Every slots player wants the same thing: a decent win that actually ends up in their bank account. The honest starting point for this article, though, is to explain that slots at online casinos are built with a house edge. That means no set of tips, “specialised” systems or “expert advice” can ever guarantee that you’ll win while playing online slots. All you can do is optimise how you play to try and improve your chances of winning.
Most players lose out on a few familiar fronts. They accept bonuses with tricky terms to overcome, they don’t check whether the game they’ve picked is the best available version, and they keep playing after a good win has landed. Sort those out, and you give yourself a better shot at walking away with real money.
1. Use a bonus with no wagering requirements
Standard casino bonuses in the UK are fairly simple to understand. You deposit your own cash and the casino gives you an extra amount on top. A classic example is the 100% bonus, which matches what you deposit, up to a certain amount.
For example:
- You deposit £10
- The casino gives you £10 (so 100% of your deposit is matched)
However, most of the time in the UK, you only get your bonus money to use if you lose your own money. So your £10 deposit with a £10 bonus isn’t £20 to play with immediately. Instead, it’s £10, followed by a second £10 if the first one doesn’t work out.
Of course, if you win with your own cash, you can just withdraw it and never touch the bonus, which is usually the better outcome. The problem is what happens if you do end up using the second-chance bonus money. Wagering requirements in the UK mean you must stake your bonus up to 10 times before any winnings can be withdrawn. There are extra rules bolted on too, making cashing out bonus money much more difficult.
No wagering casino bonuses strip all that out. Wins are paid directly into your cash balance and are withdrawable straight away. These offers are also easier to get hold of. In the best cases, a no wager bonus is given as soon as you deposit and can be used right away.
More commonly, you’ll be asked to wager your deposit amount in full before it’s credited. For example:
- You deposit £10
- Then wager £10 on the casino’s eligible online slots
- The offer is credited to your account
This does carry some risk, but at sensible stakes you’re unlikely to lose the entire amount. You might even have more than you started with after completing the wagering.
There are far more of these offers around than there used to be too. Changes to how bonuses can be structured have made no wagering a more attractive option for UK casino operators. This has led to these offers now becoming fairly standard, after previously only being available at a handful of sites. That’s good news when you’re comparing online casinos with no wagering requirements, because you’ve got a proper range to pick from rather than taking whatever happens to be going.
Keep your expectations sensible, though. No wagering offers tend to be fairly modest (usually a set number of bonus spins), so don’t expect to be winning hundreds of pounds. The terms don’t vanish either. You should always check them in full, with perhaps the most pertinent term being any maximum win limits, which some no wagering bonuses include.
2. Check the RTP on the game itself
RTP, or return to player, is the expected percentage of bets that a slot game is designed to pay back in the long run. A game at 96% returns £96 for every £100 staked, in theory. The bit that gets glossed over is the scale that figure is worked out over.
It’s based on hundreds of thousands of spins, far more than anyone will ever play across a single session, which means it tells you very little about how your own time on a game will go. You could sit on a 96% slot and lose your whole balance, or land a decent win on a lower one.
However, it’s still worth paying attention to. A higher RTP means less of the total money that players bet over a long enough period goes to the house. So if you’re choosing what online slots to play, it’s a useful thing to compare.
Here’s the part most players miss. The same slot doesn’t always run at the same RTP everywhere. A game widely listed at 96% online might be running at a lower figure at the site you’re on, and the version in front of you is the only one that counts. Any percentage quoted elsewhere is a guide, not a guarantee.
Luckily, it’s very easy to check at each casino. You simply load the game, open the info or paytable, and it’ll show the RTP for the version you’re playing. To know whether that’s a good figure, you need something to measure it against. The best source is the game provider’s website, as it should list the range of RTPs for each title so you can see what the top rate is. If the figure on screen matches it, you’re on the best version. If it’s noticeably lower, you’re not, and you’re better off picking a different game or trying another site.
3. Withdraw your winnings rather than replaying them
Despite the house edge, some players do win while playing online slots. The trouble is what can happen next. The amount won might be put back into the reels and lost, leaving the player where they started, or even down.
Of course, the best way to prevent this is to just withdraw all of the winnings immediately. This is the surest method to keep what you’ve won. If you’d rather carry on playing, hold back most of it first. For example, if you put in £10 and you’re sitting on £20, take out £15. Whatever happens after that, you’ve finished the session £5 ahead of where you started, and the other £5 you’ve left in is money you’ve already decided you can afford to lose.
Treat that as the end of it, though. If the £5 goes, the session’s finished. Chasing it back is exactly the behaviour this is meant to prevent. And if you’re lucky enough to turn it into something more, withdraw the lot and stop there rather than starting the whole process again.
It’s worth checking the withdrawal terms before you play too, as UK casinos are allowed to charge a reasonable fee for processing a withdrawal. Pretty much every site allows you to cashout for free at least once, but some may add a charge if you cash out repeatedly. This is useful to know before you’re deciding what to do with a balance.
Before you even start playing, make sure to set a reasonable amount that you’re willing and able to lose. Ideally, you should utilise tools such as deposit limits that UK casino sites have available. Always remember that slots are entertainment, not a way to try and make money. If it ever stops being fun, walk away immediately and find support from a responsible gambling organisation.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
