What is Slots Variance?

Slots Variance.

Slots variance is an important concept to understand if you are a slots player. It’s a measure of how volatile a game is and should be an important consideration for you when you are searching for games to play. Whether or not you tend to gravitate towards high or low variance slots will depend on your appetitie for risk and your available bankroll.

High Variance slots

Examples of high variance games include Immortal Romance, Great Blue and the Invisible Man slot. These types of games can be highly volatile, meaning that the frequency of wins can vary enormously from session to session.

You may experience cold periods on these games where the machine goes through tight periods. These may be interspersed with red hot periods where the game pays out handsomely and where you can hit some very big wins.

To play these kinds of games, you need to make sure that you have enough money in your bank-roll to see you through any dry periods. Make sure you set your individual bet level at a sensible level. Playing a high variance slot doesn’t mean that you have to have a huge bankroll, but just make sure that you have enough spins banked to let you ride out any lean periods. If it take you 300 spins to get into the bonus feature and you are playing $5 a spin with a $100 budget, you aren’t going to make it. Reduce your total bet size down.

Low Variance Slots

Low volatility slots sit at the other end of the spectrum. These are games that pay out winnings more frequently, but the individual amounts will be lower. The winnings pay out profile is smoother than a high variance game. These kinds of games are more friendly to those players with a smaller bankroll, or more accurately those who prefer to play a higher percentage of their overall budget on each individual spin.

Examples of low variance slots include Mermaids Millions and Starburst. These games are less of a white knuckle ride and you will tend to see more action on the bonus feature front- but the level of wins will be lower.

You can get some clues as to whether a slot is high or low variance by looking at the pay-table.

What kind of multiple does the slot pay out for different symbol combinations? How many free spins does it offer in the bonus round?

If the game offers a high number of free spins in the bonus round at a tasty multiple, and you can re-trigger the free spins in the bonus- these are all clues as to whether the game is volatile or not.

Medium Variance Slots

Of course, many games sit in between theses 2 extremes- the majority of games, in fact, we would classify as Medium Variance or averagely volatile games. Games like Agent Jane Blonde, Avalon 2, the Bridesmaids slot and the Game of Thrones slot– these are all games that we would place in the middle of the spectrum.

Slots developers are generally secretive about the exact volatility of a slot- they don’t like to share the inner workings of their games, but you can get an overall view on the level of volatility of a game through sites like SlotSites.com and personal experience.

Enjoy the free slots we have on the site!