Coins, line bet or total bet: turning a slot paytable into rand at your stake

The paytable is the page of a slot that nobody reads, and it is the only place that says what a symbol is worth. The difficulty is not the numbers but the units, because three different yardsticks appear on different rows of the same table. This guide gives each yardstick, then converts one real example of each into rand so you can repeat the sums at your own stake.

Three units, three multipliers

The first row comes from Casino Beats' Starburst guide, which prints the paytable "at bet level one". The second comes from Racing Post's Great Blue page. The third is from AskGamblers' Immortal Romance review. Studios publish in pounds, euros or dollars; the method is identical in rand. If you have not yet worked out your stake, start with coin value, bet level and total bet.

Example 1: coins (Starburst)

Take a casino that shows rand, coin value R0.10 and bet level 2. Starburst has 10 lines, so the stake per line is R0.10 x 2 = R0.20 and the total bet is R0.20 x 10 = R2.00. The table's figures are in coins at level one, so a line win equals the paytable coins x R0.10 x 2 (that is the convention assumed here; confirm it in the game's help):

1. Three BARs: 50 coins x R0.10 x 2 = R10.00. Against a R2.00 stake that is 5 times the bet (10 / 2 = 5).
2. Five BARs: 250 x R0.10 x 2 = R50.00, which is 25 times the bet (50 / 2 = 25).
3. Three blue gems: 5 coins x R0.10 x 2 = R1.00. That is half of the R2.00 stake (1 / 2 = 0.5).

Line three shows something worth knowing. A "win" can be smaller than the amount you staked on the spin. The paytable pays on a line, but you paid for all ten. This is not a fault; it is arithmetic. For more on how lines and directions are read, see win both ways and 243 ways, and for the game itself the Starburst review.

Example 2: multiples of the line bet (Great Blue)

Racing Post's page says Great Blue allows 1 to 25 lines and that its symbols pay as multiples of the line bet: three card symbols pay 4 x the line bet, the top sea animals (shark and sea turtle) pay up to 750 x the line bet, and five wilds on one line pay 10,000 x the line bet. The wild also doubles any win it is part of.

Suppose the line bet is R0.50 on all 25 lines. The total bet is 0.50 x 25 = R12.50. Now convert:

• Three card symbols: 4 x R0.50 = R2.00, which is 16% of the R12.50 stake (2 / 12.5 = 0.16).
• Top animal, five on a line: 750 x R0.50 = R375.00, which is 30 times the total bet (375 / 12.5 = 30).
• Five wilds on a line: 10,000 x R0.50 = R5,000.00.

Notice that the multiplier is per line, so the rand value depends only on the line bet, not on how many lines you play. Play 5 lines at the same R0.50 and the shark still pays R375, but your stake is only R2.50 (0.50 x 5), and the same win is 150 times the bet (375 / 2.5 = 150). Fewer lines make the multiple look bigger, but they also leave more of the reels unchecked. The same page gives both 10,000 x and 20,000 x for the maximum win, so confirm the figure in the game's own paytable before relying on either. Our Great Blue page describes the rest of the game.

Example 3: multiples of the total bet (scatters)

AskGamblers says that in Immortal Romance, landing 3, 4 or 5 Lion Door Knocker scatters anywhere on the reels pays 2, 20 or 200 x your total bet before the feature starts. Here the multiplier ignores lines entirely. At a total bet of R10.00:

• Three scatters: 2 x R10 = R20.
• Four scatters: 20 x R10 = R200.
• Five scatters: 200 x R10 = R2,000.

The review lists the game's stake range as 0.30 to 30.00 per spin, so a stake of 10 sits inside it. Compare this with a line prize. On a 25-line game, a scatter paying 2 x total bet is worth 50 line bets (2 x 25 = 50), far more than a 4 x line-bet card win. That is why scatter rows are usually the ones to read first. See the Immortal Romance review for the bonus it opens.

A five-step method for any paytable

1. Find the unit in the header or the footnotes: coins, x line bet or x total bet.
2. Work out your own line bet and total bet.
3. Multiply the paytable figure by the matching part of your stake.
4. Divide the rand prize by your total bet to see the multiple.
5. Look for notes on wilds, multipliers and "up to" figures, which change the real value.

What regulators ask paytables to show

Germany's gambling authority, the GGL, sets some paytable rules for the virtual slots it licenses. Its interpretation notes require that the wins in the paytable match the actual wins at the stake chosen, that multipliers be listed exhaustively instead of as a range, and that the maximum-win probability and the average payout per euro staked be shown permanently on the game screen. Those are German requirements. In South Africa, interactive casino games are not licensed under the National Gambling Act 7 of 2004, so no local body sets the wording, and the game's own help screen is your reference. Gambling is for adults 18 and over; the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation can be reached free on 0800 006 008.