When playing slots online, it’s important for players to have knowledge of some terms and volatility is one of them. The terms volatility determines the behaviour of an online slot game and refers to the frequency of the payouts, the amount paid out and the level of risk involved. In simple words, it indicates whether the slot you want to play is a high risk, medium risk or low-risk game.
In this article, we’ll take a look at slot online volatility and how the ability on some games to lower the number of lines can impact it.
What is volatility
As mentioned earlier, slot online volatility can be thought of as a risk, and it shows how ‘risky’ a game is. If you’ve tried your hands at online slots, you’d have noticed that some games pay out regular wins, while others seem to go through prolonged dry patches. This isn’t because the game is lucky for you or you’re down on your luck, but because of volatility.
Slot online game with high volatility offer few payouts but when they do land, they tend to be very big wins. A perfect example of a high volatility slot is progressive jackpot games. These games aren’t suitable for a lot of players as they require patience and a hefty bankroll to sit through all those empty spins before getting a large jackpot.
On the other hand, low volatility slots payout regular wins on the base game reels, and bonus features are activated frequently. The wins on these slot games tend to be small and they rarely feature large jackpots.
What is a betting line or slot payline?
A payline, also known as a winning line, is a combination of symbols that results in a win on a slot machine. The classic slot machines featured just one payline, and they would be won if three matching symbols created a horizontal line. As for the payline, you can see how much your payline will win by looking at the table. Today, paylines come in a wide variety of shapes like zigzag or trapezium.
Why lowering lines increases volatility
First, let’s take a look at why slot online volatility goes up when players lower their line count. In the past, many slot games were higher denomination due to the need to use actual coins to play them. With the advent of video slots, lower denominations became possible by spreading the bets across more lines. So, machines with 20, 30, or even more paylines became possible with modern video slots.
As more lines increase your chances of winning something, they tend to reduce volatility. Sometimes you may win a portion of your bet. You could win on multiple paylines, and so on. This allowed developers to arrange the payouts more effectively and provided for a smoother ride than classic three-reel slot games.
When you eliminate some of the lines, you remove the ability to win on them. And as slots online need to meet their overall payback target regardless of the bet level, taking out lines just limits where you can find a winning line. When playing slots at online or pay by mobile casino, the only time betting on all lines matters is if there’s some jackpot on a specific line.
Different volatility for the same bet
Let’s assume you have a 50 line game and are betting 50 cents a spin. You can bet one credit on all 30 lines. You might also be able to bet 25 lines and put 2 credit per lines against the 25 lines instead. Now, there are half ways to win, but you have the chance of winning double when they line up. But the winning pays doesn’t line up on those 25, but the other 25 you chose not to bet, you could lose more quickly.
Now imagine betting 10 of those 50 lines and betting 5 credits per line. Those 10 lines will pay even better, but now there are 40 lines missing. This means that the hit rate will be one-fifth the opportunity, but the pays will be 5x bigger. So, if you get some good line-ups on those 50 lines, you’ll win faster, and conversely missing those 10 lines will cause you to lose more quickly at slots online.