RTP is a statistic in slot games that describes the percentage of all wagered bets you can expect to win in the long run – but it’s a bit more nuanced than that! Read on to find out how it all works, and to get the lowdown on the highest RTP slots you can play!

What does RTP mean in slots?

RTP is an acronym that often comes up when talking about the best real money slots(at sites like Microgaming casinos, Play’n GO websites, EGT casinos), but what is it and how does it affect your gameplay?

RTP stands for Return to Player, and is basically a percentage of how much of the money wagered on a video slot players can expect to make back.

Let’s take one of the best Thunderkick slots as an example. In 1429 Uncharted Seas the RTP is of 98.5%. This means that for every €/£/$1 players wager, the game will return 98.5c/p.

But wait! Things aren’t that simple. If slots were so predictable, they’d be no fun!

RTP is calculated over the course of hundreds of thousands – sometimes even a million or more – spins. That means that while the game will return that much back to players over the long run, each player’s experience can be very different spin-to-spin!

Certain slots have two RTPs. In a game like Ooh Aah Dracula by Barcrest, the base RTP is 96%, but it goes up to 99% during the bonus features. Meanwhile, in King of Cats Megaways™, which is an amazing Big Time Gaming slot, the RTP is 96.72% during the Lion Mode and 96.70% during the Puma Mode.

Why Should You Care About Slots RTP?

Sometimes it may seem that slots RTP doesn’t make much of a difference. After all, with the above in mind, a slot that has an RTP of 97% and another with an RTP of 99% can potentially return the same amount when you spin it only a few times.

But that’s not how it should be looked at.

Instead, we should think of RTP as the odds of winning the game. So, the highest RTP casino slot machines do actually give you a better chance of winning – or, at the very least, of recuperating a larger chunk of what you wager.

And this is especially true if you play the same video slot often. Over time, the game’s return will even out and edge closer and closer to its stater RTP.

The same game by the same game developer can sometimes have a different RTP at different casinos. This is because these developers offer casinos the option of choosing between a range of RTPs. Nevertheless, an RTP of 97% or 99% will not really make a huge difference to players in the short-run, so that shouldn’t worry you too much.

RTP & Volatility

Whether you’re going to play one of the highest RTP slots or one of the lowest, the title will come with other values you should know about… The most important of which is the volatility.

Volatility refers to how often a slot will issue payouts in the short-run, and its value can be high, medium, low, or anything in between!

  • High volatility means that payouts are infrequent but larger in size.
  • Low volatility means frequent, but smaller payouts.

Sometimes, volatility is also confused with variance. But variance, while it refers to pretty much the same thing, is about the long-run.

Together, volatility and RTP give you a clearer idea of what you can expect in terms of payouts.

So, as an example, the highest RTP slots, which also have high volatility, will still return payouts at infrequent intervals, but the size of those payouts should, in theory, be larger as there is a larger amount that needs to be redistributed.