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What is Return to Player (RTP) In a Casino?

Casinos
Posted by Joseph Ellison on 7 Minute Read
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Online casino entertainment has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade — and so have its players.

When it comes to gaming machines, the land-based sector is not super transparent regarding the house edge of these devices., and finding that information is not easy. However, when it comes to internet slot game products, most providers and developers typically don’t hide return to player percentages (RTP) from gamblers. They’re mostly clear about the house advantage they loom over their user pool, and if they’re not, most online casino reviews or slot reviews list this info along with game icons in their lobbies.

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These days, the majority of online game of chance enthusiasts seem to obsess with snagging a quality casino bonus boasting a hefty match coupled with a generous sum of free-play cash. Nevertheless, playing high RTP games can be as lucrative in the long term because this spec defines how much of the money bet on a specific spinner that title will return to players in the long haul.

Yes, the odds get stacked against gamblers in any online casino game for real money. But the degree to which this happens varies from title to title, and learning the RTPs of offered products tells players just what are their winning chances at gambling sites and brick-and-mortar venues. That gets elaborated more in-depth below, where an explanation follows concerning how video poker and slot machines payout wins.

How Does Return to Player Work?

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RTG’s Swindle All the Way is a high-RTP slots boasting a return-to-player percentage of 98.5%.

As mentioned, return to player, RTP, is a game attribute that slot and software table providers implement in the math models of their gaming products’ random number generators. It signifies how much wagered money a game will return as prizes to its players over time. The best way to explain this is by using a simple example. When a real money casino title lists an RTP of 91%, that means that out of every $100 bet, it shall keep $9 and give back the remaining $91 as multiple rewards or a single one.

Most games don’t have 50/50 odds or ones that favor players. The only exception to this rule is specific virtual video poker machines where the house edge can flip onto the player’s side in distinct situations when gamblers follow a strategy chart.

Essentially, RTP is another term for house edge, with the percentage format reversed. So, a house edge of 3% is an RTP of 97%.

It is vital that everyone understands that RTP defines long-term payouts. Anything can happen in the short term. And this spec is not valid for single sessions. It does not tell players that, on average, they will get a specific percentage of their bets back. That is not how slots RTP works. It is a long-haul projection factoring in the total amount of wagers made in a sizeable theoretical period.

Here’s How to Calculate RTP

Calculating a casino game’s RTP/house edge is not simple, despite what some info hubs may say. In games like craps and roulette, their various wagers have specific house advantages. For instance, the red/black bet in European roulette has a 2.70% edge, while a number wager carries 35 to 1 odds.

How developers come up with these winning percentages is they factor in the things that affect a gambler’s winning probability. Naturally, these vary depending on the rules in play. Thus, complicated mathematical formulas get implemented to come up with these percentages.

When it comes to modern internet slots, with fancy audio and video presentations, paying out significant prizes for diverse symbol sequence number combos, providers discover the RTPs of their games through simulations. They incorporate modified or existing math models that guide software to churn out random numbers, run them through millions of spins, and analyze the results provided. They then conclude that it returns a specific amount of the bets made on it over time. That accounts for wins gained in free spins rounds and through other bonus features.

Also, providers can intentionally/manually tweak these models, setting the desired RTP to their created titles.

The RNG algorithms producing symbol combos are the engines of online slots. In fact, that applies to all software casino picks. Their presentation is just what people see, but this number-generating software is what decides when a player wins and how much. It does this by pairing RTP with a few other concepts. These are variance, max exposure, and hit frequency. Variance is an economic term that, in a gaming context, describes the size of the most commonly given rewards and with what regularity they get supplied. Max exposure is simply a game’s top prize, and hit frequency gets explained in the subheading below.

What is Hit Frequency?

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Betsoft’s The Hive is a slot with a super high hit frequency of above 48.

Hit frequency is what everyone thinks it is, the ratio of wins vs. losses within a set of spins. So, if a slot’s reels get spun one million times, delivering winning symbol combos in 200,000 instances, the title in question has a hit frequency of 20. It produces wins 20% of the time.

Before, providers shied away from releasing this info, but now this is standard practice.

It is vital to note that hit frequency only tells players the rate at which they can expect rewards. Not the size of the ones gamblers will get. Variance supplies that info. High variance slots will produce sizable rewards rarely, while a low variance one will create symbol combos that pay out modestly but do so frequently.

What Is More Important RTP or Variance?

They work in tandem. Therefore, one does not get priority over the other, as these attributes specify different aspects of the gaming experience.

For casual players only looking to get ahead, the best action is to pick low-variance spinners with RTPs above 96%. Realtime Gaming, better known as RTG, is a provider famous for various such titles. Unfortunately, due to these specs, their games never get tied into no-deposit bonus promos.

Those looking to land massive prizes should play high variance slots with a high max exposure setting, above x5,000, with a max bet choice that reaches at least $100. Those are the games that alter people’s lives forever. Though, the odds of them making dreams a reality are lotto-like.

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Joseph Ellison

Joseph Ellison

Joseph is a dedicated journalist and horse racing fanatic who has been writing about sports and casinos for over a decade. He has worked with some of the UK's top bookmakers and provides Premier League soccer tips on a regular basis. You'll likely find him watching horse racing or rugby when he isn't writing about sport.

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