Slot Games with High RTP

This week I’ve decided to leave world events and international celebrations alone and instead focus on something that really matters in the gambling industry. The RTP (Return to Player) is as far as we are concerned here at CasinoReviews the single most important piece of information that a developer or a casino can give us about one of their games. A good RTP can take the most unimaginative of games and elevate it into something we might recommend you play. It is where all critical analysis of a slots game has to begin and ultimately where it has to end.

The sins of any game can be washed away if a reasonable RTP is offered. We will argue that we want entertainment. We want a game that looks good, is filled with exciting bonus features and has an original concept, but at the end of the day if you are playing a slots game there is surely only one thing you care about? The total in your wallet come the conclusion of your spins.

Let’s be clear, the RTP will not determine the outcome of any individual spin. The percentage is calculated over the course of a number of spins, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of spins. The more you play, the more accurate that percentage becomes. Other reviewers will point you in the direction of a game’s volatility. Games that can win or lose big in just a few spins. However, even these games should be approached with a degree of pragmatism if the RTP is taken into account.

The truth is, making money playing slots machines is not all that easy. If it was there wouldn’t be so many operators looking to grab their piece of the pie. All you need do to know that buckets of cash are being filled is take a look at the number of new games that come out every month. Slots games are thriving, which means money, lots of money, is being made.

For this reason we always want to find you the best deal with the lowest House Edge that we can. The RTP gives lets you know how much of an edge the casino holds over you. The lower the edge, the more time you can expect to be entertained. As with any form of gambling, there are no guarantees and no outcome can be accurately predicted. This is all about averages, which become more accurate with more information.

Most slots games will publish the RTP in their paytable or game information tables that exist on their website. If you cannot find this information on the game or on the software developer’s website then you will find it on the RTP table for any UK online casino that offers slots games, as it is a legal requirement to publish this information in the UK.

Most slots games sit somewhere between 94.5% and 94%. Anything within that range, we would consider to be acceptable. Anything better than a 3.5% house edge we would consider to be exceptional. Before I go looking for games my hope is that all the entries on our list will sit at 3% or better. One issue I am aware of is the redundancy of certain games within the market. There are lots of games with a seriously low house edge, but a large number of them can no longer be played. So, we can only apologise that the likes of Ugga Bugga, with a house edge of 0.93%, won’t make it onto our list.

The rest of this article will be dedicated to 10 slots games, each one with a high RTP, or a low house edge (the house edge is just the RTP inverted, so 95% becomes 5%). Our list of 10 games is in no particular order but will showcase the best value for money games out there today.

Let’s start things off with some magic shall we? Simsalabim is a Net Entertainment game that has all the brilliance you would expect to find from the software giants with the added bonus of having an RTP of 97.5%. That’s an entire percentage better than what we ideally like to see. The game itself looks fantastic and is full of the sort of bonus features that Net Entertainment have become famous for. Fun, entertaining and offering excellent value for money: what’s not to like?

We are going to stick with Net Entertainment for now and point out the much-maligned Blood Suckers game. Since its release many full moons ago Blood Suckers has seen a second in the series replace it as a much-loved Vampire game. Sure, it looks nowhere near as good as Blood Suckers II. It is also down on entertainment value but with a 2% house edge, this game is offering serious value for money.

Hot Ink sees MicroGaming take a place on our list with another older game that looks like it might be in need of a splash of colour. The game might be lacking a bit in the looks department, but it still has some excellent features to keep you amused and most importantly, it has a very low house edge. At 2.5% we are, yet again, well under what we consider to be good value for money. So get yourself down to the tattoo parlour and try some Hot Ink.

Another MicroGaming entry sees our first Egyptian themed slot on the list. Temple of Luxor has already made it onto our top 10 Egyptian themed list and it did so off the back of its rather impressive house edge. At 2.9%, it might be the highest entry on our list so far but it is still offering outstanding value for money when sat beside your average slots game. Add to this a free spins bonus with a twist and a game that looks the part and there is very little here for us not to recommend.

Golden Tour is the one and only golf game on this list. The main reason for that is there are almost no good golf games out there. In fact there are almost no golf games out there full stop. This effort from Playtech clocks in with an impressive 97.71% RTP, which more than makes up for the lack of glamour and entertainment that it offers. If you are into golf and you are into slots games then this is the one and only game for you. We’ve seen an incredible horse racing game released this year, maybe it’s time for a decent golf game too.

Steam Tower is yet another game that we have included on a list before. It was a given that it would make an appearance in a steam punk themed list but with a house edge of only 3% it was also very likely that it would turn up here as well. Another Net Entertainment game means you can pretty much guarantee that Steam Tower looks great. You also get free spins, multipliers and various steam powered meters that make the game, not just good value for money but also good entertainment.

If steam wasn’t hot enough for you, it’s time for Net Entertainment to rank up the thermostat to an impressive 97.6% RTP in the scorching hot Devil’s Delight. A house edge of just 2.4% actually makes Devil’s Delight the game that has offered the most value for money so far. The game has a simple but playful looking aesthetic, with some brightly coloured cartoon characters making a trip to hell look a lot less grim than some publications might lead you to believe. The bonus game is seriously good fun, allowing you to commit certain deadly sins in order to fill your soul-meter, whatever that is!

Gold Factory is a very simple game. It looks simple, it is simple and most importantly its RTP is a simple 97%. Not the best value for money on our list, but still deserving of a place in our top 10. The game comes with fun bonus feature, other than that you would be playing this because the house edge is a comforting 3%

Our final Net Entertainment game is one that looks like something that Nintendo might have released back in the 90s. The colours are bright, they are bold and the reels are shaped like no other set of reels I have seen before. Wins signal re-spins and with each re-spin more of the reels are revealed, until they resemble what you might consider to be a traditional set of reels. With a house edge of 3% this isn’t the best value for money on our list, but it is still much better than the average.

This will be our one and only entry from Tom Horn Gaming, and what a game it is. Nothing spectacular to look at, but it does come with a bonus, free spins and wild symbols. The theme is also one I have barely seen before. But what impresses the most is that house edge. Brace yourself for this. At 1.17% I challenge you to find a lower house edge anywhere. It has to be a game that can be played today but if you can find it I will doth my cap and admit defeat.

There are a few games that I didn’t include on the list because the RTP only rises to an impressive level when you trigger the bonus game. In each case the games in question had a lower than average RTP when the base game was being played. As a result of this games like Yggdrasil’s Jokerizer and MicroGaming’s Wild Orient. I will also admit that there are inevitably games that I have missed, simply because we haven’t been able to cast our net wide enough. At some point in the future when we have delved into the less populated areas of the slots world we will hopefully be able to add more games to this list.

Before we started writing this piece we assumed that 10 games with a low house edge would be easy to find. Yet, many of them, when accessed are no longer playable. We suspect that if I had written this article 10, maybe even 5 years ago we would have had our pick of a rather impressive bunch.

Only one game on the list had a house edge that made it below 2%, yet there are plenty of games that had we been able to access them would have done. What I notice about those games is that they do not live up to the creative and aesthetic quality that most modern games do. This suggests that in order to make modern games look as good as they do and to make them as engaging as they are costs more money. More expensive hardware and software is needed. Bigger teams requiring larger paycheques for work that is highly skilled means that the games need to be making more money to cover their costs.

Naturally we want the best of both worlds. We want games that look fantastic, serve up cutting edge entertainment and value for money. Some of the bigger companies can manage it to an extent, but the days of the cheap and cheerful slots game feels like it might be a thing of the past.

Net Entertainment dominate our list because they are the biggest and wealthiest company and as such they can come closer than just about any other software developer to bring us the best of both worlds.

For companies coming in from the ground floor the rise to the top is a daunting one. Ambition might have to be reigned in to be begin with. But we have seen success stories, companies like Yggdrasil who started out with games that were relatively uninspiring can now boast a stable of slots games that are as good, if not better than just about anything out there today.

Despite all this we will continue to review our slots games in the same manner, by holding the RTP as the most important piece of information in deciding whether a slots game is worth your time and your money to sit down and play.