Volatility describes how a slot's wins are distributed: small wins often, or big wins rarely. Two games can have the same RTP and feel completely different, and volatility is the reason. It is one of the most useful facts to check when you choose a game and size your stake.
This guide covers the volatility levels, what the max win figure means and how volatility affects how far your bankroll goes.
Volatility is the technical word for how much the results of a slot swing, and slot games also use the terms variance and risk level for the same idea: how strongly outcomes depart from the average return. In statistics variance is a precise measure, but for a player the practical reading is enough: in a low-volatility game results stay close to the average, in a high-volatility game they swing from one extreme to the other.
Volatility is not the same as RTP. RTP tells you how much a game returns on average over a very long time, and volatility tells you through what kind of ups and downs that average arrives. A high-volatility game is therefore neither better nor worse, just a different way to experience the same average price.
Volatility, also called variance, measures how far results of single spins and sessions swing around a game's average return. RTP tells you how much a game pays back on average; volatility tells you in what shape that return arrives. In a low-volatility slot it comes as many small wins. In a high-volatility slot much of it sits in rare big wins, often in bonus rounds. Studios usually state volatility on a scale or in words, and scales are not fully comparable between studios.
Hit rate shows how large a share of spins pays anything at all. At a 25% hit rate, on average one spin in four pays something. Hit rate is only part of the picture, though: a win can be smaller than the stake, and a game can hit small wins often while paying the big sums only in the bonus round. Volatility takes the size of wins into account, not just their frequency.
Roughly speaking, a low-volatility game has a high hit rate and small wins, while a high-volatility game has a lower hit rate and a wide range of win sizes. The rule is not exact: a game can hit often and still be volatile if most of its return comes from rare big wins. So do not infer volatility from hit rate when the game info states a rating.
Many studios state a game's maximum win as a multiple of the stake, such as 5,000x or 10,000x – the largest single win possible relative to your bet. A high max win usually goes with high volatility: to pay tens of thousands of times the stake occasionally, a game has to pay less the rest of the time. The max win is a theoretical ceiling that is reached very rarely.
The higher the volatility, the bigger the swings your bankroll has to absorb. To play the same number of spins on a high-volatility slot, use a smaller stake or set aside a larger bankroll: with 100 units, a one-unit stake gives far more room than a five-unit stake, which can run dry before a single bonus round. Neither style is mathematically better. RTP decides the long-run cost; volatility decides what the ride feels like. Lower your stake when you move to a more volatile game, set a loss limit in advance, and never raise your stake after a dry spell – the game owes you nothing.
Studios differ clearly. In our catalogue, more than 80% of Nolimit City and Big Time Gaming slots are rated high or very high volatility, and about three quarters of Pragmatic Play slots. At the other end, under a fifth of EGT Digital slots are high volatility. High-volatility slots also have their own category.
It describes how wins are distributed: frequent and small in low-volatility slots, rarer and larger in high-volatility ones.
Volatility is how strongly a slot’s results swing around its average return. In everyday terms you can call it variance or swings: low volatility pays small wins often, high volatility pays big wins rarely.
Neither is mathematically better. It depends on whether you want a steady session or accept long dry spells for the chance of rare big wins.
Not directly. Games with the same RTP can have low or high volatility; RTP is the average return, volatility how it is spread.
The largest possible win is 5,000 times your stake. It is a theoretical ceiling that is reached very rarely.
Hit rate is how often a spin pays anything. Volatility also covers how big the wins are and how widely results swing, so a high hit rate does not always mean low volatility.