There are thousands of online slots available to players today, and picking the best of these slots can be difficult. To make it easier to choose the best slot, there are various options you can use in evaluating your slots. You can assess a slot based on its RTP or based on its volatility.
In this article, we will be looking at slots based on their volatility.
What is Volatility in Slots?
In slot games, there are several ways to define volatility. One definition refers to how large or small the wins you can get from a slot. Another meaning refers to how often or how infrequent your wins will be on a slot.
There are three classifications of slots based on volatility, and these include:
- Low volatility slots
- Medium volatility slots
- High volatility slots
Low Volatility Slots
These are slot games that offer an opportunity for you to claim a lot of wins during your gaming session. Despite the number of wins, the prize for each win is usually very small. In general, the low volatility slots are excellent if you want to have longer gaming sessions and minimize your losses per round.
Medium Volatility Slots
If you don’t know what to pick between the low volatility and high volatility slots, you can sit on the fence with the medium volatility slots. Most medium volatility slots are fin to play thanks to the availability of excellent bonus features.
In addition to the bonus features these slots offer, you also get payouts more frequently on the medium volatility slots than on the high volatility slot. Unlike the low volatility slots, the wins you get on medium volatility slots have a better value.
High Volatility Slots
These are slots that we consider to be high-risk on online casinos. They offer players an excellent payout, but these payouts are rare. High volatility slots are great if you have a large bankroll to keep you afloat while playing for a huge win.
The bonus features on most of the high-volatility slots are great, and these slots often have a high RTP. Many excellent high volatility slots feature a progressive jackpot, which is why they attract many players that love taking risks.
Determining Slot Volatility
Learning to calculate the volatility of slot games is a skill that will come in handy as an online slots player. Information on the volatility of a game isn’t always public information from the developers, so many review sites and players go ahead to determine the volatility of games on their own.
There are several ways through which you can determine the volatility of a slot game, and they include the following:
Max Bets
We all know that the higher the amount you bet on a slot, the higher your potential payout. This is a piece of vital information that can help you identify the volatility of slots. With the high volatility slots, you will often find a low maximum bet. This is because the games have a high potential payout, so there is a need for the developer to keep your possible win in check by placing a low maximum bet.
Slot Reviews
The reviews we provide on our site offer in-depth information on various online slot games. To ensure our readers can learn everything they need to know, we provide all the essential details of these slot titles, including the RTP, volatility, maximum payouts, and more.
Paytable
There are many things you can learn from the paytable of an online slot. One of these is the volatility of the slot. On the high volatility slots, the amount you win for landing 5 of kind symbols far exceeds what you get for four of the same symbols on a line. For the low and medium volatility slots, the gap between the payouts isn’t astronomical.
Demo Games
You don’t win money with demo games, but you can set yourself up for excellent wins when you practice with demo games. By playing demo games, you get a chance to assess your wins on the slot over a period. Like we mentioned earlier, the low volatility slots payout small wins frequently.
Hence, if you consistently get small wins on a slot, you can tag it as a low volatility game. If you find it difficult to get wins on a slot but occasionally get high-value wins, you’re looking at a high volatility slot.
Assess the Bonuses and Features
If the slot offers excellent bonuses after many spins, then they are usually high-volatility slots. For example, if you have to spin the reels 200,000 times to trigger a bonus, this might indicate high volatility. This places such slots above others that might require 100 spins to trigger a bonus feature.
Our Picks of the Best Slots by Volatility
There are thousands of online slots with different volatilities, and picking the best isn’t an easy task. We have provided our top two picks for slots in the high, medium, and low volatility categories to get you started.
| Slot Title | RTP | Volatility |
| Jokerizer | 98% | High |
| Book of Dead | 96.21% | High |
| Steam Tower | 97.04% | Medium |
| Halloween Fortune | 97.06% | Medium |
| Starburst | 96.09% | Low |
| Blood Suckers | 98% | Low |
Best High Volatility Slots
Jokerizer
Jokerizer is a fun slot that offers high volatility and 98% RTP when its Jokerizer mode is active. The Jokerizer mode becomes active if you get a line win and choose to play on. You have a chance to win up to 6,000 coins during the Jokerizer mode and only need to land two joker symbols to get the mystery win the slot offers during this round.
The Joker symbol on this slot is the most valuable, and it only appears on any of the three middle reels. This Yggdrasil slot features classic slot symbols like the cherry, lemon, bells, and Lucky 7s. It has a high-quality design that makes it an attractive title to play.
Book of Dead
Play’n Go has many excellent ancient Egyptian-themed slots, and Book of Dead is one of them. To make it simple to play, the slot features the standard 5×3 reel structure and ten paylines. It has a 96.21% RTP and a maximum payout of up to 250,000 coins.
There are excellent bonus features on the slot, which include a gamble feature and free spins. The gamble feature allows you to press the gamble button to get 2x, 3x, or 4x your wins or lose it all. For the free spins feature, you need to get three scatter symbols on any part of the reels. This gives you ten free spins to start the round. An expanding symbol is selected at random and assists in forming combinations for better wins.
Best Medium Volatility Slots
Steam Tower
This is a NetEnt slot with excellent graphics designed with a Victorian-era theme. It is a 5×3 slot with 15 paylines and a 97.04% RTP. Like Gonzo’s Gold by NetEnt, this slot also features the main character standing on the side of the reels in the play area.
The slot has a wild and stacked wild with a free spin mode that allows players to increase their multiplier as they move up floors on a tower. You can get 1000 coins multiplied by your bet level when you get to the top floor during the free spins. The slot has a floor meter, multiplier meter, and tower meter that provide helpful information during the game.
Halloween Fortune
The Halloween spirit is one you can relive at any time of the year, thanks to the excellent design of the Halloween Fortune slot by Playtech. There are several unique Halloween-themed symbols, and the spooky background completes the overall Halloween aura.
The slot has medium volatility and 97.06% RTP. The slot follows the standard video slot design featuring five reels, three reels, and 20 paylines.
Best Low Volatility Slots
Starburst
Starburst is a NetEnt slot with low volatility and an RTP of 96.09%. This 2012 release is one of NetEnt’s most popular titles, and it features a gem/space theme. It has a 5×3 reel layout with ten paylines and bonus features.
Bonus features on the slot include the Starburst re-spins and expanding sticky wilds. When the wilds appear on the reels, it triggers both the expanding wild symbol and the re-spins. These wild symbols can only appear on any of the three reels in the middle.
Once they appear, they cover the reels to boost your wins on the slot. You get up to three re-spins that affect the reels without an expanding wild. You can get extra re-spins and claim a maximum win of 600x your stake on Starburst.
Blood Suckers
Despite the arrival of Blood Suckers 2, many players still love the original Blood Suckers for its high RTP and low volatility. The slot has a 98% RTP and a maximum win of 900x your stake. It is a vampire-themed slot with five reels, three rows, and 25 paylines.
You can trigger ten free on this slot by landing three or more of its scatter symbols on any part of the reels, with a chance to trigger ten additional spins during the free spins round. A bonus game requires three or more of the bonus symbols from left to the right. This round is played in an ancient burial chamber, and your goal is to slay vampires in coffins. The round ends if you open a coffin with bats.