Payout ratio: Why the same slot pays differently everywhere

Payout ratio: Why the same slot pays differently everywhere

According to the manufacturer, Book of Dead pays out 96% of bets. in New Zealand casinos the same slot runs at 84%, 87.25% or 91% depending on where you launch it. We evaluated 10,859 odds from ten casinos and placed them against the manufacturer's information in our slot database. This article explains what the RTP measures, why a game has several of them, and how you can tell which version is in front of you.

What the evaluation revealed

• 96.00%Median of the manufacturer information in our slot database
• 88.05% median odds in ten New Zealand casinos
• The same slot is the median between two casinos at 3.20 points
• 5.03 cents tax is deducted from every euro spent

One slot, several odds: the example of Book of Dead

Play’n GO gives a payout rate of 96% for Book of Dead. You can find this number in almost every game description online. In our data it does not appear at a single New Zealand casino. Four providers lead the slot with around 84%, three with 87.25% and one with 91%. There are seven points between the lowest and the highest version, and twelve points between the manufacturer's information and the lowest version.

Book of Dead is not a special case. The pattern runs through the entire inventory, as the selection below shows. Each point represents a odds that one or more casinos quote for that slot. The orange diamond marks the manufacturer's information.

One slot, multiple odds

Blue dots show the odds at one or more casinos, the orange diamond shows the manufacturer's information.

What is striking is how often the same values ​​recur. StarGames, AdmiralBet and Wildz say exactly 84.18% for Book of Dead, while Bwin Test Erfahrungen &, bet-at-home and Merkur Slots give exactly 87.25%. Such similarities are no coincidence. They show that the manufacturer supplies a small number of fixed versions and each casino selects one of them. How this works is explained in the third section.

What the payout ratio measures

The payout ratio, known as Return to Player or RTP for short, indicates what proportion of all bets are returned as winnings over many game rounds. In 88% of cases, NZ$ 80 comes back out of every NZ$ 100 stake. The remaining NZ$ 10 is what the game keeps. This means the average over millions of spins and across all players combined.

The number therefore means little for a single session. If you play 200 rounds, you can win significantly more or lose significantly more than the odds suggest. Only with very large numbers of rounds does the result approach the specified value. The odds describe the game and not your evening.

How the quota is created

The value is determined when the slot is built. The manufacturer determines symbols, reel assignments and pay table in such a way that the desired odds are obtained across all possible outcomes. How often a certain result occurs is determined before the first round is played. The odds can only be changed by loading a different version of the game.

What the odds mean for your stake

New Zealand a tax is added to each stake. It changes how much of the withholding remains and explains much of the difference. The calculator shows three typical odds.

Why a slot has multiple versions

Large manufacturers deliver their games in several quota levels. On the screen, each version looks the same, with the same symbols and the same free spins. What varies is how much the game returns over many rounds.

The casino decides which level is running when integrating the slot. Our data shows that the providers are sorted into clear groups. Play’n GO runs all titles from StarGames, AdmiralBet, Wildz and DrückGlück below 86%, median 84.24%. Bwin and bet-at-home consistently set the same slots at 87.25%. Novoline Leads the Play’n GO titles with a median of 94%. With Pragmatic Play the picture is more consistent. All providers there have a median rating of around 87%, and only individual titles like Gates of Olympus run at 89.5% at Wildz and DrückGlück.

Good to know

The version applies equally to all players in a casino. A quota that is based on your account balance, your playing time or your winning history would contradict Section 22a Paragraph 3 gambling regulator. It says that the chances of winning must be random and give every player equal opportunities.

How often casinos differ

There are 972 slots in our data at least five casinos with a quota. The median between the lowest and highest value is 3.20 points. With 367 titles it is five points or more. Only 322 slots run at virtually the same odds everywhere. The overview shows the two slots that are in the program of most providers for seven manufacturers.

The same slots at different casinos

Per manufacturer, the two slots that most providers run.

Why New Zealand quotas are lower: the virtual machine tax

Each virtual slot game New Zealand is subject to its own tax, the virtual slot tax. It is measured by the effort. Whether a round wins or loses does not matter.

What is in the law

“The virtual machine tax is based on the stake made minus the virtual machine tax.”

“The virtual machine tax amounts to 5.3 percent of the assessment basis according to Section 37.”

The calculation behind it is simple. A slot with 96% keeps NZ$ 0 out of every NZ$ 100 bet. The tax on the same NZ$ 100 is NZ$ 5.03. With the version according to the manufacturer's information, the casino would pay extra for every euro bet before the manufacturer, payment provider and company are paid. The lower versions are the answer to that. At 88%, after the tax, just under seven euros are left for every NZ$ 100 staked.

This largely explains the difference between the tax and the manufacturer's information. She doesn't explain the differences between the casinos because they all pay the same rate. How far a provider goes below what is necessary is a business decision.

➡️ The virtual machine tax affects your use. Whether taxes are due on your winnings is clarified

Our survey: 10,859 odds from ten casinos

The basis is the game lists from our own database. In it, we record for each recorded casino which slots it offers and what odds it gives for each individual title. Each value is taken over exclusively by the casino itself. We never enter odds from other sources or providers. Our slot database with the manufacturer's information for 5,528 games is used for comparison.

How the quotas are distributed, share per percentage level

Manufacturer information (5,528 slots) in New Zealand gaming libraries (10,859 values) under 848485868788899091929394959697 from 98

The two distributions barely overlap. For manufacturers, 57.8% of all information is 96% or above. In the New Zealand casinos it is 0.1%. Conversely, 95.1% of the casino values ​​are below 92%. The peaks at 84%, around 88% and at 90% correspond to the frames that the major manufacturers supply to the New Zealand market.

Which values ​​we didn't use

We only filtered based on the origin of a value and never based on its amount. The interface values ​​from Merkur Slots were not included because the logged in information page states lower odds for the same slots and only these apply to New Zealand. The Interwetten odds list is several years old. Lord Lucky maintains a game catalog that matches Lapalingo in every value and therefore does not count twice. LeoVegas and Jokerstar do not give odds outside of the game.

At Löwen Play, JackpotPiraten, BingBong and Lapalingo, the published odds largely correspond to manufacturer values, which demonstrably do not apply to New Zealand from other providers. Whether higher versions are actually running there can only be checked in the game itself. Until this is clarified, these four providers will be excluded from all figures in this article.

➡️ Our page describes the criteria we use to check casinos beyond the odds How we test.

Eight casinos in comparison

The medians of the individual providers are closer to each other than the values ​​of individual slots. This is because high and low frames balance each other out across an entire inventory. What is more meaningful is how many titles run below 88% and which level a casino chooses for well-known slots. Clicking on a tile opens the details.

Novoline is the only provider in this selection whose median is over 90%. At the other end are bet-at-home and Bwin with medians just over 87.5%. Betano and Merkur slots are missing from this overview. Both only mention the non-game quota for a small part of their holdings, and a median from so few titles would not be comparable.

Manufacturer comparison: who delivers the deepest frames

Not every manufacturer offers the same bandwidth. New Zealand's games from Play'n GO are furthest below the manufacturer's own specifications. Yggdrasil slots, on the other hand, run a median of a good five points below the manufacturer's specifications and are therefore significantly closer to the original. The table shows the five manufacturers for which both data sources contain enough titles.

Manufacturer information and quota in gaming halls, per manufacturer

The median of all slots from the manufacturer.

This means two things when choosing a slot. For manufacturers with a wide range, it is particularly worth looking at the specific quota. And for these manufacturers, a high manufacturer specification is no indication of what is actually running in the casino.

Quote and volatility: two values ​​that have nothing to do with each other

Volatility describes how unevenly a slot pays out. A game with high volatility brings long stretches without a significant win and the occasional big hit. When volatility is low, small profits often fall. The quota, on the other hand, only says how much is returned in total.

In our data, the two values ​​are not related. Low, medium, high and very high volatility slots all have a median of between 87.4% and 88.2%. A riskier game does not automatically pay back more.

➡️ We have shown in our evaluation what a jackpot derives from the odds Jackpot Types recalculated.

Where you can find the payout percentage

Every casino with New Zealand permission must display the odds. The State Treaty on Gambling stipulates that players must be clearly shown the average payout rate per euro bet where the bet is made.

What is in the law

“The player must be clearly shown the probability of winning the maximum prize as well as the average payout rate per euro stake.”

In practice, this means that you can always find the binding odds during the game, usually in the info or rules menu. Some casinos also mention them in advance, for example as a plaque on the game tile or on their own information page. Others show them exclusively in the game. Which casino goes which way is shown in the tiles in the sixth section.

➡️ You can use this to check whether a casino has New Zealand permission and is therefore bound to this obligation gambling regulator whitelist checker.

➡️ He explains to you what Section 22a and the other paragraphs of the State Treaty regulate gambling regulator checker in simple language.

How do you recognize a low frame?

The wording in the game differs depending on the manufacturer. Some write the odds as a percentage, others as an amount per euro bet, for example “€0.88 per bet of NZ$ 0.00”. The same thing is meant in each case. If the value is significantly below the information given in a game description online, one of the New Zealand versions is running.

What the payout ratio doesn't say

The odds describe an average over many rounds. It says nothing about the result of the next spin. A slot with 84% can pay you more in a night than one with 91%. But over thousands of laps the difference becomes apparent.

Some casinos show live odds in addition to the theoretical odds. At AdmiralBet it is based on the last 1,000 game rounds of a slot and is recalculated every ten spins. Such values ​​fluctuate greatly. Individual slots were over 600%, and a single big win within the last 1,000 rounds is enough. This value does not provide any information about the version of the game. It just shows what happened last.

And the odds reveal nothing about individual rounds in the future. There is no such thing as a machine that is “due”. The random generator has no history.

➡️ How you notice that you are playing after losses and where you can get help is explained on our page responsible gaming.

➡️ Our list shows which slots run in New Zealand casinos with particularly high odds Slot machines with high payout rates.

➡️ We compare how the casinos perform overall on our page best payout rate.

Sources

Own data

The editorial team's own database with the game lists from 18 gaming halls, ten of which have usable odds. Each quota comes from the respective casino itself, nothing is transferred. Own slot database with the manufacturer information for 5,528 slots. The filter was based on the origin of a value and never based on its height.

Legal basis in verbatim

§ 22a Paragraph 3 gambling regulator 2026 for the obligation to report the payout rate, §§ 36 to 38 RennwLottG for the virtual machine tax.