Every slot machine is designed to make money for the casino. That’s how they pay their bills, after all. But many players aren’t familiar with how that works, and more importantly, how online slots are more transparent about that information.
So today, I want to share a bit of what I’ve learned over the years about payback percentages, and how they impact you as a player. I’ll also show you how to look up this information in online slots, and how they compare to the machines you’ll find in a casino.
Defining Return to Player (RTP) Percentage in Online Slots
One of the key aspects of a slot machine’s setup is the Return to Player, or RTP. This number is the percentage a slot machine is designed to pay back to a player over the long run. If the RTP is 95%, a slot is expected to return 95% of bets back to players, over time, in the form of line hits, bonuses, etc. The remainder, in this case 5%, is the amount the casino will collect.
Of course, it’s not a perfectly linear scenario. You don’t get paid out $95 every time you bet $100. That’d be no fun! Instead, the payouts are spread out in ways that could lead one session to be a big winner, while another could be a losing one. This is known as variance in slots.
It can take millions of spins for a slot to approach its long term RTP, so a single session won’t offer you much help. But over time, with the help of the random number generator, it’s expected each outcome found on a slot machine will mathematically come out roughly the same amount of times, and that’s how it approaches its RTP.
Looking up the RTP on an Online Slot
Fortunately for players like me, online slots are transparent in that they share their RTP with you. In the video above I show an example of a slot found on BetMGM, Wheel of Fortune Triple Extreme Spin, that has an RTP of over 96%! This means, over time, for every $100 wagered, more than $96 will be returned to players as payouts.
Players can compare the various slots on a site if they wish to find choices that have a higher expected payout, and even compared between sites to ensure they’re playing on a site that has the best paybacks.
Physical Casino Slot Payback Percentages
Unlike online casinos, you can’t check the payback of an individual slot machine in the casino. This information is hidden from players at that level. However, some state governments do share slot payback information as part of their reporting about in-person casinos. In other jurisdictions, the payback data itself isn’t reported, but minimum payback requirements, either at a per machine or per casino level, are set.
In Michigan, where I played this online slot, publicly reported payback data isn’t available. However, Michigan regulations require casinos to follow payback regulations found in Nevada and New Jersey. Nevada requires slots to pay back at least 75%, and New Jersey 83%, so machines would pay back at least that much.
In practice, however, penny slot machines are generally designed to pay back at least 85% even at their lowest setting, and casinos have the option to set them higher – we just don’t know if they do, because that information in this case is not publicly available.
Higher denomination machines are generally set higher – in many cases, casinos bump the RTP up a bit for each increase in denomination, due to the expectation that those machines will see higher bets overall.
Comparing Physical and Online Casino Slot Machine Paybacks
Most casinos that do report data showcase average payback of somewhere between 90 and 92% across slot machines and other electronic games like Video Keno and Video Poker.
If we take the higher end of that range, 92%, and compare it to the example in my video at 96%, you’d expect your money to last twice as long online vs. in person, presuming everything else is the same, like bet size.
That’s because if you invert the two numbers, a 92% payback means the house holds back 8%, vs. the 96% payback holding 4% for the house. So in this particular example, twice the house hold will mean, on average, your budget will be spent twice as fast at the casino vs. online. If the slot is set to that minimum 85% payback I referenced before, the difference will be even larger!
Playing slots is a form of entertainment, and so knowing that on average you can get twice as much entertainment online with the same budget is compelling! Of course, there may be reasons why you’d want to play in person vs. online (maybe you’re going to take advantage of some of a resort’s other perks while there, for instance), but it really showcases one of the reasons I love to play online!
If you want to see my sessions playing online at BetMGM Casino, check out my YouTube channel and subscribe. And if you’re new to BetMGM, you can check out their casino welcome bonus for new players, which can give you a chance to explore all that this legal online casino has to offer!
