The Relation Between Why, When & How Much You Win

How Does Volatility & Variance Affect How Much You Win?

New players who love spinning slots in Indian online casinos may be confused by one term – volatility. Also known as ‘variance’, the term is well-known to slot veterans but largely unknown to new players.

In this slot volatility guide, we’ll help you learn what it is and how it affects your chances to win.

What is Slot Volatility?

In the simplest terms, you can think of volatility as risk. It describes how risky a game is or how often it pays winnings.

Ever played online slots? If you have, you know that many slots hand frequent wins, but others long dry patches. This isn’t just down to your luck – it might be a slot that’s extremely volatile.

When you look up technical details about a particular slot machine, you will see terms such as RTP, variance (or volatility), max win, etc.

The volatility will be displayed as a low, medium, or high, or a combination of two (low-medium, medium-high). It should give you a clearer idea of what to expect in terms of returns for your money.

Low vs. High-Volatility Slots

Most slot games are either low or highly volatile. This explains how often they shell out wins.

Low-Variance Slots

Slots with low volatility hand out frequent wins. However, this comes at a price – the wins are usually smaller. You’re essentially sacrificing big for small wins, but you will get paid more often.

High-Variance Slots

High volatility slots are the ones where you can experience long dry patches. In these slots, wins won’t come that often, but when they do, you can expect a whopping return. High volatility slots are not that suitable for beginners as you might go dozens of spins before you hit a win.

This is a big problem for new players who will most likely keep their bankroll in check.

Medium-Variance Slots

Medium-volatility slots also exist. These are neither here nor there when it comes to wins. The varied wins they offer are what makes them so popular with slot fans.

However, you should check the volatility of these slots first before playing with cash. Since they’re in the middle between low and high volatility slots, they can orbit low or high volatility, and that makes all the difference.

Before you start playing, we suggest trying slots in demo mode first. It should give you a clear idea of how low or high volatility a slot is. You’re playing with virtual funds, so you can really go wild and simulate a real money game to learn how volatile a slot really is.

Slots with Lowest Volatility

Some might think playing slot games with smaller bonuses, less valued free spins, and lower jackpots may seem less appealing. However, they distribute payouts more evenly.

A low volatility slot gives you more payout per spin, stretching your bankroll in the process – and this is exactly what we are talking about in our bankroll article. Winning a million-rupee jackpot is going to need much more investment (both in terms of money invested and the number of spins) than a jackpot with a lakhs prize pool.

The best low volatility slots will allow you to minimise your losses, play for longer, and decrease the house edge!

TOP 5 SLOTS WITH LOWEST VOLATILITY:

If you are playing with a welcome casino bonus, then low volatility slots are your choice of weapon. Since you will be able to wager the bonus requirements without losing your real money.

Low volatility slots are so effective in turning over the wagering requirements that some might even be banned for playing with bonus money, such as 1429 Uncharted Seas from Thunderkick. So make sure to read the T&C’s before you start.

Slots with Highest Volatility

Slots these days tend to be highly volatile. The bigger the prizes on offer, the more likely it that the volatility of the slot game will be sky-high. However, there are differences between highly volatile slots are.

Developers these days usually mark their games with numbers in terms of volatility. For example, an 8/10 slot is highly volatile, but 10/10 means extreme in terms of volatility.

This information is usually available at the developer’s website and is very important if you’re planning to play a specific slot for real money.

TOP 5 SLOTS WITH HIGHEST VOLATILITY:

Besides these slots, there are plenty of others with high or extreme volatility if you’d like to give them a try. We can recommend Yggdrasil Gaming’s slot games and any highly volatile slot machine with the Megaways engine.

How Does it Affect My Chances to Win?

Low volatility slots are a better choice if you have a limited bankroll and you want to have some fun and win a bit of cash in return.

With these slots, you’ll be able to enjoy the gameplay and still win cash in return for your bets. It’s also a far more positive experience since you won’t be stuck in long dry patches.

When it comes to high volatility slots, you should be patient and use a betting strategy to get the most out of these slots. Wins won’t come that often, but when they strike, you’ll hit the big bucks.

It all depends on your bankroll and your type of play. Choose what suits you better and enjoy.

How is Volatility Measured in Table & Card Games?

Volatility is usually something which concerns slot players, but you can measure it in the majority of the casino games.

Roulette

If you are playing a roulette game or app, then you will notice single-numbers are high-volatility bets. Meanwhile betting on red or black are low-volatility bets.

Example

• Probability of Red Roulette Winning (Odds) – 47.4%
• Probability of Black Winning (Odds) – 47.4%
• Probability of Single Bet Win (Odds) – 2.8%

When playing roulette, you control the volatility depending on how you choose to bet. If you want to know more about utilizing volatility to your advance, check our article how to win money in roulette.

Blackjack

Measuring variance in blackjack is very complicated and require computer simulations on billions of hands.

The reason being are all the different outcomes of cards you can get.

Cashup Club does, unfortunately, do not possess this information, but we strongly recommend checking out Wizard of Odds article on Variance in Blackjack.

The Connection Between Slot Volatility and RTP

Slot variance and RTP are definitely connected. While they’re not directly linked, low variance slots tend to have a higher RTP (in many cases over 97%).

High-value slots often come with lower RTP in the 94-95-96% range.

This is not a general rule, but it’s something that can definitely tell you the variance of a slot without looking it up.

If all of this feels too complicated, then the answer might be in our article to 7 Casino Games with Low Minimum Bets. Here, we have listed the games with the lowest stakes and gambling sites where you can play them. By playing these games you will make sure to not waste your money – but you might not win that much either.

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