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Tips Reduced Slot RTP's - How YOU Are Affected!

dunover

dunover

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OK, we know for the last 18 months developers have been coaxed to provide alternative (invariably lower!) maths models to online casinos. Generally they have and should inform you of product changes, although not always and in the case of Coral, having slots with nerfed RTP's that were not reflected in the game list RTP's which claimed the higher factory settings.
I think that when players see a reduction of say 2% from 96 to 94% they see the difference as not that significant. Alas, it is and very much so as when you take into account recycling of winnings, that figure has an exponential effect on your average playtime. In this example, by around 30%!!

We all have our 'usual' deposit amounts and stakes, say £50 at 40p spins. Obviously there's no accounting here for variance, just the long term fact that every spin will on average cost you 4% of its value, the house edge on a 96% slot. This video explains how my RTP spin calculator works and how to simply enter your deposit, stake and RTP of your chosen game to compare average playtime/spin quantities you can expect.

*Disclaimer - for now this is embedded in a specific page on my website which as you will see, as an approved CM webmeister, I always have an indirect link to in my signature anyway. I will however, endeavour to get this embedded in a post in this thread if possible ASAP so forum members can use it from the forum!

**This video is not age-gated as it's news/informational and has no gambling involved.

 
LittleFu said:
You did much work on this.
Did it make sense when 99% of the slots having an average RTP of 96.10% - 96.60%
to have a calculator?
I would prefer a list of slots which has lowered their RTP or a list of providers
taking advantage against players on nerfing their slots.
Click to expand...
Well I do have full lists of developers' slots like Play'n Go, Netent, Pragmatic, IGT etc. on the site. So basically ANY slot listed under that developer CAN be offered with nerfed RTP, as they have done this in many cases for their back catalogue of games. I think it's more important (but very hard to spider!) to know which CASINOS are using reduced RTP games. Because they, and not the developer, provide you, the end user, with the final product.
 
Yes, PlaynGo is often used for reduced (around 2%) RTP's.
And I heard Thunderkick reduced all their slots by 2% also?

I'm also often involved in statistics (business) and I often track my gameplay with
played spins and final RTP's.

So fact is my bullets rips quite often with an average RTP of 57-66%.
An average RTP of 90%+ is beyond my imagination
 
Good video dunover, the Maltesers analogy is a useful visualisation tool.

I let the guy who made the spreadsheet know it had found further YouTube fame.....

1619008507567.webp
 
Great vid Mr. D and superbly explained. :thumbsup:

Curiosity got the better of me and I went to your site and played around with the RTP calculator.

Did the most extreme possible example. Playing Book of Dead on the 84% RTP model, compared to the highest model of 96%.

If you did a £20 deposit and played 20p spins, you would get 2,476 spins on the 96% version.

On the 84% version, you would get.....619 spins. A 75% decrease! :eek:

People really do need to take the RTP thing seriously. And vote with their wallets.
 
It's good to see this get more attention and dunover's video is an excellent illustration, but I have been banging this drum ever since Videoslots started nerfing their payouts, making the point NOT to focus on the 'it's just 2% lower' side of things but to concentrate far more on 'Woah, the house edge just got 50% bigger'. (And that's assuming a 96% to 94% change, as we have seen VS (and others) are taking some games on the 92% setting.)

(Thanks for the mention for my channel by the way dunover.)

For example here's a direct timestamped link to the relevant section in a video I made just over two years ago, when Videoslots first started nerfing their games.

I've made further videos on it over the last couple of years, always making that same point, that small changes in RTP can really, REALLY hurt your experience as a player.




And here's the spreadsheet section from a video of mine from earlier in the month, this was part of a online slots session video so I was more than happy for dunover to use the spreadsheet on his own site and highlight RTP in its own video.

Best thing you can do as a player IMO? Play at casinos that don't pull this shit on their players.

 
That's what I was trying to focus on with my 'Maltesers' analogy - in regards to most consumer product shrinkage is barely noticeable (if a small reduction equating to say 2 or 4% of product size) as the product is single use, a one-time consumable. And that's understandably the way most people are conditioned that play slots games. What it comes down to with slots is the recycling effect, which means 2 or 4% is actually multiplied tens of times. So the most common example of 96 down to 92% is like buying your hitherto 96-Malteser grab-bag for a quid and subsequently discovering when you get home there's just a lot of air and a mere 48 Maltesers rattling around at the bottom of the bag.

So your chance of a feature is halved, the chance of a big win halved and probably most importantly, your playtime is halved, or let's say if you wanted to play for an hour at the old 96% RTP, at 92% you would have to deposit twice over to have that period of play, over time.

Another thing I've noticed since the nerfing of slot RTP's (although I cannot say there's a certain correlation here) is the dramatic reduction in the rate of casino closures, especially to the UK market. We were losing them at a rate of 1-2 a fortnight for a while.

Perhaps one fact is a consequence of the other?

As I said, in most areas of commerce shrinkage is a result of highly competitive markets and the margins for all product manufacturers and retailers are tight, for example big Supermarkets run on about 3% margins. So shaving a bit here and there via quantity or price is done with a mind to try and maintain the overall appearance/value of the product. In the case of slots, the shaving is more like f*cking castration if anything less than 94% is offered.

You will also find that very quickly it's become the majority of casinos doing it, which does suggest some kind of necessity on their part. If it wasn't, you would no doubt see one or two hold out and then proclaim in advertising that they have not, and never will reduce RTP's and therefore secure a marketing advantage over rivals. No doubt, in time, with company figures published and operating profits visible to the public we will be able to work out what was necessary and what was simply greed.
 
dunover said:
You will also find that very quickly it's become the majority of casinos doing it, which does suggest some kind of necessity on their part. If it wasn't, you would no doubt see one or two hold out and then proclaim in advertising that they have not, and never will reduce RTP's and therefore secure a marketing advantage over rivals. No doubt, in time, with company figures published and operating profits visible to the public we will be able to work out what was necessary and what was simply greed.
Click to expand...
Excellent points here, Dunover. One thing - like I mentioned on my latest podcast - there has been a paradigm shift over the past 10-15 years or so where casinos were once run by a group of individuals (call it mom & pop), and are now run by marketing companies. Would you expect a marketing company to have this sort of pull or foresight on trying to stand out amongst their competitors - beyond the yawn inspiring bonus offers? I don't - I would not expect them to try anything as radical as that - locking their RTPs at a higher than average rate.

It would be interesting to see though.
 
The thing that baffles me most in this scheme is that some places were touting regulatory fees / tax like in the UK and Sweden. They reduced RTP's in Sweden and the UK to cover these costs.

Soon the likes of Canada, New Zealand and other territories were all lumped into the equation. RTP was reduced for everyone and their pet dogs. The thing that most of these places fail to realise is that the vast majority of players look forward to a few hours of entertainment. Not many complain when they have a lot of playtime and eventually bust out.

When people start having 50% less playtime, they end up depositing more to get the rush they did on higher RTP versions. Some are just not interested in increasing their monthly budget and move on whilst others chase and end up on the Gamblock site.

Casinos are getting greedy - yes. The marketplace is very competitive and they are all looking for short term profits instead of retention. "If Casino X is doing it - Why don't we try it too?" is the mentality they all have. The house always wins is an old adage they seem to forget. Apart from a very few lucky people, almost every gambler forfeits a few percentages to the house. A percentage or 2 is not good enough anymore, they want your house and car too.

Greed and more greed.... It wont stop though. All those players that have been lost, don't come back and they lure new players with lower spending budgets. They then eat the crap outta their wallets and then rinse and repeat. They end up getting more and more lower value customers. In the end, its all due to their own pathetic motto of eating half a loaf of bread, when 2 slices were just fine.

Nate
 
This is pure speculation by the way... but as well as knowing the RTP has dropped, we could do with knowing if the game has changed.

It is perfectly feasible to have a game with a lower RTP actually offering a better player experience, IF all that reduced RTP came from the huge wins only.
Take Jammin Jars..... you could strip 10% (or more) off all wins over 1000x, and feed some of that, but not all in to lower wins. RTP overall of game dropped, individual player experience improves - save for anyone who actually manages the tens of millions of spins required for a game to truly achieve RTP

I don't believe for one second that PnG have taken this approach.... but it would be nice to get some input from game designers.

Of course, a very snidey operator / game provider could do the exact opposite. INCREASE the RTP to 98 or 99% - but put that extra moolah in the very high 1 in a million plus outcomes. It wouldn't really affect them, because in principle the game would pay out more, in reality most players will not hit the big one, and just lose their deposit, or whatever they were willing to invest in the game.

To simplify this - game £1 a spin - 99% payout. All spins pay nothing except for The Jackpot, which pays £990 000 once every million spins.
In theory, this game will run at 99% - however - even with a perfect RNG running, the reality is that for most players, any session will result in a total loss.
A game at 90%, with regular 100x wins would actually give a player a much better experience.

Its not all about the RTP - although these nerfing casinos deserve any bad press coming their way
 
Jono777 said:
Its a pity UKGC and other licensing bodies do not jump on this sort of thing....


Nope instead they remove quick spin, autos and bother casual leisure players for blood samples etc :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
As much as the UKGC masquerades as being for 'the people' their efforts are counter productive. We see the good in a few things, but they ultimately have a major take on the bottom line of these casinos. The more casinos make, the more the UKGC makes - nothing more, nothing less.

They have enabled casinos to use SOW and Anti - money laundering measures to deny people spending 50 pounds a month from having fun.

To top this all off, they don't care if:

Your withdrawals are being held to ransom or if you have just deposited your life savings - all without the ability to withdraw.
If you are being offered a game at 50% because some lottery in Sweden does this
If someone is infringing on your privacy requesting documents...
How these personal documents are stored and what they are used for
Whether your personal details are being sold to affiliates

They have spoken to a bunch of advisors who know nothing about the industry - just a bunch of problem gamblers who have an axe to grind. They do not even have a task team investigating the slithery tactics used under the guise of SOW. How are you supposed to investigate and make regulations on something, if you yourself know NOTHING about the whole process and have never experienced it yourself? IMHO - They do themselves no favor...

Nate
 

That works to a point Mouse, but you have to remember that providers/operators are focused far more on T-RTP than anything else, in your 99% 'extreme volatility' example above yes it is true that most players will get a zero return, most of the time, but the long term payout of the game is still 99%, and that's what the casinos would be accepting onto their books.

From a player perspective it is true that RTP reductions can be done carefully, and undoubtedly the providers will do this when providing the lower maths models as they don't want their games to play like shit because before too long no one will play them.

(How many tens (hundreds?) of millions of spins do you think Videoslots has served up on Bonanza alone, for example? To them it makes no difference how the RTP is achieved, ultimately they still end up paying T-RTP.)

There's no getting away from T-RTP, and you might be surprised at how relatively small the spin sample needs to be to get pretty close to T-RTP, even as a single player, and as such that increased house edge absolutely will hurt the player once he or she gets to a decent sized spin sample.

Don't think about the current session, or the current deposit, think about the cumulative effect of many thousands of spins over many deposits, with that increased house edge doing its thing, and you will see lower average playtime, fewer decent wins, and fewer withdrawals, along with more deposits needing to be made to maintain the previous playtime.
 
94% is still miles better than the shit you get served in the shops and AGCs. If a game I like playing gets lowered I either just stop playing it, or expect to spend slightly more money. Doesn't affect me anyway because I only ever put a tenner in.



:p​
 
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Ahhh yes the infallible logic of the person who says, 'Increasing petrol prices don't bother me I just put a tenner in like I always do'.
 
I have a thought and its proven (mostly) correct following my (very small sample) testing in the past few months'

With reduced RTP, it seems if the game is a VERY popular game (Book of Dead, Dead or Alive) then the RTP drop is hardly noticeable at all.

On the other hand, if the game has a mediocre or average player base, be prepared to be torn a new arse hole.

All this being said, I am still dead against it and strongly believe an established casino could still survive quite comfortably and turn a decent profit whilst still offering the higher end of the RTP's.
 
There are numerous ways you could shave a couple of percent.

1. Remove the pays for 2-of-a-kind wins (say 9's on Cleopatra or 2x Diamonds on Bonanza.)
2. Remove a few non-paying scatters to reduce feature frequency (or remove them altogether like with Bonanza.) :)
3. Replace a symbol on all the reel strips with a lower one.
4. Have reduced alternative reel strips for features.
5. Reduce average feature yield, as said above.
6. Increase blanks on reel strips.

Remember, a developer can do pretty all of the above quite quickly and run simulations over a billion spins to see the exact TRTP they will end up with. I expect there's far simpler ways though, the developer, once the 'factory' TRTP version is made, can simply type a new RTP value into the system and the programme would make the change accordingly, automatically by any combination of the ways I listed. I'm sure our friend Trancemonkey would know far more then me or us lot, given that IGT have always made slots with RTP ranges that can supply both the lower (land-based) and higher online markets.

P.S. - I haven't had the nerve yet (given that over 2 decades ago I put the odd bit of cash in them and don't want nightmares) but has anyone been brave enough to enter the UK club machine minimum of 70% in the calculator? :eek:
 
An easy way to have a range of different RTPs for a game is to have 2 (or more) different base game reelsets and weight them accordingly. So for example -
  • Game A - 70% base game, 35% feature = 105%
  • Game B - 50% base game, 35% feature = 85%
Then you just have a simple table that weights one game against the other. So for a 95% game the weighting would be 50/50, and for a 96% RTP the weighting would be 55/45 in favour of Game A. This means you've only got to change a couple of numbers to get an overall RTP% of anywhere between 85% (unlicensed online casinos and motorway service stations) and 105% (Streamers) :rolleyes:

The difference for the player between the two base games could be something as simple as having fewer wilds on reels 1 and 2 on Game B, so barely noticeable in a short session. The feature hit rate would remain the same over both game types. Or you could have fewer bonus symbols on Game B and then the difference in RTP% is entirely down to the scaling the feature hit rate, and a miniscule change to the base reels when removing/adding bonus symbols. Players tend to prefer the actual bonus itself to be left untouched. You're not going to play ~200 games for a bonus that isn't as good as it used to be.

There are loads of ways to change the RTP% of a game, and usually the best way is to make it as unnoticeable as possible.
 

Great video! Explained very well. I was trying to get the rtp of rtg slots but its not included in your providers list.
 
rockwonder77 said:
Great video! Explained very well. I was trying to get the rtp of rtg slots but its not included in your providers list.
Click to expand...
That's because they are unlicensed. I'll tell you though, they all have the same maths, or used to, at 91-97% where the operator chose the RTP.
 
@ChopleyIOM

I agree that T-RTP will always show itself in the lottery style results games like Jamming Jars. A finite number of spins - no matter the pool size - should generate T-RTP in the long run.

The games which have great potential as opposed to a lottery pick, do run in a different manner.. IF the chance of the largest humongous spins is vanishingly small where things need to repeatedly happen at tiny likelihoods, even on a huge spin scale, trillions upon trillions of spins, I honestly do not think the games will reach T-RTP. We are not talking about a 1 in 37 chance roulette spin here. Random numbers do very strange things... a one in ten billion chance - decided by more than one factor (As opposed to a one off lottery pick) really will just not happen as often as it should.

I know this sounds insane from someone who studied maths, but is an underlying principle for these games.

I'm really not sure i've made this clear........ too much friday night alcohol consumption
 
ChopleyIOM said:
Best thing you can do as a player IMO? Play at casinos that don't pull this shit on their players.
Click to expand...

I always deposit small amounts and use welcome bonuses when I open an account in a casino, just to get a feel for the RTP.

For example, Twin Casino (i am under a month customer there) appears to have a very high RTP at the moment. I cashed nice amounts three times in 8-9 days timeframe. I wagered the first time and cashout with the first welcome bonus. I lost the second and third deposit bonuses. After, I put in raw cash three times and cashed out twice in a row. I've also had good RTP experiences with bet365 (I've been a member there for 10+ years), but it feels like there are days and days when the RTP is lower, then suddenly you just win and win...

I also closed/blocked two other casino accounts in same time period of 7 days, due to poor rtp.

Yes, you can feel RTP! :)
 
flyerskyangle said:
Reduced RTP meaning online casino going to dead soon. I already closed most of casino accounts.
Scam providers will be more and more, and players will be less and less.
Click to expand...

Its not going down that easy. The business is just stalling. It's untill the next thing hypes everything up again and the cycle is complete. If they want to be truely competitive, launch a casino that accepts players from different country's, add highest possible RTP and just because of the popularity over time it's already a succes.

It goes bad when a established brand is being bought; and RTP suddenly is turned down left and right. They solely run on good name and rip their players. Because the only interest the buyer has is making it back + more.
 
Slotplayer83 said:
Its not going down that easy. The business is just stalling. It's untill the next thing hypes everything up again and the cycle is complete. If they want to be truely competitive, launch a casino that accepts players from different country's, add highest possible RTP and just because of the popularity over time it's already a succes.

It goes bad when a established brand is being bought; and RTP suddenly is turned down left and right. They solely run on good name and rip their players. Because the only interest the buyer has is making it back + more.
Click to expand...
Play at smaller casinos. All the big ones have RTP turned down, as this is offered to casinos when they pass certain GGR. I have inside knowledge and I can say that 90%+ of sites "accredited" by Casinomesiter have RTP turned down. Smaller and new casinos do not get that option until they reach a certain amount in revenues.
 
crogambler said:
Play at smaller casinos. All the big ones have RTP turned down, as this is offered to casinos when they pass certain GGR. I have inside knowledge and I can say that 90%+ of sites "accredited" by Casinomesiter have RTP turned down. Smaller and new casinos do not get that option until they reach a certain amount in revenues.
Click to expand...
Inside knowledge? You just need to look at the help files.
Can you name some of the smaller casinos who can't use lower RTP's as I don't think thats true.
 
Help file really is'nt anything. A casino can present you a game with 96.5% rtp for example but have either it's max bet turned down or volatilty nuked down as well without having the obligation to mention it. Correct me if i'm wrong here.

I mean how many new casino's have a list on their homepage, with players who won 350k, 41k, 17k, 22k and yet upon password reset, none of these users ever exist suddenly.

Dont bullshit me.

colinsunderland said:
Inside knowledge? You just need to look at the help files.
Can you name some of the smaller casinos who can't use lower RTP's as I don't think thats true.
Click to expand...

It's bin shown on this forum that some casino's offered a bogus help file, i.e advertising 96.5% while in console it was barely 92%.
 
Last edited:
crogambler said:
Play at smaller casinos. All the big ones have RTP turned down, as this is offered to casinos when they pass certain GGR. I have inside knowledge and I can say that 90%+ of sites "accredited" by Casinomesiter have RTP turned down. Smaller and new casinos do not get that option until they reach a certain amount in revenues.
Click to expand...
On Monday just met some people who just got MGA license and are launching their first site hopefully within next two months, we went through their deals with different partners (game providers, payment providers and many others you need if you wanna run casino) and they will launch their first site with PnG 94.xx% RTP:s (and some other providers, don't remember everything from head).

If coming three months i can show you a new operator who launch and are not running some providers with the highest RTP version, would you like to make bet about it? Naturally, if i can't show you launch of new operator and license with lower RTP:s, i will lose that bet.
 
You're wrong about your first paragraph, although they can limit the max bet, that won't affect the RTP.
Can you link to the thread where a providers in game help file showed the incorrect RTP please? I've never seen that happen, so if it did I would imagine it was some dodgy casino/provider. The Entain group (formally GVC) replaced the provider help files and were showing the incorrect RTP, but that case doesn't match your figures so presumably you are talking about something else. It was also a one off and very easy to catch them out on.
 
We know that, certain games runs more favorable once betting higher compared to betting minimal. So if you have a game that is having a bet cap, how does it not affect RTP then?

Second; that thread was right on this forum. Some going pointed out that the game help file advertised 96.5% or so but the actual javascript console showed the game being loaded at 92%, all over the place. That was purely misleading and obvious with brands too.

So dont be saying that my knowledge or info is coming out of my ass. Perhaps you should look a bit further.
 
Slotplayer83 said:
We know that, certain games runs more favorable once betting higher compared to betting minimal. So if you have a game that is having a bet cap, how does it not affect RTP then?

Second; that thread was right on this forum. Some going pointed out that the game help file advertised 96.5% or so but the actual javascript console showed the game being loaded at 92%, all over the place. That was purely misleading and obvious with brands too.

So dont be saying that my knowledge or info is coming out of my ass. Perhaps you should look a bit further.
Click to expand...
ok, so post the evidence to your claims then.
 
colinsunderland said:
Inside knowledge? You just need to look at the help files.
Can you name some of the smaller casinos who can't use lower RTP's as I don't think thats true.
Click to expand...
Ok. My career is in this industry and I know how it works. You don't get offered anything while you are below a certain GGR. This isn't valid for companies that own more casinos and most white labels. I have worked at one of the top 5 online casinos and their RTP's are criminaly low. I have also worked at a few smaller ones some time ago. If you don't think that is true, ok, suit yourself, I don't gain anything from saying this.
 
Slottery said:
On Monday just met some people who just got MGA license and are launching their first site hopefully within next two months, we went through their deals with different partners (game providers, payment providers and many others you need if you wanna run casino) and they will launch their first site with PnG 94.xx% RTP:s (and some other providers, don't remember everything from head).

If coming three months i can show you a new operator who launch and are not running some providers with the highest RTP version, would you like to make bet about it? Naturally, if i can't show you launch of new operator and license with lower RTP:s, i will lose that bet.
Click to expand...
Of course there are always exceptions, but in general it is how it is. There is not a single big casino that wasn't offered to set their RTP level, most new one's do not begin with lower RTP's. My first hand experience, not meeting some people and someone telling me something, working in the industry.
 
crogambler said:
Ok. My career is in this industry and I know how it works. You don't get offered anything while you are below a certain GGR. This isn't valid for companies that own more casinos and most white labels. I have worked at one of the top 5 online casinos and their RTP's are criminaly low. I have also worked at a few smaller ones some time ago. If you don't think that is true, ok, suit yourself, I don't gain anything from saying this.
Click to expand...
Ok, so give an example of the casinos? There's very very few who start up not as part of another license?
 
crogambler said:
Of course there are always exceptions, but in general it is how it is. There is not a single big casino that wasn't offered to set their RTP level, most new one's do not begin with lower RTP's. My first hand experience, not meeting some people and someone telling me something, working in the industry.
Click to expand...
So smaller operators who don't have yet high enough GGR can't get different RTP models from providers but there is always exceptions? Second statement pretty much override first and makes it to be untrue. There are huge amount of people working in industry in different roles and positions so mentioning that doesn't make your argument any stronger. You were asked to give some examples and offered bet to make your point but you instead choose magic "working in industry" phrase which seem to be argument that just always must be right and can't be questioned.

There for sure is correlation in what you only refer big and small casino RTP:s but it's not any industry wide agreement that any provider refuse to provide various RTP settings for new casinos. You said yourself already that there always are exceptions so what you say is very generic statement, like you said yourself "in general" which is quite widely used measure.
 
He might have a point. I've encountered it myself as well that playing at a established brand at some point, did'nt yield the experience i used to had before. With other words; chances are different RTP models could be very true.
 
colinsunderland said:
Ok, so give an example of the casinos? There's very very few who start up not as part of another license?
Click to expand...
Dr.bet is one of them opened in the last year or so. Solo casino and when I played with them all the slots were the highest RTP settings. Which for a new start up did kind of surprise me. And I had zero issues with them. Cant say if RTPS have now changed with them as I am not playing there at this time. But it does kind of fit with what Crogambler spoke of. And does actually make some sense.
 


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