Spielautomaten – Chancen und Auszahlungen (RTP)

The basics – slot machines leave everything to chance (ZZG)

Slot machines have no memory. You never know, at any point in time, how many times a player has won or lost. The result of previous games has no influence on the next. No spin depends on the other, each one is completely arbitrary. The result is always a coincidence. This is ensured by a random number generator (ZZG) that is used in every slot machine (in English: ‘random number generator’ – RNG).

A simple example: Imagine a cube. The chance of hitting one of the six sides in a throw is the same for each side and is 1/6. It does not matter which result occurred with the previous throw. The chances of hitting a certain side are always the same for everyone. Slot machines work in a similar way. But there are far more than just six conceivable outcomes. Thousands of combinations are possible. But which symbol combination appears on the reels at the end is always pure coincidence.

However, unlike with the dice, the probability of the many possible combinations in a slot is not the same for all. This is ensured by the hit frequency (in English: ‘hit frequency’), which specifies how often a certain symbol combination appears on the reels. For an illustration, let’s go back to our cube. Let us assume that the six eyes on the dice indicate the highest payout of a slot, while the one stands for the smallest possible win. Instead of giving each side of the dice the same chance of 1/6 when thrown, the game manufacturers program the dice so that on average the six now only appears every twelfth time and the one every third time. If we roll the dice, the outcome of the next roll is still determined randomly,

Let’s go one step further and clarify this principle with our own, fictitious slot machine. We call it “The Happy Aquarium” and just give it five different symbols to keep it as simple as possible: treasure chest, golden fish, purple fish, yellow fish and red fish.

Wie die Tabelle zeigt, bietet unser Slot eine Wahrscheinlichkeit (Trefferhäufigkeit) von 1/100.000 (0,001%), die fünf Symbole mit der höchsten Auszahlung (Schatztruhe) zu erhalten, während die Wahrscheinlichkeit, fünf andere gleiche Symbole zu treffen, bei 1/13 (7.566%) liegt. So ähnlich sieht das auch in echten Spielautomaten aus. Jeder Automat ist in dieser Hinsicht anders und unterscheidet sich bei Auszahlungen und Trefferhäufigkeit. In der Regel bewegt sich die Trefferhäufigkeit bei Slots um die 40%, um irgendeine Gewinnkombination zu erhalten.

In our example slot, we are paying players 97.5% over the long term. That would be a very cheap RTP. With our example, please keep in mind that we have simplified it extremely. In real slot machines there are far more symbols and possible symbol combinations. In order to calculate the RTP of a real slot yourself, one would have to have the probabilities for every possible outcome. However, this is never the case, the number of possible results is far too large. Fortunately, we don’t need that either. The income for the players is specified by the game manufacturer and can be looked up at any time in the slot machine information.