Casino slot games, RTP, player experience
These days slot games turned into commodity. It varies a bit, but safe to say that between 80% to 100% are the same games across all operators online. Majority of popular slot producers are the usual suspect that you can see anywhere: Netent, Playngo, Pragmatic Play, Push Gaming, Big time gaming, Nolimit, Quickfire and so on.
There are some exceptions, for example provably fair games. The concept is definitely interesting and getting a good traction, however implementation is primarily not very interesting from entertainment perspective, so I will not spend time on these in this article.
So, if you take, let’s say, Book of Dead by Playngo on Casino A and Casino B, would it be the same game? It will definitely visually be identical, but not identical overall.
What makes it different is one seemingly small thing – Return to Player or RTP. Typical RTP of a slot, let’s say, Book of Dead is 96.21% or Starburst by Netent is 96.1%. This is a long term math and it means that over time casino’s edge is around 3.8-3.9% for the games above. Of course a lot can happen short term, but long term over millions and millions of spins this is how it is going to turn out. Well, is that it? Not really. Casinos these days have a possibility to manually adjust those RTP percentages.
For example:
Starburst can be set at 90.05%, 92.05%, 93.05%, 94.05%, 95.05%, 96.09%, 98.05%, 99.06% Book of Dead varies between 89% and 96% Pragmatic’s Wolf Gold can be set at 88% and up to 96% Nolimit’s Deadwood at 94 or 96%
Typically casinos work with RTPs around 96-97% it has been so for a long time and remains so for reputable casinos. However, since the possibility to adjust emerged things changed and not uncommon to see 89% RTP in online casinos.
What does this mean for YOU? Simple, long term - significantly less gaming time and less fun. Your money will burn quicker. It is noticeable once a game is changed from 96 to 94%. Once changed to 89%, money is spent crazy fast.
How to find out what RTP you are dealing with? Several options:
- Some casinos publish this explicitly around game icons
- Reputable game producers list it in games, in help or info sections
- You can ask from casino’s customer service
Take care of yourself, research your casinos and if even small red flags – better be safe than sorry. Just navigate to another casino, so many other those. Take care and good luck!