It means the typical bonus award must be garbage so a rare 200X is awarded. Players are demanding 50X, 100X, 200X, etc during the bonus rounds (vs 25X). It’s funny (or sad!) how people focuses on the RTP or EV of the game but they are silent about the variance side of the game. reduce the base game to fatten the bonus game and increase the variance. There’s only so many things a gaming company can do, e.g. But then the customers wanted bigger wins. When I got started in the business, it was rather easy and straightforward: the fundamentals were a hit ratio of say 1 in 8 spins, bonus games awarded 25X every roughly 120 spins, etc. It’s a difficult recipe and unfortunately not every gaming company gets it right. Site reader EV Bandit sent in some great comments on this topic recently, and they are quite relevant to reference here: But with games like Tiki Fire featuring multipliers, you can handpay if you line up those multipliers just right, but also have a nothing of a bonus. In the case of Aristocrat games, such as Lightning Link, the free spin bonuses seem to come more frequently, but with more of an opportunity for a dud of a bonus. IGT seems to have taken the approach of making bonuses harder to get as a general rule, but on a game like Scarab, once you have one, you can pretty dependably get a great bonus – I have a 50x average in mind here, although I’ve only had the bonus a few times myself. Let’s take a few examples of more recently designed games.

Bonus rounds would also come out pretty regularly.īut as bonus round potential has grown, and players’ appetite for playing harder for potentially bigger wins has grown, bonus round frequency has shrunk, and the chances of winning something big in a bonus has shrunk, or both, depending on the game design. When I was younger and in my earlier day of playing slots, a 25x bonus was the mark I always strove for, and it seemed like many games were designed to aim for that sweet spot. Have you played a slot where the bonus round often provides little to no payout and been frustrated? Do you wish bonuses were a bit more even? You’re feeling the weight of slot evolution in response to player demands of the chance for bigger wins, a move towards higher volatility in slots that I’ve referenced here on the site a number of times over the years.

Bonus round slot machines