People often notice the theme of a slot before anything else. The artwork, the sound, the bonus round that might appear. Beneath all of that sits the structure that decides how a slot returns money over time. Slot machine payouts come from two main sources. One is RTP, which describes the long-term return. The other is the paytable, which sets the value of each symbol and feature. Together they determine how the slot behaves, how often wins appear, and how the experience feels from spin to spin. Understanding how slot machine payouts are calculated does not change the unpredictability of...