RTP Meaning: What Return to Player Is and How It Works

RTP stands for return to player: the share of all the money staked on a game that it pays back to players over the long run. A game with a 96% RTP returns 96 units for every 100 staked on average and keeps 4, so RTP is simply 100% minus the house edge. It describes millions of rounds, not your next one.

RTP at a glance

What does RTP mean in gambling?

In gambling and online games, RTP is the percentage of wagered money a game is designed to pay back to players across a very large number of rounds. The rest, the house edge, is what the operator keeps. It is a property of the game's rules and prize table, worked out from the maths, and independent labs such as GLI test it. RTP means the same thing for a slot, a roulette bet, a dice game or a box that pays prizes.

The word "player" is the giveaway: it is the players as a group who get the return, not you personally and not in one sitting.

How is RTP calculated?

Divide what a game pays out by what is staked on it, and turn that into a percentage. From a single bet the same number falls out: multiply each possible payout by its chance and add them up.

Worked example. A game pays 1.90 times your stake and wins half the time. Its return is 0.5 × 1.90 = 0.95, so the RTP is 95% and the house edge is 5%. Stake 10 on it 500 times and you have staked 5,000. The expected return is 4,750, so on average you are down 250, or 5% of everything staked.

The same rule prices any payout: a fair game pays 1 ÷ the chance of winning, and a game with an RTP of r pays r ÷ the chance. A 50% chance at 95% RTP pays 1.90×. A 1% chance pays 95×.

Is RTP the same as house edge?

They are the same number seen from two sides: RTP = 1 − house edge. Casinos and sportsbooks often quote the edge, and online games and slot machines often quote the RTP. Regulators sometimes set a floor: Nevada requires slot machines to return at least 75%, and New Jersey at least 83%.

Why is RTP only a long-run number?

Because a single round is all luck and the average only appears over many. Take the game above, which pays 1.90× on a 50% chance and returns 95%. Over 100 rounds of one unit each, the expected result is −5 units, but one round swings by about 0.95 units either way, so 100 rounds swing by about 9.5. Some sessions finish well ahead: computed exactly, about 31 sessions in 100 end in profit after 100 rounds. After 1,000 rounds the chance of being ahead falls to about 5 in 100, because the edge is now larger than the swing.

That is why a game "due" for a win does not exist. Every round is independent, and the RTP is what the pool averages to, not a debt the game owes you. The gambler's fallacy is the mistake of expecting otherwise.

What is the difference between RTP and volatility?

RTP says how much comes back on average. Volatility says how bumpy the ride is. A game that pays 1.90× on a 50% chance and one that pays 95× on a 1% chance both return 95%, but the first swings by about 0.95 units a round and the second by about 9.45. Two games with the same RTP can feel completely different, so a higher RTP is better only if the volatility suits you. It is never a promise of a win.

What is a good RTP?

Higher is better for the player, because the house keeps less. Table games with sensible play sit around 98–99%, roulette is 97.30% or 94.74% depending on the wheel, and slots and online games vary by operator and can be set lower. The number to look for is the one the operator publishes and a lab has tested, not a claim on a banner. If a game does not state its RTP anywhere, you cannot compare it with anything.

How do you check that a game's RTP is real?

Two things can be checked, and they are different. The RTP is a claim about the prize table, and you can verify it by working out the maths yourself: multiply each payout by its chance and add them up. That is why we publish the tables.

Whether a particular round was drawn fairly is a separate question, and provably fair games answer it. The server commits to a hidden seed before you bet and reveals it afterwards, so you can recompute the result and the payout yourself. For a Gift Club round, paste the seeds into the provably fair checker and it recomputes the hash, the draw and the exact payout in your browser. How to verify a provably fair round walks through it step by step.

What is RTP at Gift Club?

Gift Club's paid games are built around a 95% return-to-player target, and the 95% is the base game before any promotion. A few hand-tuned tables land a hair away from it, so the exact figure for each game is in the index. Promotions are counted separately: they are capped and short, and in when a promotion pushes RTP above 100% we explain the one type that can raise a single claimed payout above 100%. Per-game figures live in the Telegram games RTP index, and gambling odds explained works house edge and expected value on real games.

See how a published RTP is checked

Gift Club is a Telegram mini app with paid games for adults. A round can lose, and every round can be verified afterwards.

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FAQ

What does RTP mean in slots?

In slots, RTP is the percentage of all money staked that the machine is designed to pay back over a very large number of spins. A 96% RTP slot returns 96 units for every 100 staked on average and keeps 4. It says nothing about any single session.

Does RTP mean I will get that percentage back?

No. RTP is an average across all players and millions of rounds. In a short session you can win a lot or lose everything, whatever the RTP is.

Is a higher RTP always better?

For the same volatility, yes: the house keeps less. But two games with the same RTP can swing very differently, so a higher RTP does not promise a win. Compare the RTP and how bumpy the game is.

What is the difference between RTP and house edge?

They are the same number from two sides: RTP = 100% − house edge. A 5% house edge is a 95% RTP.

What does RTP stand for outside gambling?

It has several unrelated meanings: Real-time Transport Protocol in networking, Request to Pay in payments, return to play in sports medicine, and return to production or ready to pour in industry. In gambling and gaming it means return to player.

Can a game's RTP be verified?

The RTP follows from the prize table, so you can work it out from the payouts and their chances. Whether each round was fair is checked separately, with a provably fair draw that lets you recompute the result from revealed seeds.