Are Online Slots Rigged?

Lots of people who’ve played online slots have wondered if they are rigged. It’s understandable. You’re not throwing dice, or seeing a dealer shuffle the cards. You’re playing a game powered by software you can’t see.

And when you can’t see how the game is run, and you get a bad run of results, it’s natural to wonder if the game is fair or rigged.

What does rigged mean?

Rigged means deliberately interfering with the outcome of a game, so the odds are stacked even further against the player. It’s easy to imagine how you’d rig a boxing match or a greyhound race. Slots are a bit more complicated.

To make players lose more, you’d need to lower the payout percentage -also called RTP or return to player or mess with the random number generator in some way. Whatever factor in the game’s rules get changed – the outcome is the same. You think you’re playing a game that’s random, but it’s not.

Why would anyone think online slots are rigged?

If you’re reading this, you’ll have your own answer. Usually concerns creep in because you’ve had a bad run of luck. Maybe you’ve gone too many spins without seeing a bonus feature, or just spent more than you expected without seeing a good-sized win.

That’s randomness for you. But when slots software is hidden away, trust in your game and your casino is all you have.

Who would rig a slot, and why?

A rigged slot would make the player lose more, but who benefits? There are two people who might try to rig a slot, the game studio who made the game, or the casino who offers it.

Game studios make their money by something called ‘revenue share’. That means they get a small percentage of any profit a slot makes. They don’t make many slots a year, so they need them to succeed.

Casinos get a bigger share of winnings than the studios who make the games. There are thousands of slots and one slot is not that important. It’s all slots together that matters.

Still, you can see how either of these would benefit from a rigged slot. Now I’ve heard people say “slots are not rigged, why would casinos take the risk?”

That’s not my argument. I’ve been a gambler and worked in the gambling industry for the last 25 years, and I’ve seen plenty of scandals – match fixing on sports, insider scams on poker sites, dodgy crypto casinos. There are wrong ‘uns in every industry, and where there’s a fast buck to be made, someone will try.

Luckily, online slots in the UK isn’t the wild west, and rigging a slot is incredibly hard.

This is why slots are not rigged in the UK

There’s one thing that keeps you safe, more than anything else, and that’s playing slots at a regulated casino in a regulated country. In the UK, the regulator is the UK Gambling Commission or UKGC. They put loads of rules in place to prevent cheating, and if something happens, you’ve got someone in your corner who will investigate and take action.

Making and releasing slots is hard. It can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and take months from start to finish. You can’t even release a slot online unless you have a UKGC licence.

And before you and I get to play a single spin, every slot has to pass a bunch of processes. Here are the 3 most important ones:

Testing

Every slot has to be checked by a testing house prior to release. Only testing houses that are approved by the UK Gambling Commission can do this, and they have to provide a test report to the UKGC.

These testing companies are independent and check the fairness elements of slots. They review the game’s code to make sure it’s been created right. They analyse the random number generator. They run millions of spins on simulators to see if the game is paying out the same as the stated RTP.

This doesn’t just happen before a game is released. Any time a game is updated, it has to pass a new testing round.

Live RTP monitoring

You can check a game all you want before it’s gone public, but what’s to stop someone releasing a rigged version of the game?

Casinos and game studios have to watch how slots are performing and look out for under and overpayments. They have to calculate the actual RTP and compare it with the RTP stated in the game rules.

Annual audits

These testing companies check a random sample of slots once a year as well, and they make sure that casinos have effective live RTP monitoring processes in place.

For me, these are the biggest protections for slots players in the UK. Sure, you can make sure you only play with really big, trusted brands. And there’s usually high-grade security in place to stop anyone – customers, employees and third parties – from hacking games. But the real reason slots are not rigged is that it’s been made incredibly hard (I’d say impossible) to release a game that isn’t fair. The UK is one of the safest places to play, and PlayOJO one of the safest casinos.

What to do if you think a slot is cheating you

Even though it’s extremely unlikely that a slot you’ve played is rigged, if you suspect foul play then contact the casino and ask them to look at the results. Give them whatever info you can, and ask them to get back to you. The UKGC has some advice on how to do this.

Every UK casino is required to investigate every complaint about fairness and give “clear, detailed explanations of how their performance compares with the game’s expected behaviour”. That’s the regulator’s words.

If you’re not satisfied with the casino’ reply, your next stop is something called an Alternative Dispute Resolution provider. Your casino will be able to tell you which ADR provider they use.

Lastly, there’s the regulator. If you think you have info about suspicious activity or illegal behaviour, you can tell the UKGC in confidence.

Fairness has been at the heart of PlayOJO since we started in 2017. We’ve been a licenced online casino in the UK for over 7 years, and only work with the most respected game studios. From secure payments and safe games to fair bonuses and effective customer support, we take gaming seriously, to make sure it’s always fun, fair and safe.