I am not going to say that payout percentages for slots games do not exist. They are not the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy—although I am sure there are slots games with those themes out there somewhere. Payout percentages very much do exist.
However, players have a misconception of what they are for.
Well, a half misconception.
Players understand that a slots game with a payout percentage of 96% means that it pays out 96% of the money it brings in through wagers. That part is correct. The break down happens in the next part.
See a good many misinformed players believe that the payout percentage is how much they can expect back from the slots game. In other words that a player can expect to receive 96% of their wagers back.
That is the incorrect part.
Payout percentages are about the total amount that a slots game payouts from the total amount of wagers it takes in. So say a slots game takes in $100,000 in wagers from all of its players, if it has a payout percentage of 96%, it means that this particular slots game will make $96,000 in payouts in total.
That $96,000 will not go to one player. It will be dispersed in little and big payouts so that if you were to add up all of the payouts, big and small, that all the players received in that month it would total $96,000.
So now that we have learned that payout percentages are not for determining who much you can expect from a slots game—there is no way to tell how much a slots game is going to pay you—I will discuss what you can use payout percentages for this afternoon.