What are some of the key considerations you look at when deciding whether to play a slot or not? For many people, the RTP and Volatility of a slot will go a long way towards deciding whether it is a game they’ll play some spins on, or whether they will leave that slot well alone.
RTP and Volatility are crucial in deciding whether to play a slot and understanding the game’s mechanics. Therefore, it is vitally important to understand what these two terms mean, how they are linked, and what they do not mean.
So, if you are loading up bet365 Games and looking for a slot that has a 95% RTP and is low volatility, what does that mean in terms of your game? How does that slot compare to a 97% RTP slot with medium volatility or a 93% RTP progressive jackpot slot with high volatility?
We hope that by the end of this post, you’ll clearly understand what RTP and Volatility mean in terms of the next slot you will play and use this knowledge to inform your slot gaming choices moving forward.
Top Tip! – You can check out a bit more about what RTP means and why it is vital in slots in general by reading our article on RTP in slots.
Always remember to gamble responsibly.
Check out bet365’s Safer Gambling page for more details.
Key Definitions – RTP and Volatility
Before we progress to the relationship between RTP and Volatility, let’s first define what each of these terms means and how the data for each is represented in terms of slot gaming.
RTP
RTP is an abbreviation of the phrase “Return To Player”. It is usually stated as a percentage and that percentage is often between 91% and 98%, with a few exceptions at either end of that range.
That is simple enough to understand, but what does the percentage mean in terms of “Return to Player”?
The percentage quoted for the RTP of a slot game is an estimate, based on the game mechanics and probability, of how much of the money taken in by a slot in wagers, will be paid out back to players over the lifetime of the slot.
It is this last part of the definition in bold that is important to remember, as it is often the source of a lot of confusion for some slot players, particularly beginners.
If a slot is stated as being a 95% RTP slot, then this means that over the slot’s lifetime, around 95% of the money taken from the slot will be paid out back to customers in winnings.
However, this does not mean that every session played on the slot will see 95% of what a customer wagers paid back to them.
The RTP percentage is based upon many millions, sometimes billions of spins. Therefore, a session of 100 spins, or even 1,000 spins is not likely to see a player win back 95% of what they spend. Within that small amount of spins, the potential variability in what a player can win is huge.
For example, one player may play 100 spins and win back just 30% of what they spend. However, another luckier player may play 100 spins and win back five times what they spend because they land one of the bigger prizes playing the slot.
Understanding what RTP means and what that percentage applies to, is key to having realistic expectations when playing any slot game.
Key Things to Remember about RTP
- It stands for Return to Player.
- It is expressed as a percentage, usually between 91% and 98%
- It refers to the percentage of total revenue expected to be paid out to players in winnings over the lifetime of the slot, not for an individual session.
What you will notice however is that the RTP may estimate how much of its takings it will pay out over the lifetime of the slot, but it does not explain exactly how those winnings are likely to be paid out.
For that, we need to understand what the slots volatility is.
Volatility
A slot’s volatility (sometimes known as variance) is a statement which gives players an understanding of how a particular slot game tends to pay out its winnings.
By that, we mean whether the slot pays out its winning in lots of small wins for players and very few high-value wins or if the slot game tends to pay out fewer low-value wins, but wins are more likely to be of a higher value.
A slot can be set up to pay out its winnings in a wide variety of ways and how a slot pays out is identified by its volatility. Volatility is represented by a statement which explains how the slot tends to pay out.
- Low Volatility/Variance – A slot tends to pay out more lower-value wins, and fewer mid-to-high value wins.
- Medium Volatility/Variance – A slot pays out a balance of some lower-value wins, mid-value wins and high-value wins.
- High Volatility/Variance – A slot pays out relatively few lower-value wins, but when a win is triggered it has more chance of being a medium or high-value win.
What should be noted here is that even on high-volatility slot games, the majority of wins will still be lower value wins. There just tends to be fewer of them compared to a medium or low volatility slot. But the chances of hitting a higher-value win are better than on the low or medium volatility slots.
Key Things to Remember about Volatility
- It can also be called variance.
- It indicates how a slot tends to pay out its winnings. Standard terms used are low, medium and high volatility.
- Low Volatility usually means a more significant number of lower-value wins.
- High Volatility means fewer low-value wins and a better chance of a medium or high-value win when a winning spin is landed.
- Volatility is a continuum, and slots can also be very low volatility and very high volatility.
The Relationship Between RTP and Volatility.
As both RTP and Volatility relate to payouts on a slot game, it is clear that they have a relationship.
While RTP refers to the estimate of what percentage of cash the slot takes in will be paid out by the game over its lifetime, Volatility refers to the ways in which those winnings tend to be paid out.
That means two slot games with the same RTP percentage can play very differently if they have different Volatility.
For example, a slot game with 95% RTP and is low volatility will tend to pay out it’s winners with smaller value, more regular wins and relatively fewer high-value wins.
However, a 95% RTP slot with high volatility will likely pay out its winners with fewer low-value wins, and more mid and high-value wins.
A Theoretical Example of the Relationship between RTP and Volatility.
For example, if a 95% RTP low volatility slot paid out £9.5 million over its lifetime, then £8m of that may be in lower value wins, £1m in medium value wins and just £500,000 in high value wins.
But for a 95% RTP high volatility slot, if it also paid out £9.5 million over its lifetime, then £5m may be in lower value wins, £2.5m in medium value wins and £2m in high value wins.
You can see that in the low volatility slot, it has £8m worth of low payout wins, therefore, low-value wins must happen more often on that slot. Medium and high-value wins only account for £1.5m, so they will be considerably rare on this game.
In contrast, the high volatility slot has £3m more (£4.5m in total) in medium and high-value wins to payout on its game, so there will be more of those wins on this slot. However, because they pay out more, fewer wins are needed to fully pay out the £4.5m in total winnings
Gameplay and RTP and Volatility
As you can see, the RTP and Volatility of a slot will determine how the game tends to play. Whether it will be a game that offers more frequent lower-value wins (and much rarer high-value wins) or whether there will be significantly fewer lower-value wins, but a better chance of mid or high-value wins when you do land a winning spin.
As such, with low volatility slots, your bankroll tends to be more stable, as the game offers regular low-value wins with rare medium and high-value wins.
High volatility slots see more volatility with your bankroll. Ostensibly because you can go many spins without winning, but a single win could see you hit a considerable value cash prize and earn much more than you wager.
The Real World Dichotomy of RTP and Volatility
So now you should understand what RTP and Volatility are, how they are represented in terms of data, and what that means for how your slot plays and pays.
However, the final thing to understand is that RTP and Volatility are values based on the lifetime of a slot game. While they are important, the chances are that your slots session will be wholly unrepresentative of the stated RTP and may also be more or less volatile than you expected.
The stated values for RTP and Volatility are based over billions of test spins. As such, a run of 100 spins, for example, would likely not be representative of the slot game over its lifetime. After all, you could play 100 spins on a low-variance slot and win a big jackpot, or play 100 spins on a high-variance slot and win nothing but a few low-value cash prizes.
The strange dichotomy of RTP and Volatility is that while you should know about them, and what they mean and how they apply to slots, you are not likely to see them affect your session. That’s because the sheer number of spins you play on a game is not a big enough sample for them to be permanently evident in any session.
However, it is that uncertainty of slot gaming that also makes it so appealing!
Always remember to gamble responsibly.
Check out bet365’s Safer Gambling page for more details.
