What Is RTP? Return to Player Explained With Examples
RTP is the share of all wagers a game pays back in the long run. Worked examples, how it differs from hit rate and volatility, and where to find it.
On this page
RTP, short for return to player, is the percentage of all the coins wagered on a game that the game pays back over a very long run of rounds. If a game has a 97% RTP, it pays back 97 coins for every 100 coins played on average and keeps 3. It is a property of the game's rules and payout table, not a promise about any one session.
RTP is a long-run average
The word "average" carries the whole idea. RTP is what you would get if you could add up every coin wagered on a game by every player, then add up every coin it paid out, and divide. Short stretches of play are dominated by luck, not by the RTP.
The clearest way to see this is to run the numbers for a simple bet. Take the Crash target of 2x (a flat one-coin bet that cashes out at 2.00x every round). The game pays 2 coins back with probability 0.97 / 2, which is 48.5%, and nothing the rest of the time. The expected return is 0.485 x 2 = 0.97 coins per coin wagered, and a single round's result varies by about 1 coin either way (a standard deviation of 1.00).
Because independent rounds add up, the spread of your total grows with the square root of the number of rounds, while the expected loss grows in a straight line:
| Rounds played | Expected return of 1 coin per round | Typical range (about 95% of sessions) | Sessions that finish ahead |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.97 | 0 or 2 (it is all or nothing) | 48.5% |
| 100 | 97 | 77 to 117 (77% to 117%) | about 34% |
| 1,000 | 970 | 907 to 1,033 (91% to 103%) | about 16% |
| 10,000 | 9,700 | 9,500 to 9,900 (95% to 99%) | about 0.1% |
The 100-round figure comes from simulating 200,000 sessions with the exact 48.5% chance; the other rows use the normal approximation (mean minus or plus two standard deviations). The pattern is what matters. After a handful of rounds, being ahead is close to a coin flip. After thousands of rounds, finishing ahead becomes very unlikely, because the 3% gap is now larger than the luck.
This is also why a "hot" session says nothing about the game being generous, and a cold one says nothing about it being unfair. See are casino games rigged? for how to tell the difference.
RTP and house edge are two views of the same number
House edge is 100% minus RTP. A 97% RTP is a 3% house edge, and the two always add up to 100%. Use whichever helps you think: RTP asks "how much comes back?" and house edge asks "how much stays behind?" The house edge guide covers the second view, including why every bet on a roulette table carries the same edge.
RTP is not hit rate, and not volatility
Three separate numbers describe a game, and people constantly mix them up:
- RTP is the total paid back, averaged over everything.
- Hit rate (hit frequency) is how often a round pays anything at all.
- Volatility (variance) is how uneven the payouts are: many small wins, or a few huge ones.
Cashout Arcade's Wheel shows how the three can come apart. With 20 segments, its low-risk setting pays something on 70% of spins but never more than 1.94x. Its high-risk setting pays on only 10% of spins, but pays 9.7x when it does. Both return exactly 97%. Same RTP, completely different feel.
The volatility guide has the full comparison with tables and a session simulation.
What RTP does not tell you
- How your session will go. It is an average over everyone and everything, not a forecast for you.
- How often you will win. A game can have a very high RTP and a very low hit rate if most of the return sits in a rare jackpot.
- That a game is "due". Rounds are independent. The game does not track its own recent payouts and adjust (see the gambler's fallacy guide).
- That higher is always better for you in practice. A 97% game with a 1-in-10,000 top prize and a 96.5% game with frequent small wins are different products. The right pick depends on what you enjoy.
When RTP depends on how you play
For most games the RTP is fixed by the payout table. In a few, your decisions change it, and the published 97% assumes the best play:
| Game | Published return | If you play it worse |
|---|---|---|
| Blackjack | 97% with basic strategy and doubling when it pays | Never doubling: 95.6%. Hitting to 17 like the dealer: 92.4%. Always standing: 82.2%. |
| Poker (Jacks or Better) | 97% holding the best cards every hand | Any other hold returns less. |
| Balloon Pop | About 97% with the best stopping decisions | Cashing out after the first balloon: 27.7% (3 duds), 39.4% (5 duds), 54.9% (8 duds). |
| Shell Game | Not a random draw: 90% if you only guess | Following every swap correctly returns more than 90%. |
Two details are worth knowing. First, the blackjack figure counts every coin staked on the hand, including the extra coin when you double. The game then scales its win pay (1.9559x the stake instead of the textbook 2x) so that the whole thing lands on 97%. Second, the "best play" standard is exact: it comes from solving the game's rules, not from a rule of thumb. The blackjack strategy guide shows the resulting chart.
For comparison, real casino video poker is advertised by pay table. The 9/6 Jacks or Better table returns 99.54% with perfect play and the 8/5 table returns 97.30%, according to the Wizard of Odds pay table list. Cashout Arcade's poker game starts from the 8/5 shape and scales the larger pays so that perfect play returns 97%.
Where to find a game's RTP in Cashout Arcade
- The Odds page lists the rules for every game that has special rules, the payout limit, and how each result is decided.
- Every game has an info button (i) with its exact return, its biggest win and its payout table where there is one.
- Each page in the Games section shows the return and house edge at a glance, read from the same game engines.
Two small details explain why you will sometimes see a figure like 96.998% instead of a round 97%. Payout multipliers are rounded down to four decimals, which can only shave a thousandth of a point off the return. And the app floors the displayed number, so that a table returning 96.995% never reads as "97%".
One more thing to keep separate: the optional extras in the app, such as My Casino perks, Game Mastery and VIP rewards, add coins after a round and are described on the Odds page. They never change what a round does, and the game's own RTP is the figure above. Because they add coins on top, a player's balance in the app can behave differently from the game's RTP alone, and at higher levels those extras can offset part or all of the 3%.
Why a high RTP does not mean you will win
The gap between RTP and your result is just variance, and variance is large. A 97% game still hands out losing sessions most of the time over a long stretch, and it still lets a minority of players finish far ahead, because someone has to be at the lucky end of the spread. Neither outcome tells you anything about the game's fairness. What the RTP does give you is a fair basis for comparing games and a plain statement of the price: about 3 coins of every 100 you play are the cost of the entertainment.
If that price stops feeling worth it, or the play stops being fun, take a break. The house edge guide and the rigged-games guide pick up from here.
Sources
- Wizard of Odds, Jacks or Better video poker pay tables and returns (accessed October 27, 2026)
Frequently asked questions
What is a good RTP?
Higher is better for the player, but the number alone does not make a game good or bad. A 97% game and a 96% game can both feel generous or stingy over a short session, because variance is far bigger than the 1-point gap. Compare games on RTP only when you also look at how the wins are spread out.
Does a 97% RTP mean I get back 97 coins of every 100 I play?
Only on average, over a very large number of rounds. In any one session you can finish well above or well below 97%. The longer you play, the closer the average drifts to the published figure, and because it sits below 100% the long-run result is a small loss.
Is RTP the same as the chance of winning?
No. RTP is about the total paid back, hit rate is about how often a round pays anything, and volatility is about how uneven the payouts are. Two games can share an RTP and feel completely different.
Do Cashout Arcade games all have the same RTP?
Most return 97%. Games with a fixed prize table return a little less (never below 96.5%), and games where skill matters assume the best play. Each game's exact figure is on the odds page and in the game's info screen.