean 'best' to mean the largest amount of money possible, but if we mean 'best' to be regular wins and the chance to actually make a profit on a game over a session, then that is an entirely different question which requires a very different answer.

What online slots pay the most regular prizes?

If by 'best' you mean a slot game that pays out frequently, then this is a very different way to look at the games. Instead of focusing solely on the value of the top pay outs on a slot game, what you have to consider here is the variance (or volatility) of an individual slot game.

In the slot industry, high variance or high volatility slots are games that tend to pay out less often, but also tend to pay out larger amounts when they are landed. Low volatility or low variance games pay out more frequently, but tend to pay out smaller value wins.

Volatility or variance can be viewed as a continuum in the slot industry. A game can fall anywhere along the line between extremely low variance (where you can win small amounts on most spins), to very high variance (where wins are few and far between, but when you win, you tend to stand a better chance of a bigger value win).

In the previous section, progressive jackpot games tend to be towards the higher variance end of the spectrum, but If you want to play a game that offers more regular pay outs, then you need to look towards the other end of that continuum.

Lower variance games are popular with lower stakes players in particular, who like to have money added to their bankroll as they play. There are a wide number of these types of games to choose from at most online casinos. Some examples of good Low Variance slot games from Microgaming include Castle Builder, Lara Croft Tomb Raider, Terminator 2 and Battlestar Galactica.

So depending on what you feel is the 'best' type of slot, these two options will either give you the chance of more regular lower value wins, or a chance at a life-changing jackpot win that could be worth millions.