RTP Rollercoaster (Explanation)

Hodoor · October 3, 2023

I'm sure I'm not alone in experiencing that RTP seems to be changing a lot. Mainly so that games which are currently part of contests and/or challanges have lower RTP than usual. How many times have one of your favourite games been part of a weekly contest, just for you to notice that all of a sudden it seems impossible to get any kind of decent win?

I've always suspected that the RTP is manually lowered for games that the casino (not just Stake of course) know that a lot of people are going to play for the next week or so, and that new releases are set to have a slightly higher RTP than they will have later on. If I owned a casino, that's what I would do. I didn't really think that the casinos could change the RTP on slots though, simply because it could possibly reflect badly at the game provider.

I mean if you were playing games from mostly 1 or 2 game providers at a specific casino and they had manually lowered the RTP to something like 60%, you would eventually get sick of never winning and start playing games from other game providers. At least I would.

But it seems I have been wrong and that it's possible for game providers to license their game either with an RTP range (like between 75-96%, and let the casino choose freely within that range), or at several different levels (like 68-74%, 77-82%, 87-92%, 91-96%, and let tha casino switch between the RTP levels), giving the casinos an opportunity to manually change the RTP.

And apparently, this becomes more common.

Since this is what I would have done, I can't really complain. I do believe that casinos need to be transparent about changing the RTP, if and when they do it.

Is it true that the RTP can differ for a game?

Yes, this is the case with some specific games and some game providers. We’ll go into the details of the different cases here, and give you recommendations on what actions you can take to make sure you are properly informed about the game you want to play.

Basically, in today’s slot game industry the RTP level of a game can differ based on four different factors:

As known by well-oriented players and people in the industry, some game providers certify their games at several different RTP levels, giving the operators a way to adjust the specific setting for their service.

Some games providers have produced games where the player is presented with an in-game choice that affects the RTP. This can be a character selection, mode selection or similar.
Some games have different RTP levels based on the player’s selected bet size.
Some games have different RTP levels based on the player’s selected paylines.

Staying informed about games with several different RTP settings

Some players have thought that because of regulation and game licenses the RTP metric is fixed for a specific game. This is not the case today. Several operators have started to license their games on several different RTP levels. In the case of Malta Gaming Authority licenses, games can be licensed as long as the RTP level stays above the 85% mark. A game can be certified for one level of RTP % or at several different levels.

SlotCatalog is of the opinion that it’s crucial that the online casinos are transparent about this towards the players. As more game providers get their games licensed on several RTP levels and provide the possibility for casino operators to choose what RTP level they want to run the games on, it’s important that players easily can find out what current settings apply to a specific game.

This is why we’ve collected data and put up information boxes for all games that have customizable RTP levels.

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These customizable levels of RTP open up different opportunities for casino operators to go about their business. Some operators may lower the game RTP and spend some of the additional income on bonus promotions and improving other parts of their service. Others see the possibility to compete by offering their player a higher RTP, positioning themselves as a low-cost producer. An example of the latter is Unibet and their related brands which have spent a good amount of money on a Swedish Television campaign that promotes that they’ve raised the RTP to 98% on several slot games.

These changes in the industry also provide opportunities for game providers to brand themselves in a way that they see fit. For example, some challenging game providers have started to appreciate this opportunity. Some release games with above-average RTP and others have announced Fixed RTP as a counter-strategy to the recent customizable RTP levels.

Whatever directions individual operators and game providers choose to take we at SlotCatalog think it’s truly important that the industry is transparent about these settings, making them easily accessible and visible to the player. Without that, the trust between players and operators will fall substantially as we have already seen some real-world examples of.

As this is an important matter for the industry it would not be unreasonable if regulation authorities were to incorporate appropriate measures into the compliance guidelines, securing that the information is easy to find for the players. SlotCatalog aims to have RTP information for all games, but in-game start popups displaying the current RTP level as well as RTP changes depending on gameplay choices, bet sizes, and pay lines might be a better way for the industry to go about it.

Data on games with customizable RTP’s