Random Number Generation (RNG) can take three different forms. There is the computational form, the physical form and the human form. Your favorite online casino uses the computational form which uses complex formulas and algorithms. This method is used on a variety of different things including cryptography, completely randomized design, and statistical sampling.

The physical method is used at your favorite casino. This method comes in the form of a dice throw, a wheel spin, even a card deal.

The least common method is the human method. Although humans claim to be completely random they are not. This method is truly unreliable and therefore not favored by many scientists.

So now you’re wondering how to know if your casino complies with RNG standards, right? Every casino is audited regularly by the Technical Systems Testing (TST) for complete randomization. There is no way a casino can “tighten up” their machines. In fact every casino has a payout percentage. This means that for the amount of money put into a casino, they have to payout a certain percentage of that money. So you know that if you are playing at a casino with a payout percentage of 98% you are going to hit more often.

Now it is important to know that while statistics like payout percentage and hit frequency are accurate measures that reflect on an online slots game, they are not precise.

Look at payout percentage. It tells a player how much of all of the wagers taken in during month that are paid back out in wagers. It does not tell a player if that is a bunch of small payouts or a smaller number of large payouts. The same sort of thing applies to hit frequency. It only tells a player how often an online slots game hits, but it does not say if that statistic is made up of small hits or jackpot hits.

So you might wonder why online slots players will use these two statistics to choose an online slots game when they lack preciseness. They do because there is no other statistics that players can lay their hands on.

So how does a player use these two if they are so imprecise? As basic as it sounds, trial and error.

Say you are looking for an online slots game based on payout percentage. You might start with the highest percentage that you mind, but once you start playing you discover that it does not payout in small payouts, but seems to lean towards infrequent larger payouts, and this is not what you want. At this point you would have back to comparing payout percentages, choosing a new online slots game and giving it a run to see if it pays out more like how you want it to.

Finding the right online slots game does take a bit of trial and error and that is something that players need to keep in mind when cruising the online casinos.

Hit frequency is a method of choosing an online slots game that is slowly gaining in popularity. To compare it to payout percentage, the payout percentage of an online slots game is a measurement of how much of wagers are paid back out. Hit frequency measures how often a winning combination comes up on the reels.

A couple of things to know about hit frequency—it does not go hand in hand with payout percentage. An online slots game, for example, could have a low hit frequency meaning it does not hit often but a high payout percentage meaning it pays most of the wagers back out. So keep that in mind.

Hit frequency counts all hits, not just the jackpot hits or just the high paying winning combination. So keep in mind that an online slots game could have a high hit frequency but when playing it you notice that it makes lots of smaller payouts but few large payouts. It still falls in with its hit frequency because it is still hitting often. It just is not the hits that you wanted.

This is only one factor that players look at when choosing which online slots game to play. This afternoon I will talk some more about choosing online slots games.

How in the world did that happen you wonder? For starters, take a look at what is on the casino floor in terms of slot machines. Ten years ago there were more high denomination slot machines than there are now. Likewise, there were fewer penny and nickel slot machines. If you look at the casino floor today you will notice that the number of high denomination machines has decreased and the number of low denomination machines has increased.

That shift in the number of each kind of slot machines does impact the overall payback of a casino. Higher denomination machines do have a higher payback and low denomination machines have a smaller payback by comparison.

Back when there were more higher denomination machines on the floor, the payback percentage was higher. But when players started drifting to the lights and sounds of a penny and nickel slots games, and the number of lower denomination machines increased, the payback dropped.

It comes down to basic math. When calculating an average, the more lower numbers in the calculation, the lower the average will be. Now apply that to the increase in low denomination machines; the more lower denomination machines with lower paybacks, the more the overall, or average payback, will be.

When you are out and about on the casino floor you are bound to hear some grumbling about how slot machines just are not paying out like they used to. Generally speaking these are the older slots players—not to say they are old, I am a fan of only being as old as you feel. This is not out of some sense of bring frugal or the like; the better explanation is that these slots players have been around the casino for awhile and they have noticed a change in the overall payout of slot machines.

And they would be right. It is not their imagination.

And no, the answer is not some conspiracy on the casinos of the world at large to universally change their payout percentages or something like that. Nor does it have to do with the advent and upswing in online slots. Actually the reason lies with slots players in general.

Over the last decade or two there has been a shift in how slots players wager, in the denominations they wager with. It used to be that slots players would give no thought to wagering a quarter or even a dollar per payline.

Not anymore. Now slots players are mostly prone to wagering a penny or nickel per payline. Unless of course they are wagering on a progressive slot machine.

Here is where the shift comes into play in regards to overall payout: the higher the wager, the more a slot machine winds up paying out, the better the payback. With slots players lowering their overall wagers, the overall payback of falls as well. It is just math and a trend, not a conspiracy.

In truth, the results of a slot’s spin are whatever the RNG pulls from all possible outcomes. It is just random chance.

It is the slots games that payout the most or the highest that are called the lucky ones. But there are logical explanations to dispel this myth. And a dispelled myth arms slots players against putting stock in a misguided belief that could lead to wasted slots wagering.

For a slots game to payout often or in high amounts it is likely that it has a higher than average payout percentage, or a payout percentage that is higher than the slots games around it.

Remember, a slots game’s payout percentage is the amount of total wagers it pays out in a given time.

So say all the slot machines in a casino have a 92% payout percentage. Except for one. One slot machine has a 96% payout percentage. That single slot machine will either payout more often or in larger amounts. And since it is the only one in the bunch that pays out like that or in that volume, slots players could come to think that it is a lucky slot machine.

It is easy to see where the lucky slot myth comes from. But there is no supernatural force that makes one slots game luckier than the others.

But the question becomes how does knowing a slots game’s hit frequency impact a player’s slots strategy?

Like how payout percentage can help a player determine which slots game they would like to play based on how much of its total wagers. Similar to how slots players can use the payout percentage of a slots game to determine whether or not they want to play it, they can use the hit frequency to choose as well.

We will call this choosing a slots game strategy.

Hit frequency is how often a slots game hits. The greater the hit frequency the more often it make a payout. Conversely, the lower the hit frequency of a slots game the fewer times it will make a payout.

But here is the downside: all you as a player know is the frequency the slots game hits; you do not know exactly how often it will hit. It could hit several times in a row or there could be long periods of time between hits. There is also no indication of the kinds of payouts the slots game will issue or how much it returns. The payout percentage gives an impression of how much, but not the likelihood of a hitting.

The strategy here is to choose a slots game with the highest hit frequency possible. Using that strategy to choose a slots game means that you are more like to receive hits on a slots game, although such a strategy does not tell you what kind of hits you will get—only that you are more likely to hit more.

Some players believe a slots game’s hit frequency to be the same thing as its payout percentage.

This is not correct, and if you stop and think about it, it is immediately apparent.

Say a slots game has a payout percentage of 95%. If we go with the idea that payout percentage and hit frequency are the same thing, then that would mean the slots game in question has a hit frequency of 95%, meaning that it hits 95% of the time.

If that were the case then that would be the busiest slots game in history. If it were an online slots game the server the game was stored on would be overloaded and no one could play. And if it were a slot machine then it would have a line out the door and down the street.

Hit frequency is the likelihood of a slots game issuing a payout. Generally speaking the higher a hit frequency is the more often the slots game hits, but the payout tend to be smaller; while a slots game with a lower hit frequency is likely to issue larger payouts but less often.

Just to compare, payout percentage is the total amount of wagers taken in by the slots game in a given time period, usually a month, which is then paid out in winnings. So a slots game with a 95% payout percentage will payout 95% of the wagers it takes in. That could be in large amounts or small amounts. But the size of a payout does not matter in payout percentage—only the total amount paid out.

When think about what hit frequency is versus what payout percentage is, it is easier to see how the two are totally different. Just because a slots game has a high payout percentage does not mean it hits often. Keep that in mind.

So what can you use payout percentages for?

They must have some purpose; after all they are out there on the Internet for players to see.

Think of what a payout percentage is. It is the percentage of total payouts made from all of the wagers made on that slots game in a month. So you can know that Slots Game A pays out 96%. What can you do with that?

Compare it to what Slots Game B’s payout percentage.

If Slots Game B has a payout percentage of 94% you know roughly that Slot Game A returns more of the wagers in a month to players than Slots Game B.

Using the $100,000 in total wagers made in a month example, that would mean that Slot Game A is paying out $96,000 whereas Slots Game B is paying out $94,000.

Now you have no idea if Slots Game A is paying out that $96,000 in lots of small payouts or fewer larger payouts. But what you do know is that it is paying out more from the wagers than Slots Game B.

The logic here is that if you know one slots game pays back more than another, it stands to reason that you could be increasing your chances of receiving some of those payouts if you are playing the slots game that is paying back more.

Use payout percentages to compare slots games, to see which one is paying back more. Playing the slots game that is paying back the most from the wagers it takes in could put you in the position to win a little more.

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.