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Slot Games Volatility, Risk And Variance Explained

Triple 7 slot game symbol in golden circle

If you are trying to know more about the free slot games available at BetGold, this special betting guide was made for you.

One of the concepts that may be a little confusing for beginners, is the risk concept involved in these games in contrast with the potential returns of each virtual slot machine.

In other words, there’s a balance between how likely you are to win, and how much you can win. Many different words can be used to describe this balance, including risk, volatility, variance or variation

All these words are used to describe the same phenomenon. Let’s use some real examples of BetGold to understand how they work.

Differences Between Low Volatility And High Volatility Slot Games

Football Star is a low volatility, low risk, low variance slot game, because it pays prizes more often than the so-called medium or high volatility, risk or variance games. A Good example would be Mega Moolah, a progressive jackpot game of high volatility.

Gamblers that enjoy the sensation of winning very often will be more satisfied (in theory) by games of lower risk, variance and volatility.

If, however, you’re in the game for a life changing prize, then you rather focus on games of high volatility, risk and variance, because slot games like Mega Moolah pay prizes as big as lottery prizes every betting season!

But What Means Slot Games Volatility And Variance?

The word of slots games is full of jargon, but many terms have absolutely nothing to do with the concept explained above. Variation, variance, volatility, and risk are terms related to the risk/return proportion or balance of a virtual slot machine of BetGold.

Bonus games, for example, can exist in games of all kinds of risk or volatility levels, and while they benefit the user in different ways depending on the game, they aren’t typical of any specific category of games.

Common jargon also includes special symbols like wilds and scatters, but just like the bonus games, they are common to all kinds of virtual slot machines, not just low, medium or high-risk slot games of BetGold.

What Return to Player Means In Slot Games?

Return to Player is a term related to how big the house cut is, so a game with a Return to Player (RTP) of 96% takes just 4% of the betting volume as house cut, so for every million dollars staked, 960k returns in the form of cash prizes to the gamblers of the casino.

There are different levels of RTP depending on the studio and other characteristics of each game, but it’s not correct to say that a specific range of risk is necessarily of high, low or medium RTP.

Other features of slot games like stacked symbols, cascading symbols, specific number of reels or rows, as well as other features like the ‘gamble your winnings’, also known as ‘double up feature’, aren’t specific of a range of risk.

Low risk, medium risk and high risk are determined by the studio that develops the game, and this information is typically public. The reviewers of a specific site may agree or disagree with the alleged category of a specific game, but in general the risk level of a game is by no means a ‘state secret’.

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