As a slot player, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to walk up to a machine, see what it’s set to pay back over time, and be able to compare it with other machines within the same casino, or between casinos?
In the physical world this isn’t possible. Games in the United States aren’t required, and generally don’t, state their payback percentages. In the rare cases that it is displayed somewhere, it’s often a marketing effort to get players to play less played and/or older machines within the casino.
Fortunately, things are a little bit different in the realm of online casinos. Deep in the pay table information of most games available online is a stat labeled RTP, which means Return to Player. This is the expected long-term payback of a game.
Long term payback doesn’t mean a single session, day or even month, but across millions of spins over time. The wide arrange of short term outcomes is how one player can win a jackpot and another lose their butts on the same game. That’s part of what makes a slot a slot, after all.
But the importance here is the ability to be able to check this information. Usually it’s found on the last page or pages of the pay table information, or at the bottom if you have to scroll, but it’s generally found in there. You can pull up different games to see the RTP within a casino, as well as compare the same game between casinos.
In this way you have a bit more information at your disposal that you can decide what to play, and whether you’re comfortable with the house advantage a given game offers. And it can range wildly. In just a quick check of various slots options, we saw as high as 96.6% and as low as 92.5%. Both of those were on the same game, Wheel of Fortune On Tour, a game that requires you to play to level up the game and improve its payouts (a detail that can also help you decide if it’s a game you want to invest and build up over time).
Here’s another Wheel of Fortune Game, Triple Extreme Spin, as featured on two different casino sites. Notice how one pays about 2 percent better over time than the other. And we saw an instance of this game higher in previous checks.
The difference between 92 and 96 percent can mean your money will last half as long, on average, over time. So doing a bit of homework is not the worst idea if you want to maximize your play time and opportunities!
