Questions about RTP

[spiderlegz]

Maybe I'm not understanding the rtp stuff correctly so correct me if I'm wrong. Just because a slot as a 95% rtp doesn't mean that you will get that even if you wager 100k, at a 1.00 a pop, correct? So if my assumption is correct, you could spend that 100k and have a 75% return or you could get lucky on a few spins and have a 300% return right?

Only used a simple example to illustrate the huge difference 3,5% would make. Running good or bad you would still "lose" the extra 3,5%.

I mean in the end. Game over. You lose. The longer you play, the closer you get to that -5% or -2.5%. No matter what the % number is, your bankroll is gone.

Well its the casinos who always says that its entertainment. If you knew you would get less value for money spent you would reduce your spending on that good, in this case gambling. Bottom line it would drastically change the consumers preferences and thus the utility function.

[Jufo]

I mean in the end. Game over. You lose. The longer you play, the closer you get to that -5% or -2.5%. No matter what the % number is, your bankroll is gone.

I don't agree with this argument. With -2.5% you get to play (on average) twice as long as with -5%, and players do value greatly how long their bankroll will last, ie. how much action they get for their buck. Also -2.5% gives much better chances to end up ahead than -5%.

With your argument one could say that 10% return is just as good as 95% return because the end result is always the same.

[Jufo]

Maybe I'm not understanding the rtp stuff correctly so correct me if I'm wrong. Just because a slot as a 95% rtp doesn't mean that you will get that even if you wager 100k, at a 1.00 a pop, correct? So if my assumption is correct, you could spend that 100k and have a 75% return or you could get lucky on a few spins and have a 300% return right?

Not quite. The larger the play data sample, the closer the actual RTP will converge to the theoretical RTP, due to Law of Large Numbers. So, assuming a typical slot with medium variance, a 75% return after 500 spins is possible, it would be extremely rare to have 75% return after 100k spins.

Here are some stats for Loaded slot:

100 Spins - 97.5% chance that the RTP is at least 40%
500 Spins - 97.5% chance that the RTP is at least 61.2%
5000 spins - 97.5% chance that the RTP is at least 83.4%
50000 Spins - 97.5% chance that the RTP is at least 92.2%

So if you did 50000 spins on Loaded, it would be unusual for the total RTP to be below 90% (there is 99.9% a chance that the RTP is above 90%) but for a smaller number of spins it wouldn't be unusual. A 75% return after 50000 spins is so unlikely that my computer cannot even display the number so it just says that the chance for that is zero.

[Simmo!]

I don't agree with this argument. With -2.5% you get to play (on average) twice as long as with -5%, and players do value greatly how long their bankroll will last, ie. how much action they get for their buck.

I think CM is saying that were you were to play, say, "for ever" you would eventually run out of money on any game with a house edge, whetehr it be 0.0000000001% or 10%. Your argument is true for someone who either stops and cashes out or just wants to extend ther gambling time.

[Jufo]

I think CM is saying that were you were to play, say, "for ever" you would eventually run out of money on any game with a house edge, whetehr it be 0.0000000001% or 10%. Your argument is true for someone who either stops and cashes out or just wants to extend ther gambling time.

Yes but given that a person always has chance to replenish his bankroll (by working hard for example) it would be advantageous for the player that his current bankroll lasts longer so that he doesn't need to replenish it so often, right? So the "running out of money" argument isn't valid because the amount of money you have right now is not the same as the amount you will have across your whole lifetime.