Reading a slot's info panel in twenty seconds

Where it is

Behind an i button, a burger menu, or a paytable icon, usually in a corner. On a phone it is often inside the settings gear rather than beside it, which is one tap further than it needs to be.

Some builds bury the return rate several screens into the rules text rather than putting it on the first panel. That is a choice, and it is worth noticing which studios do it.

The four figures

Return to player. The long-run share of stakes paid back. Under 95% is expensive for what it is, and there is enough choice above that line to never need to sit below it.

Volatility, sometimes as a five-bar graphic. High means long dry runs and occasional large hits; low means small and frequent. It changes the balance you need, not the value.

Max win, as a multiple of stake. On the titles we have loaded it runs from a few hundred times up past fifty thousand. A huge ceiling always means a thinner middle.

Minimum and maximum stake. Check the minimum, because the default the game opens on is frequently several notches above it.

The build problem

Studios license the same title in several return configurations and the operator picks one at integration. A game advertised at 96.5% in a review can be running at 94% in the app you are holding.

Only the panel inside your game tells you which build you have. About a fifth of the titles on our board are published in more than one configuration, and the title pages list every published build rather than the flattering one.

What the panel will not tell you

Hit frequency, usually. The reel weightings, ever. Whether the bonus buy is priced at a worse return rate than the base game, which it commonly is.

And nothing at all about how the thing behaves in your hand. That we test ourselves: portrait or forced rotation, seconds to first tap, and whether the spin button is reachable with a thumb. It is on the play board, sorted on exactly those.