Understanding the difference between payback percentage (also known as the long term return to player or RTP) and house edge (sometimes known as hold) can sometimes confuse people, given they’re effectively two sides of a whole. Here’s a comment we recently received on an article on the topic:
The payback on slots is typically between 8% to 12%. In Australia it is around 7%.
Horatio M.
We replied they had it backwards, as the casino house edge is generally around 10 percent on slots, more or less, and the payback is 90 percent. They replied;
Well that’s what the Casinos want you to believe but I saw a documentary on the people who manufacture gaming machines and it’s actually that low. Australia has the worst gaming machines in the world in comparison to other countries.
The Casinos do set the odds but they are never set higher than a 12% return.
While I realise they state that the RTP must be no less than 82%. I still can’t forget what the (Aristocrat) employee said. After learning that it actually cured me of gambling machines.
Horatio M.
We can confirm you absolutely have this backwards. It’s not something casinos want us to believe, because the actual data out there affirms this. There’s so many jurisdictions with publicly reported data, including Nevada, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc. that confirm what we’re saying, and with the link above this data is accessible to anyone with a web browser.
Even further, regulations confirm slots in many jurisdictions can’t be set that low, and you would know if you were playing a slot with such a low payout – it’d be unplayable. One 50x bonus (50 times your bet) would take so many wagers to make up for it at that low payout that you’d never see them.
Aristocrat has a history of designing games that have a higher floor as well – their games tend to be tougher, and a tougher game combined with a lower payback percentage just becomes more difficult to play at a certain point. Slot makers design games people want to play, and there needs to be enough money in there for players to enjoy it.
So no, we’re sure the documentary conveyed the information in an accurate way. But we also are happy with your final note – if you think they’re not for you, not playing them is a good idea. This is especially so if you believe they’d be so stingy – they don’t need to be for them to be wildly profitable for the casinos.
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