The games below are made up and the sums are deliberately simple. They show how the ideas work, not how any real game performs.
What RTP measures.
RTP is the share of the money staked that a game is designed to pay back as prizes. The UK Gambling Commission stresses that it “is an average achieved over a significant number of game plays and not each time the gaming machine is played”. A machine showing 85% does not mean you should expect 85p back for every £1 you stake in a session.
The long run is longer than it sounds. In one Commission example, 8,000 plays was too few for a fully random game to reach its target, and the actual return “would most likely be considerably above or below” it. It says fully random games typically need a million plays or more.
What the rest of the number means.
Whatever is not paid back is the house edge, so a 96% game has a 4% edge. That edge applies to every stake, not just to the money you started with, because winnings usually get staked again.
Say you bring 100 credits and stake 1 credit per spin on a 96% game. Over 1,000 spins you have staked 1,000 credits, so the average loss is 40 credits. Over 2,500 spins you have staked 2,500 credits, and the average loss is 100: everything you brought. Real sessions land above or below that average, sometimes by a long way.
What volatility adds.
Volatility describes how a game’s returns are spread out. Two games with the same RTP can behave completely differently:
- Game A pays 2 credits on 48% of spins. Its RTP is 96%, and it wins about every other spin.
- Game B pays 100 credits on 0.96% of spins. Its RTP is also 96%, but it wins about once every 104 spins.
Stake 1 credit for 100 spins. On Game A you will almost certainly see wins. On Game B there is about a 38% chance of seeing no win at all. The RTP is identical, and it tells you nothing about that difference.
Questions a game page may not answer.
- Is the RTP shown inside the game itself, or only on a marketing page?
- Does the figure apply to the version of the game on this site?
- Is volatility stated, and does the paytable show what it means in practice?
- Is there a minimum RTP where you are? On gaming machines in Britain, the Commission says there is none.
- Is the game fully random, or does it adjust? The Commission explains that “compensated” machines can “slightly vary the odds” based on recent payouts.
What RTP cannot do.
It cannot tell you when a win will arrive or which game is “due”, and it cannot make gambling a way to earn money. Even at a high RTP, the average result of continued play is a loss. If a bonus is involved, the sums change again, so read how wagering requirements work too.
Sources
Checked on 4 November 2026.