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

[dunover]

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]

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.

 

[dunover]

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.

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.

 

[LittleFu]

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

 

[ChopleyIOM]

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.....

 

[dunover]

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.....

View attachment 154065

Degsy 'Waffleworth'

 

[kou187]

You should change your name degsy. You are now called degsy waffleworth I'm afraid ???

 

[ChopleyIOM]

He's been far ruder than that in the past

 

[Casinomeister]

Excellent explanation, Dunover! You explain well why a slight change in RTP makes a real difference.

 

[09237653]

Have thunderkick given up on reduced RTPs? they made three games with 94% and anything new since is back to 96% have they taken a stand against it?

 

[Nate]

Have thunderkick given up on reduced RTPs? they made three games with 94% and anything new since is back to 96% have they taken a stand against it?

If they have, they would remove the 94% versions... I highly doubt that...

 

[09237653]

If they have, they would remove the 94% versions... I highly doubt that...

its extra work for them though, maybe they just dont see it as worth the effort.

 

[colinsunderland]

If they have, they would remove the 94% versions... I highly doubt that...

Not if they have contracts stating they will supply the 94% version, then they couldn't just pull them until any contractual obligation had ended. Not sure if thats how it works, but imagine theres something like that in place.

 

[mcgameboy]

Great vid Mr. D and superbly explained.

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!

People really do need to take the RTP thing seriously. And vote with their wallets.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

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.

 

[dunover]

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.

 

[Casinomeister]

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.

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.

 

[Nate]

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

 

[michielm1]

i am convinced videoslots change the rtp for slots during tournaments.
they took away a lot feature buying options. hot chilly is appaling now

 

[Jono777]

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

 

[Mouse75]

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

 

[Nate]

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

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

 

[ChopleyIOM]

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

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.

 

[Slotplayer83]

From what ive seen the bonus frequency is a tad lower, but also the actual bonus turning into shit more often.

 

[Lemon]

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.

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