How does RTP work

RTP stands for Return To Play and is in an indicator for how much a slot pays out on average, in percentage. A theoretic RTP is set on all slots but, and is usually around 95 or higher. So how does this work? Imagine betting 1 pound per bet on a slot machine, and the slot machine has an RTP of 96%. This means that on average, every 1 pound wagered will give you 96p back, putting you on an average loss of 4 % in the long run. The interesting thing about slots is the high volatility. As you might know, a bet of 1 pound almost never pays out 96 pence per spin.

This means that there will be a lot of spins paying out 0, and then there will be winning spins paying out much more. To put it in perspective, playing slots is like playing a scratch card. Sometimes you’ll get the wagered amount back, sometimes you’ll win nothing, and a smaller amount of the times, really big. Just buying 1 scratch card would not give you a proper sample size to determine the RTP. However, playing thousands of spins on a slot machine will give you a much better picture – but could still differ a lot from the theoretic RTP in the slot. Just one of those really big wins would set you far ahead and a few losing sessions would put it much lower.

How to calculate RTP

It’s quite easy to calculate RTP however doing so is dependent on you knowing how much you wagered. If you are to play 100 auto spins with £1 wagered on each, you will know that anything over 96£ on the account is a higher and better outcome than the average. Anything lower than 96£ on your account after these 100 spins will mean that you’ve been running worse than expected.

How to find out the expected RTP of a slot

The RTP of a slot is seldom listed on the actual slot or in the intro. You’ll have to go in to further detail, by reading the info tab on the slot. Here you’ll find basic information of the slot and almost always the RTP of the game. On NetEnt games for example, you simply click the “i” button within the slot to find it.

If you’re unable to find the slots RTP within the actual game, a quick google search will take care of it. Usually you’ll be taken to the slot creators’ web page or some fan site that will provide the information you seek.

Slots banned from wagering requirements

You might have stumbled upon this before – you want to play some of your favourite games while wagering a bonus, but you are not allowed to due to the bonus terms. This is usually because of high RTP % which would give you the chance to technically abuse the bonus model thanks to the high RTP rate. Since casinos does not like to be abused, they’ve decided to remove these games from play with bonus funds. A couple of classic example of that is Blood Suckers, and Kings of Chicago.