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Return to player is a number about a million spins. This is the arithmetic for the two hours you are actually going to play.
Last updated 9 min readSection Money
Every casino page quotes return to player. Almost none of them explain that a 96% RTP does not mean you will end an evening with 96% of your money — it means that across an enormous number of spins the game returns 96% of everything staked. Over one session the distribution around that average is wide, and the width is the part that determines how the evening goes.
The house edge applies to every rand you stake, not to the rand you deposited. Deposit R500 and play R5 spins, and if you play 400 spins you have staked R2 000 — four times your deposit, because winnings get restaked. The expected cost is the edge multiplied by turnover, not by deposit.
Wide table — drag it sideways to see every column.
| Game | Typical house edge | Expected cost per R1 000 staked | Expected cost per hour at R5 a spin, 500 spins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blackjack, basic strategy | 0.5–1% | R5–R10 | R12–R25 |
| Baccarat, banker bet | about 1.06% | about R11 | about R27 |
| European roulette (single zero) | 2.7% | R27 | R68 |
| American roulette (double zero) | 5.26% | R53 | R132 |
| Slots | 3–8% | R30–R80 | R75–R200 |
| Most side bets | 5–15% | R50–R150 | R125–R375 |
Two things jump out of that table. Single-zero roulette costs half what double-zero roulette costs, for a game that looks identical — always check which wheel you are at. And side bets, which are sold as a bit of fun for a small stake, carry edges several times worse than the game they are attached to.
Expected cost is the average. Variance is the spread around it, and over a short session variance dominates completely. A high-volatility slot with a 96% RTP will, most evenings, take your money faster than the average implies, because the average is being held up by a jackpot you will almost certainly not hit. A low-volatility game with the same RTP grinds much closer to the average.
The practical translation: if your goal is time at the table for a fixed budget, choose low volatility and low edge. If your goal is a chance at a large number, choose high volatility and accept that the modal outcome is losing the lot quickly. Both are legitimate; confusing them is not.
A rough rule that works: to have a reasonable chance of playing for a couple of hours, your stake per spin should be somewhere around one two-hundredth of your bankroll on a medium-volatility game. Some arithmetic in rands:
| Bankroll for the session | Sensible stake per spin | Roughly what that buys |
|---|---|---|
| R200 | R1 | An evening, on a low-volatility game |
| R500 | R2.50 | An evening with some swing in it |
| R1 000 | R5 | An evening on most slots |
| R5 000 | R25 | An evening including high-volatility titles |
Play R20 spins off a R500 bankroll and you have 25 spins before the maths notices you. That is not a session; it is a coin toss with extra steps. Most people who feel that online casinos “take your money in five minutes” are staking two orders of magnitude above their bankroll.
A welcome bonus with a wagering requirement adds turnover, and turnover multiplies the edge. A R1 000 bonus at 35× wagering is R35 000 of required turnover. At a 4% slot edge, the expected cost of clearing it is R1 400 — more than the bonus. That arithmetic is why a bonus is not free money, and why our rating formula gives so little weight to the headline number. Work out the turnover before you opt in; if the multiple times the bonus times the game edge exceeds the bonus, the offer is negative for you.
Set a loss limit for the session before you start and a time limit alongside it. Not a win target — a win target is the mechanism that turns a good night into a normal one, because you keep playing after you hit it. Loss limit and time limit, both set in advance, both written down, are the whole of bankroll discipline. Everything else on this page is just arithmetic explaining why they matter.
If the limits are not holding, that is worth taking seriously rather than treating as a lapse of discipline. The free national counselling line is 0800 006 008, and our responsible gambling page lists the tools that work when intention does not.
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