The return to player (RTP) percentage of a slot is a much-touted part of most reviews, for the simple reason that it gives would-be players a sense of how fair and balanced a given game is. And as a rule of thumb, a game with a more generous RTP is more worthy of your time than one that’s geared towards creaming off a fat profit for the operator.
Unfortunately, the RTP quoted on a slot review won’t always match what’s advertised within the rules of a specific game once you actually fire it up for yourself. The culprit here is the little-talked-about variable RTP setting built into lots of slots, so what is it exactly, and why should you care?
The Reason for Separate RTP Bands
Lots of slot developers build games with not one, universal RTP, but several bands or tiers, effectively tuned to cater to different use cases and market conditions.
So, the default RTP might be 96%, and this would be the level mentioned in reviews, because it’s the most generous. However, other bands with lower RTPs can be accessed via the back end for casino operators that want to implement them. So the mid-tier band might lower the RTP to 94% to give the casino a bigger profit margin, while a bottom-rung band might shrink this even further to just 90%, usually in order to account for situations in which a slot is made accessible where local taxes on games of chance are especially high, and thus the operator’s margin is squeezed.
Every reputable slots site will be transparent about game RTP, and it takes a matter of seconds to check whether it aligns with review-cited figures. You just have to be willing to check, rather than spinning the reels straight away.
The Impact of Features
Another point about variable RTPs is that they can apply to specific in-game features, varying depending on whether you’re just playing a standard spin or you’ve unblocked a bonus. For example, if you’ve bought a bonus rather than unlocked it organically, the RTP might be slightly higher, perhaps by as much as half a percentage point, to account for the greater investment the player has made upfront.
Progressive jackpots are also a unique case, as a portion of each wager fuels the jackpot pool, so the base game’s standard RTP might only be 91%, but with the jackpot contribution, the cumulative theoretical RTP could hit 96%.
On top of all this, there’s the possibility for a third-party slot review to be based on an older version of a game which has since been updated, and brought a different RTP percentage along with it. So again, it’s in your interest as a player to check the RTP within each game’s information or settings screen.
And of course, RTP isn’t the only thing that sells a slot. Variance, meaning the typical frequency of payouts and their expected value, has more impact on your experience. RTP is calculated over such long periods of play that it’s a very rough guide.
