No matter what you call them, payout percentages aren't hard to understand. They are simply the percentage of cash wagered that gets returned to players in the form of winnings. For example, if a machine is programmed to yield £94 for every £100 in bets, the payout percentage would be 94%. It's important to know that payouts aren't random.
Some people might want to know how to find the payout percentage on a slot machine. Sadly, it’s not something that’s printed on most games — at least not here in the United States.
This post is for them.
Understanding this topic involves some rudimentary understanding of probability as it relates to casino gambling. You’ll need to understand three separate concepts thoroughly:
But also keep in mind that the $25 slot machines had the highest payback (95.03%). As for the $100 slots only paying 93.21%, this can be chalked up to a smaller sample size. Only a small percentage of gamblers can actually afford to bet $100 per spin. This means that the $100 slot machines’ statistics will be more volatile than other. Slot machines don’t become due for a win when they haven’t paid out in a long while, and they also don’t become hot and start paying out more. Every spin is like a single coin toss or a single roll of the dice—the outcome is independent of all the outcomes prior to it. The location of the slot machine in the casino matters.
- Payback percentage
- House edge
- Return to player
This post explains each of those in enough detail that even a beginner should understand what they mean.
Some Basic Facts Related to Probability, the House Edge, Payback Percentage, and Return to Player
Probability is the branch of mathematics that deals with how likely an event is to happen. If you want to measure how likely you are to win a jackpot on a slot machine, probability is the way to figure that out.
But the word also refers directly to that likelihood.
In other words, if I say the probability of getting heads when I flip a coin is 50%, I’m not talking about that branch of mathematics. I’m talking about the actual statistical likelihood of that event.
You should understand a few things about probability in general.
Probability is always a number between 0 and 1. An event with a probability of 0 will never happen, and an event with a probability of 1 will always happen. The closer to 1 the probability is, the more likely the event is to happen.
Probability can be expressed multiple ways. It can be expressed as a fraction, a decimal, a percentage, or as odds. The probability of getting heads on a coin flip can be expressed as 1/2, 0.5, 50%, or 1 to 1.
An event’s probability is the number of ways it can happen divided by the total number of possible outcomes. When you’re discussing a coin toss, you have two possible outcomes. Only one of those is heads. That makes the probability 1/2.
The probability that an event will occur added to the probability that an event won’t occur always equals 1. Therefore, if you know the probability that something will happen, you also automatically know the probability that it won’t happen, and vice versa.
The house edge is a statistical measure of how much the house expects to win (on average, over the long run) from every bet you make on a game. The house edge is a theoretical number that accounts for the probability of winning versus the probability of losing AND the payout if you win.
All casino games carry a house edge. In the short run, it doesn’t matter much, but in the long run, it’s the most important thing.
If I say a game has a house edge of 4%, this means that over time, you should average a loss of $4 for every $100 you bet on the game. This is a long run statistical average, though. In the short run, you’re unlikely to see results that mirror the house edge.
The return to player and the payback percentage are the same thing. Some writers use one to refer to the statistical expectation and the other to refer to the actual results, but most writers use these terms interchangeably.
The payback percentage added to the house edge always equals 100%. The payback percentage is the amount of each bet that you get back, and the house edge is the amount of each bet that the casino wins. Again, these numbers are on average over the long run.
A game with a 4% house edge has a 96% payback percentage.
In the United States, slot machine payback percentages are impossible to calculate and not posted on gambling machines. To calculate the house edge or the payback percentage for a casino game, you need two pieces of data:
- The probability of winning
- The amount of money you’ll win (the payoff)
Slot machines include their payouts on their pay tables, but they don’t include the probability of achieving any of the winning outcomes.
In some countries, the payback percentage is posted on the machines, but not in the United States.
To make things even worse for a slot machine player, the random number generator program can be set differently even if the slot machine is identical to the one next to it. You could be playing The Big Lebowski slots at Choctaw Casino in Durant, Oklahoma, and your buddy could be playing the identical machine right next to you.
The payback percentage on his machine might be 94%, and the payback percentage on your machine might only be 88%.
The difference comes from how the probabilities are weighted for each symbol. On one game, the bars might show up 1/4 of the time, but on the next, they might only come up 1/8 of the time.
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This has an obvious effect on the payback percentage.
The payback percentage would be easy to calculate if you knew the probabilities. The payback percentage is just the total expected value of all the possible outcomes on the machine.
Let’s assume you have 1000 possible reel combinations. Let’s also assume that if you got each of those in order, from 1 to 1000, you’d win 900 coins.
The payback percentage for that game would be 90%.
You’d put 1000 coins in, and you’d have 900 coins left after a statistically perfect sampling of 1000 spins.
If you knew the payback percentage and house edge for a slot machine game, you could predict your theoretical cost of playing that game per hour in the long run. You’d only need to multiply the numbers of bets you made per hour by the size of those bets. Then you’d multiply that by the house edge to get your predicted loss.
Most slots players make 600 spins per hour. Let’s assume you’re playing on a dollar machine and betting three coins on every spin, or $3 per spin. You’re putting $1,800 per hour into action.
If the slot machine had a 90% payback percentage, you’d lose $180 per hour on that machine. You’d have $1,800 at the start of the hour and $1,620 at the end of the hour — assuming you saw statistically predicted results.
In the real world, though, where you’d be seeing short-term results, you’d see some hours where you won and some hours where you lost. If you played long enough, the Law of Large Numbers would ensure that you’d eventually see the statistically predicted results.
But in the long run, the math will ensure that the casino will win a net profit.
How You Could Calculate a Payback Percentage Based on Actual Results
Of course, you have some data that you can directly observe when you’re playing slot machines.
But tracking this data and calculating the payback percentage on a specific session can add to your enjoyment of any slot machine game. It can make you more mindful because you’ll be paying more attention to what’s happening.
Here’s how to do it.
Start by tracking how many spins you’re making per hour. This is easy to do, but it takes more effort than you might think. It might help to get one of those clicky things people use to count stuff with. You will probably also need a stopwatch of some kind. I just use the timer function on my phone.
Make a note (mental is fine) of how much you’re betting per spin. It helps to bet the same amount.
Also note how much money you started with so that you can calculate how much you’ve won or lost. The slot machine will convert your money into credits. The easiest thing to do is to keep up with how many credits you had at the beginning of the session and again at the end of the session.
Now, let’s do the math using a hypothetical 45-minute session.
I made 300 spins in 45 minutes. I was betting $3 per spin, and I started with $600.
After my playing session, I had $500 left. At times I was up, and at times I was down.
But my net loss was $100. (My starting bankroll was $600, and I finished with $500.)
Over 300 spins, that means I lost an average per spin of 33 cents. $100 in losses divided by 300 spins is 33.33 cents per spin.
How much was I betting per spin?
Since I was playing a $1 machine, and my max bet was three coins, I was risking $3 per spin.
33 cents is 11% of $3, which means my actual loss was 11%. The machine paid back 89% for the session.
Does this mean that the payback percentage for the machine is 89%?
Probably not.
In the scheme of things, 450 spins is a small sample size. To have any confidence in your statistics, you really need to have at least 5,000 spins under your belt.
Even then, depending on how volatile the game is, your actual results might be wildly different from the mathematically expected payback percentage.
Here’s another example that will prove that point.
My friend Leo went to the Winstar last weekend and played the $5 slots. He started with $3,000, and when he left, he had $4,800, which means he had an $1,800 profit for the day.
He played for seven hours.
I’ve watched Leo play. He’s slow, but not much slower than average. He makes about 500 spins per hour.
This means that he made about 3,500 spins.
$1,800 in winnings divided by 3,500 spins is an average win of 51 cents per spin.
Since he was betting $5 per spin, his return was 10.3%.
His actual return for the trip on that slot machine was 110.3%.
I have friends who design slot machines for a living — more than one, in fact. They’ll be happy to tell anyone who asks that the algorithm is never set up to have a payback percentage of more than 100%.
What About the Casinos That Advertise a Specific Payback Percentage?
Some casinos advertise a specific payback percentage. This is almost always stated as an “up to” number.
So you might see an ad for a casino that says, “Payback percentages up to 98%!”
They’re almost certainly telling the truth, too. They probably have one slot machine in their casino that has a payback percentage of 98%. Of course, it isn’t labeled, so you don’t know which one it is.
And in the short run, which is what you’re going to be playing in as an individual gambler, there’s not much difference between a 98% payback percentage and a 92% payback percentage. You could walk away a winner or a loser at either setting.
Also, keep in mind that the games aren’t designed to tighten up after a win and loosen up after a lot of losing spins. That’s not how it works at all.
The machines are designed to allow you to win a certain specific percentage of the time because of the probability. Then there’s an average amount that you’ll win based on the payout for the specific combination of symbols that you hit.
But every spin of the reels on a slot machine is an independent event. You can hit a jackpot on a spin, and your probability of hitting the jackpot on the next spin hasn’t changed at all.
What About the Denominations and Location Reports I See Advertised on the Internet?
You’ll find websites like Strictly Slots and American Casino Guide which post payback percentages for specific denominations and specific casinos. These are AVERAGES.
These averages have little bearing on the machine that you’re sitting in front of.
For example,
you might be looking at a casino that reports an average payback percentage of 94% on its dollar slot machines. That casino might have half their machines paying off at 90% and the other half paying off at 98%.
And you won’t be able to differentiate between the two because the hit ratio might be the same from one of those machines to another.
What Do Hit Ratio and Volatility Have to Do With It?
The hit ratio is the percentage of time that you can expect to hit a winning combination on a slot machine. Something like 30% isn’t unusual, but it can vary 10% or more in either direction. The casinos want you to a hit a winning combination often enough that you won’t lose interest in playing the game.
But hit ratio is only part of the equation. The average size of the prize amounts is also important. Volatility takes this into account. A game that hits less often but has higher average prize amounts might have the same payback percentage as a game that hits more often but with lower payouts.
Either way, in the short run, it will be all but impossible to discover this number, too.
If you wanted to, you could track how many spins resulted in wins for you and calculate the percentage, but you’re facing the same obstacle you are with the overall payback percentage of the machine.
You just don’t know what it’s programmed to accomplish in the long run.
Online Slot Machines
Some online casinos post the payback percentages for their slot machine games. I think this information is of limited use, but I also think it’s fairer to the gambler than not providing them with that information.
After all, table games are transparent. You can calculate the house edge for any casino table game there is because they all use random number generators with known quantities — cards, dice, and wheels.
There’s been a push to label food, both at the grocery store and at restaurants, with nutritional information that includes caloric amounts.
Requiring casinos to provide similar information about their gambling machines only makes sense.
We’ll see if it ever happens, though.
Conclusion
You can’t find the payout percentage on a slot machine — at least not in the United States.
I’ve heard that you can get this information on slot machines in Europe, but I’ve never seen an actual photograph of this kind of labeling.
You can, though, have some fun calculating actual payback percentages in the short run. This at least gives you something to keep track of while you’re playing slots, which is honestly one of the more mindless activities in the casino.
Payback is considered one of the most important aspects when choosing slots. The reason why is that payback, or return to player (a.k.a. RTP), determines your long-term chances of winning.
The given payout percentage refers to how much money a slot machine is set to pay back on average. Here’s an example:
- You’re playing a slot with 95% RTP
- If you bet $200 on the game
- 200 x 0.95 = $190
- You should theoretically win back $190 on this machine
Gamblers are always interested in finding ways to improve their odds. Payback is the perfect way to do this when considering that it directly relates to how much slots money you can win.
But you might be surprised to know that RTP isn’t as important as the gaming world makes it appear. I’m going to cover 5 reasons why you should ignore payback when selecting slot machines.
1 – RTP Has Little Impact on Your Short Term Winnings
Many slots players consider payback to be indicative of their chances of winning in any given session. But RTP usually has little bearing on your short-term gains.
Payout percentages are merely long-term indicators on how much you stand to win. Most players don’t come anywhere close to reaching the given payout percentage on the game they’re playing.
Even if a slot machine offers 96% payback, it wouldn’t be uncommon for you to win back anywhere from 40% to 150% in one session.
Slot machines are by far one of the most-volatile casino games, meaning short-term results can vary greatly from the mean average (RTP in this case).
Pay table distribution is the main reason for the high volatility. Every slot has a wide variation between the lowest and highest prize.
Here’s an example of a simplified pay table:
- 5 vampires = 10,000 coins
- 5 mummies = 1,000 coins
- 5 bats = 500 coins
- 5 holy waters = 100 coins
- 5 vampire hunters = 50 coins
- 5 pieces of garlic = 10 coins
- 5 castles = 5 coins
This pay table has a jackpot that’s worth 2,000x the lowest prize. Considering the large payouts offered at the top, the slot machine must calibrate by offering less frequent wins.
Compare this to baccarat, blackjack, craps, and roulette, where players win over 45% of their bets on average.
High slots volatility comes from how these games are programmed to reach their stated payout percentage after hundreds of thousands if not millions of spins. It’s very unlikely that you’ll sit down to a slot with 96% RTP and win back $96 on every $100 wagered.
Of course, this is also part of the fun when playing slots. Nobody wants to be guaranteed losses when they start spinning the reels.
In any case, you should be aware that slot machines are very volatile and unlikely to pay anywhere near their stated payback in the short run.
2 – Understanding Units Lost Is More Important Than Payback
Bankroll management is crucial for anybody who wants to stretch their slots funds further. Many players often use a game’s payback as their primary tool for bankroll management.
Here’s an example using a run-of-the-mill bankroll plan:
- You have $100
- Your average bet size is $1
- You make 500 wagers per hour
- You’re playing a slot machine with 94% payback (6% house edge)
- 500 bets x 0.06 house edge = $30 in hourly theoretical losses
- $100 / $30 = 3.33 hours
The RTP model shows that your bankroll stands to last over three hours under these conditions. But it’s hard to gauge how long your bankroll will last using payback alone.
As covered above, slot machines’ volatility makes for some unpredictable sessions. Therefore, a bankroll management plan that uses payback as the key measure can go either way.
This is especially true when dealing with small sample sizes, like the $100 bankroll and 3-hour time frame in the example. Smaller bankrolls make you more susceptible to volatility.
A better way to measure how long your bankroll will last involves using units lost per hour. A unit refers to the average bet that you make on each spin.
Breaking your bankroll down into units makes it easier to manage funds. Here’s an example:
- You have $1,500
- You bet $0.50 per spin on average
- 1,500 / 0.50 = 3,000 units in your bankroll
Many players appreciate viewing their bankroll in terms of total bets instead of a monetary value. Furthermore, this practice makes the rest of bankroll management easier.
Of course, units still don’t solve the problem of using something other than payback to perform bankroll management. The best tool to use is an estimation of the average losses per hour.
Low-volatility slots (i.e. small jackpots) usually see players lose around 250 units an hour. High-volatility slots (i.e. big jackpots) normally see gamblers lose around 350 units.
You can use these loss estimations to get a more-accurate idea on how much short-term money you stand to lose.
Here’s an example:
- You have 3,000 units
- You’re playing a low-volatility slot (250 units lost per hour)
- 3,000 / 250 = 12 hours
Nothing guarantees that your bankroll won’t last longer than 12 hours. In fact, you might even hit a big payout and walk out of the casino much wealthier. Closest casinos to boise idaho.
Instead, lost units are just better short-term estimates on how long your bankroll will last when compared to payback.
3 – Progressive Slots Payback Is Hard to Pinpoint
You’d be especially wise to ignore payback when it comes to progressive slots. These games feature growing jackpots that make it difficult to figure out RTP.
Progressive slot machines usually take between 1% and 3% of every wager to seed the jackpot. Popular progressive games can offer top payouts worth millions of dollars.
This setup is attractive to players who dream of getting rich through slot machines. But it also makes deciphering payback nearly impossible.
Every progressive slots jackpot starts with good base value. This is also the point when you can define base RTP.
Here’s an example:
- NetEnt’s Mega Fortune starts with a €250,000 jackpot
- The base payback is 96.4%
- The RTP increases as the jackpot grows larger than €250k
The only time that you truly know Mega Fortune’s payback is when NetEnt first seeds the jackpot at €250,000. Other than this, you’re left guessing the RTP.
Being in the dark on payback isn’t so bad when dealing with a high-paying game like Mega Fortune. But it becomes a problem when the base payback is low.
Microgaming’s Mega Moolah is a perfect example, because it only offers 88.1% base RTP. This is awful considering that Mega Moolah is an online slot.
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It’s worth noting that Mega Moolah offers some of online gaming’s largest jackpots and can theoretically deliver high payback. But you’re dealing with a low-paying slots assuming you don’t win the jackpot.
Compounding matters is that it’s impossible to calculate the exact RTP for progressive slots. You’re missing key variables, meaning you have to make an educated guess on the payback.
Mega Moolah’s jackpot is seeded at $1 million. Therefore, you can assume that the RTP is worth over 90% when the jackpot reaches $5 million.
Nevertheless, you still can’t pinpoint payback for Mega Moolah or other progressive games.
Slot Payouts By Casino
4 – Most Slot Machines Pay Around the Same Amount
You don’t have to think hard about slots payback in many cases. Most games are roughly the same in terms of RTP.
Those who have played Golden Jungle get the general gist – it’s a 5×4 reel set with lines evaluated, but this one has 75 lines, like Scarab, but not like Golden Jungle (which only evaluated 60). Golden Jungle Slot Game Visually speaking, Golden Jungle isn’t the most impressive title, but it does offer some cool looking things. The animation on the tiger, who is the star of this title, is nice, and the. The main potential of Golden Jungle slot machine is hidden in the game’s bonus mode where the maximum set of features brings big money even with small bets. Golden Jungle slot game offers the. Golden jungle grand slot machine.
The only factor that you really have to consider is whether you’re in a land-based or online casino.
Online slots have steadily increased in payback ever since they were first launched in the mid-1990s. Most internet slot machines released today deliver anywhere from 95% to 97% RTP.
Obviously it’s still nice to know the exact payback. This information can be found by googling individual game developers (e.g. Rival Gaming or Thunderkick) followed by the word “RTP” or “payback.”
But you can roughly assume that most internet slots offer anywhere from 95-97% RTP.
Land-based slots developers don’t publish payout percentages. But they often group payback based on coin denominations.
Here’s an example based on the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s 2017 report for average payback among coin denominations:
- Penny Slots = 90.17% payback
- Nickel Slots = 94.54% payback
- Quarter Slots = 93.06% payback
- Dollar Slots = 93.94% payback
- $5 Slots = 94.16% payback
- $25 Slots = 95.03% payback
- $100 Slots = 93.21% payback
You can see that land-based RTP isn’t as impressive as what’s seen with internet slots. After all, online games still offer over 95% payback when you bet a penny per line (a.k.a. penny slots).
The general rule of thumb, though, is that land-based RTP increases as you move up in coin denominations. Nevada slot machines, for example, offer between 93% and 95% payback from nickel games and beyond.
5 – Land Based Casinos Can Trick You
Some brick-and-mortar casinos put signs above a bank of slot machines to advertise generous RTP. For example, you might see a sign that reads “Up to 98% payback.”
These signs are enticing when considering that most land-based slots don’t even offer 95% payback. But you should always be careful when seeing anything like this.
Casinos are only required to offer the stated payback on one machine. Therefore, just one game in slot machine bank must deliver the advertised 98% payback.
Many players don’t realize this, though, and will hop on any slot in the area under the assumption that they’re spinning for 98% RTP.
The best way to handle these situations is by never paying attention to these signs. You have no idea of knowing which game(s) is offering high payback among the surrounding machines.
As I covered before, coin denominations are the best way to determine RTP for land-based games. Don’t, however, rely on any sign that promises a specific amount of payback.
Should You Still Worry About Slots Payback?
Based on everything covered in this post, you might wonder if it’s even worth bothering with RTP.
My personal opinion is that payback isn’t the Holy Grail that slots players make it out to be. But you also shouldn’t completely discount slot machines’ payback.
The main thing to consider is your personal goals. Are you looking for big wins in the short run, or are you going to be a long-time slots player?
If you’re mainly looking to win in a single session, then you should choose slot machines with low volatility. These are typically games that don’t have a big jackpot nor many (if any) bonus features.
Slot Machine Payout Chart
If you’re a long-term slots player who’s the dreaming of winning big, then RTP becomes a more important factor. You should choose jackpot slots that offer good base payback to replenish losses.
Earlier I covered how NetEnt has such a game in Mega Fortune, which offers 96.4% RTP and a jackpot that’s normally worth seven figures.
Chances are that you’re not going to hit a seven-figure jackpot any time soon. But the 96.4% base payback at least ensures that you can net smaller wins in the meantime.
High payback comes in handy even if you’re not chasing life-changing money. Games that combine low volatility with good RTP offer an excellent chance to win in any given session.
Conclusion
The good news is that you don’t have to be a slave to slots payback. Instead, you can choose the games and themes that you want without being too affected by this factor.
If you want to play a certain fall-themed slot with 92% payback, then it won’t kill your bankroll to do so for a few sessions. But this isn’t to say that RTP doesn’t have its place in the slots world.
Most trusted online casino in malaysia. Long-term players will benefit from high payback because they’re more likely to reach the stated payout percentage. In these cases, it pays to know how to look for slots with high RTP.
The best place to begin with online slot machines is by looking at the game’s help screen.
Some internet slots developers list RTP on the help screen for each of their games. Others don’t list this info, which is when you need to use alternative means.
You can always google an individual game followed by RTP or payback. For example, you could google NetEnt’s “Arabian Nights RTP.”
Another option involves googling a game developer’s name. For instance, you could look up “Rival slots RTP” to find payback for Rival’s entire collection.
Land-based casinos are a different matter because providers don’t offer payback online or in a game’s help screen. Instead, you need to make generalizations based on the coin denomination.
Normally, penny slot machines offer between 88% and 92% payback. Nickel slots up to $100 machines feature anywhere from 93% to 98% RTP.
Again, failing to know the payout percentage for a given slot isn’t going to crush your bankroll. But this info can be helpful for serious players.