Online Slot Tips: Managing Your Bankroll

Slot fans who are seasoned poker players may already be familiar with the concept of bankroll management, but the term is just as important when you play slots online. Within this guide, we’ll provide some useful money management slot tips to help you select the right slot titles for your budget, based on a range of factors such as volatility, RTP percentages and more.

Although these bankroll management tips won’t improve your odds of winning – because all slots are games of chance – it is possible to use these slot tips to spread your risk, minimise losses and have a more enjoyable slot gaming experience.

Tip 1: Set A Budget

Before you spin a single slot reel, you should take some time to calculate how much you can afford to play with. Any money you do spend on the reels should be funds you know you can afford to lose.

Set aside a slot budget that doesn’t limit any of your essential monthly outgoings. You could label it as part of your monthly entertainment expenses. When you spend money going to the cinema, you wouldn’t expect a return on your cinema ticket at the end of the movie. You should adopt the same mindset with your slot gaming budget.

When you make a deposit into your LiveRoulette account for the first time, you can claim a deposit bonus up to a maximum of €50. All winnings from this bonus money must be played through 40 times and cannot be withdrawn until play through conditions are met. Through careful game selection, it’s possible to find games that have greater winning probabilities than others to help make your bonus funds last longer. However, some games may not be eligible for bonus offers, so read the terms and conditions carefully. You’ll learn more about this as you advance through this guide.

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Tip 2: Choose The Right Slot Game

Ultimately, you will want to choose slot games that you can engage with. Whether it’s a themed slot based on one of your favourite hobbies or pastimes or a slot with the kind of bonus features that you enjoy – such as free spins or pick-me bonuses – the right slot for you is ultimately the one you enjoy the most.

However, it’s a good idea to be more selective with your slot titles if you want to make sure your slot budget goes further. All slot games are different – they come with different volatilities and return to player percentages, which means that some are more likely to pay out more frequently than others.

Understanding Return To Player (RTP) Percentages

When you search through lists of available slot games, most games will also have their RTP percentage displayed within the game’s help pages. RTP is an important factor for experienced slot players. Those slot players determined to manage their bankroll properly will use RTP percentages to determine the slots they should and shouldn’t play. RTP is short for return to player, which means the amount a slot player could expect returned to them over a high number of spins.

Let’s say for example that a slot game displays an RTP of 96.5%. This means that for every €100 spent on its reels, the slot is programmed to return €96.50 over the long-term. Because of variance and the fact that all online slot titles are powered by decentralised random number generators (RNGs), there will be variations when you play short-term, but the RTP is what you can expect to be paid out over an infinite number of spins.

Each slot will also be programmed with a hit frequency in tandem with an RTP percentage. The hit frequency is best described as the number of times you can expect to land a winning combination on the reels within 100 spins. If a slot has a hit frequency of 20, that means there is a 20% possibility of landing a winning combination on any spin. However, this is an average over an infinite number of spins, so there can be variance with the hit frequency over the short-term, just like the RTP percentage.

What Does Slot Volatility Mean?

Slot volatility is often confused for RTP. The RTP of a slot game does not set the volatility of a slot, although they are closely related. The opposing ends of the slot volatility spectrum are:

• Low Volatility
  A low volatility slot is programmed to pay out more frequent wins of a smaller size. By design, low volatility slots give you a chance to keep your bankroll going for longer, with smaller maximum payouts or jackpots.
• High Volatility
  As for high volatility slots, these games tend to feature multiple bonus games and larger fixed prizes or progressive jackpots. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that these slots will tend to trigger these features less frequently than a low volatility game. However, when the jackpots do land, it’s possible to win big.

Select The Right Number Of Paylines

Sensible bankroll management for slot gaming also involves choosing the right number of paylines to play with per spin. The higher volatility slots that are linked to progressive jackpots may only qualify players for the biggest jackpot prizes displayed when they bet the maximum number of paylines per spin. The probability of triggering these progressives is slim. You must therefore weigh up whether your slot budget can absorb betting the maximum or if you should find slots with lower maximum bets and reduced volatility instead.

It’s also important to take into consideration the coin values available for each payline. Most slots will allow you to wager multiple credits on each active payline. For instance, if you play all available lines in a ten-payline slot at a cost of €0.10 per line, you’re spending €1 per spin. If you are just starting out with slots online, it’s a good idea to start playing with the smallest coin denominations per payline while you learn the game’s dynamics.

Choose Between New And Classic Slot Games

If you have looked at the portfolio of slot games at LiveRoulette, you may have recognised slot titles tend to fall in two different categories – classic slots and newer, state-of-the-art video slots.

Classic slots are built to celebrate the purity of old-school slot machine gaming. Think of the original fruit machine games with cherries, watermelons, lemons and a healthy selection of lucky sevens on the reels. There are still plenty of classic slots online. Most of these can be played with modest budgets as they offer fewer paylines – sometimes as few as three.

At the other end of the spectrum, newer video slots are popular for their more advanced gameplay. These are often packed with paylines, features and high volatility which may make them more expensive to play. Of course, some new slot releases will have lower volatility than others, so it’s a case of doing your research.

Tip 3: Setting Aside Your Winnings

Always put your winnings aside. If you sit down with €20 to play your favourite slots and you win €15, you could withdraw the €15 from your balance and play on with your remaining funds. If you know you could be tempted to spend your winnings and put them back into your slot game, this could be an option for you.

However, a better way might be to set a winning target and a stop-loss for each gaming session. Once your balance hits your win goal or stop-loss limit, you simply walk away, win or lose. There will be winning sessions and losing sessions this way, but ultimately you’ll protect your bankroll through the ups and downs.

Tip 4: Control Your Emotions

Keeping your emotions in check is an vital when playing slots online. Seasoned slot players would agree that it’s good to be consistent and accept your losses and wins as part and parcel of the game. That may sound easier said than done, but sensible management of your slot bankroll will also ensure that you are prepared to handle the peaks and troughs of wins and losses. If you feel like your emotions are getting ahead of you, stop playing immediately.

Tip 5: Play Slots Online Responsibly

The bottom line is that playing should be fun. Spending beyond your means and chasing jackpots you can’t afford to chase is anything but fun. 

Dividing your daily, weekly or monthly slot budget into units based on your minimum wager is one way to budget and keep your gaming going week on week. You can then divide those units into equal amounts depending on the number of gaming sessions you plan to have throughout the month.

By treating your slot bankroll with respect, you can be safer with your slot gaming, which is the only way we recommend at LiveRoulette.

How Much Time Should You Spend Playing One Slot?

Take control of the length of time you spend playing slots using our Reality Check function. By switching on the Reality Check feature in your LiveRoulette account you will receive prompts reminding you how long you’ve been playing.

Each time the prompt appears on-screen, you will be asked whether you wish to continue playing or to leave the game, with your win/loss rate also visible to help you make your mind up. It’s an effective way of monitoring your gaming sessions and ensuring you don’t exceed your maximum losses and wins.

Tip 6: Set Yourself Daily, Weekly Or Monthly Betting Limits

At LiveRoulette, we always promote responsible gaming behaviour. That’s why we give all our players the flexibility to set their own gaming limits and boundaries. Within your LiveRoulette account it’s possible to set daily, weekly and monthly limits on how much you can deposit.

These limitations are there for your own good and to prevent you from chasing losses during losing slot sessions. Our friendly customer support team is available 24/7 should you need any guidance with setting your deposit limits.

Hopefully this article has helped to reinforce the importance of managing your bankroll when you play slots online at LiveRoulette. With these slot tips for money management, you can be sure to save your winnings and limit your losses when either scenario occurs.

With so many different video slots and slot genres ready and waiting to be explored at LiveRoulette our Canadian online casino, we hope this guide helps you to pick slot titles that are right for you.