Which Slots Pay Most Often? Hit Frequency and Volatility by Studio

What paying most often means

Two figures describe it. Hit frequency is the share of spins that win something, and Red Tiger, NetEnt and Nolimit City print it on each game's page. The volatility label describes how the return is spread: Pragmatic Play's rules screen for Big Bass Bonanza says low volatility games "pay out more often in smaller amounts".

Neither says how much the game keeps over time: that is its RTP, the share of all stakes it returns over a very long run, which our guide to RTP and volatility explains. A slot that pays often is no easier to win on. It returns what it returns through more, smaller wins, and a session on it can end below where it started, as on any slot.

How often a spin pays: the studios' own figures

From the most frequent. These are the slots we review whose studio prints a hit frequency; for the rest, the volatility labels further down are what the studios publish.

Hit frequency and label as each studio prints them on the game's page. Hit frequency is the share of spins that win something, averaged over a very long run.

Hit frequency and volatility label, side by side 📊

The two do not always move together. On Red Tiger's pages, Grand Wheel is labelled Medium and hits 10.40% of spins, while Vault Cracker is labelled High and hits 38.34%. NetEnt's Medium games run from 17% (Fruit Shop Megaways) to 41% (Divine Fortune Megaways).

A label says how the return is spread, a hit frequency how often a spin pays anything. Where a studio prints both, read both.

Slots by their studio's volatility label 📊

Each game sits in the group its own studio names, on the game's rules screen or its page on the studio's site. Slots whose studio publishes no label are not in these tables.

Low volatility (15)

Medium volatility (19)

High volatility (15)

Very high volatility (5)

Extreme volatility (2)

Each label is the one the studio publishes for the game. Studios use different scales, so compare labels within one studio. The RTP is the studio's figure; where a studio lists several settings, the range runs from the lowest to the highest.

Why one studio's label is not another's

Studios do not share one scale, and two official sites can label the same game differently. Red Tiger's page gives Wings of Ra an Extreme badge, while Evolution's games site lists it as High; NetEnt labels Fruit Shop medium, and Evolution's games site files it under Low / Mid.

So compare labels between games of one studio, and where the studio publishes a hit frequency, read that for how often a spin pays.

One game, several RTP settings 📊

For the games below, the studio gives more than one RTP. Habanero lists its settings on each game's page, most as "~ 86%, 92%, 94%, 97%, 98%" (the tilde means rounded figures), and each casino runs one of them; Wild Trucks' page lists 92% to 98%, and Taiko Beats' and Gold Rush's give 96% in place of 97%. Playtech's help for four builds of Diamond Rise, each titled Diamond Rise in the game, gives a different RTP for each.

How to check the RTP your casino runs 📊

The game itself shows which setting your casino runs. In a Habanero game, open the game menu, then Help (the rules call it How to Play), and scroll to Return To Player. In Habanero's own free demo of Wealth Inn that line reads 96.67% for the game, plus 0.50% for each jackpot.

Where two casinos run one game at different settings, the higher setting keeps less of what is staked over time. It still does not make a win likely: every setting in the table above is below 100%.