The most volatile slots in online casinos have only recently become the most popular games, although people have been playing in online casinos since the early 2000s. So what is it about?
What is volatility and how does it affect your gaming experience?
Wikipedia defines volatility as follows: “Volatility is the standard deviation of the return on a financial instrument over a given, usually one year, time horizon. It is one of the key figures indicating risks.”
The easiest way to absorb volatility in online casino games is to think of two different slot games, of which Game A (e.g. Starburst) is a low volatility game and Game B (e.g. Bonanza) is a high volatility game.
If 10 people play Starburst with a 100 € budget for half an hour, then on average 2 to 3 players lose most of their money, the majority i.e. 4 to 6 players lose a little and 2 to 3 players win a little. The most presumptive outcome is that by playing low volatility Starburst one will slowly but certainly lose.
If the same 10 players play high volatility Bonanza for half an hour, then most players will most likely lose all or a large amount of their money, but in return, 1 to 2 players will win fair prizes.
Volatility could be summed up with a saying: “High risk – High reward”.
Why have high volatility games become the most popular ones in online casinos?
At the top of the list of the most played games in online casinos are taken by the same names, such as Book of Dead, Bonanza and Reactoonz, all of which are high volatility games. In the past, the top spot was held for years by Starburst, which in turn is a very low volatility slot. Its popularity, as well as the other NetEnt games in general, has been in clear decline recently.
The phenomenon could be explained, at least, by the fact that online casino players are more enlightened today than they were in the past. More features, excitement and, on the other hand, even life-changing wins are sought from the games. Simply clicking Starburst night after night will not only show in your purse but also in your mental health.
Game developers such as Big Time Gaming have responded to the cry and innovated new features to their games, such as an unlimited increase in multiplier during free games or Megaways™ paylines, which also raise the volatility of games to and through the ceiling.
Top 10 highest volatility slots in online casinos
The uncrowned king among the high-volatility slot game providers is Big Time Gaming. However, in this article, we will list at most one game from each game provider so that you can learn more about the non-BTG production. Yes, there are epic games from other providers as well where the highest multipliers of winning curdles your durdles.
One of the most volatile slot in online casinos: Queen of Riches – Big Time Gaming
This Egyptian-themed game by Big Time Gaming was selected to be presented because of its MASSIVE wins as well as its features. Or really because of the lack of them.
At times, this game gives you nice variation after you’ve been hitting your head against the wall for hundreds of rounds in Bonanza or Danger without any free games.
In Queen of Riches, they are neither needed nor worth waiting for.
Queen of Riches uses the same Megaways feature as many other BTG games, so at best, all six reels can have up to seven different symbols, forming a whopping +117,000 paylines.
The only special feature in the game is the so-called linked reels (synced reels) feature, which is activated before each round of play. In this case, the reels 2, 3, 4, 5 or even all six will flash white before stopping and these reels will for sure always have the same symbols.
All reels, except the first one, also have a full-length i.e. stacked wild symbol which, when hit, become multiplier wilds. The multiplier is drawn on the reel one at a time when the reels have stopped, and it is always something between 1 and 7x. The game gets interesting at the point where there are more wilds, in which case the odds are multiplied crosswise. Suppose that the first reel has 4 K symbols and the rest five reels have a wild symbol with multiplier of 2, 4, 3, 3 and 2. In this case, full K symbols from 576 lines constitute a win.
However, according to Big Time Gaming, the game is limited program-wise, so seven of the highest paying symbols cannot, for example, land at a time on all six reels.
According to BTG, the main payout of the game is 6 pieces of K symbols on each reel, but we haven’t found an image of that yet. However, several images can already be found where five K symbols are neatly on the screen, forming a nice payout of over 19,500x:
2. Fat Rabbit – Push Gaming – The best rabbit is a fat rabbit
Fat Rabbit is somewhat new production (March 27, 2018) by Push Gaming, maybe a bit unknown to many. We at netti.casino believe that many more releases as good as Fat Rabbit will come from this game provider.
The game is set in a peaceful countryside landscape, including tractors, hay bales and, among other things, barns. But that’s where the peacefulness ends.
The game area is a 5×5, which slightly differs from standard, forming a regular square. The game features a few special functions, such as a pre-round feature where a tractor rolls over the game area and ploughs extra wild symbols, and free games, which set off when the player gets the rabbit symbol on the first reel and at least one wild (carrot symbol) anywhere else on the game area.
Now, according to the name of the game, it’s time to start fattening the rabbits very carefully and this is done by getting more wild carrot symbols on the screen during free games, which the greedy rabbit then kindly eats and swells the bigger the more carrots he eats.
The spice in the game is that the fat-to-be rabbit also acts as a wild and the more carrots it gobbles the larger screen area it covers.
Free games start with 5 rounds when the rabbit only covers one point. After gobbling up the first four carrots, the player wins three more rounds and the rabbit swells to cover four squares (2×2). After that, 5 more carrots are already needed to get two more games and the rabbit to grow so that it already covers nine squares (3×3). Still the rabbit may not be saturated and will easily eat another five carrots and will swell to cover an area of 12 squares (4×4) and again handing out two more games.
If you want to feed the rabbit to its maximum size, you still need to stuff three carrots into the rabbit’s mouth, even if with force.
That’s where the limit lies, even for a fat rabbit, and for the game as well since the rabbit already fills the entire screen for the remaining rounds plus for another two extra rounds. I don’t think we’ve seen that fat rabbit at netti.casino yet, but some noticeably overweight have been detected:
3. Knight’s Life – Merkur – Winnings are not celebrated but they are plentiful
If, in the event of a win, coins flying across the screen accompanied by a symphony orchestra are not your thing, you have come to the right place. Even the big payouts in Knight’s Life appear on your balance quickly and unnoticed.
Traditionally Merkur Gaming has been a game provider that does not outshine others with its graphics or cutting-edge sounds. In this respect, Knight’s Life game won’t disappoint you.
If you don’t let that bother you, almost all Mercuri games are worth trying, and so is this knight-themed game.
A horse serves as a scatter in the game, and it launches 10-30 free games depending on how many scatters the free games start with. The first five free games roll just like the basic game, without any goodies and with wins without odds. Certainly, during these rounds, it is possible to collect more free games that are really important when looking forward, and this is done by getting two or more scatters in the square.
From the sixth round onwards, all wins are already multiplied by two and to ease winning, a few knight symbols will also turn into wilds.
From the 11th round onwards, it is possible to get the most out of the game’s potential when all the winnings are being paid in triple and all the knight symbols are turned into wilds.
This is the situation where the big money rests, as you can conclude from this picture:
4. 300 Shields – NextGen – multipliers on the board on the way to the bank
NextGen’s already slightly older release, 300 Shields for sure belongs to the top class of online slots in volatility.
In this Spartan-themed game, you don’t get to celebrate with big wins during the basic games, but free games are where the action is. The player must collect as many shield symbols as possible during five free games.
At the first level, all winnings have only 1x multiplier. If the player manages to collect at least two shields at this level, they will get five new free games and those are already with 5x multiplier whenever the wild symbol is included in the winning pattern.
If at level two, you manage to collect even more shields and have gotten as many as six or more of them, you will again win five more free games and get to level three where the winnings with a wild will be paid with 25x multiplier.
If during free games, you manage to collect 12 or more shield symbols it is time for real thrill at level four, where all the winnings will be paid, according to the name of the game, with 300x multiplier! This plush multiplier does not require much of a payline with the wild to make your balance account sing with joy:
5. Pink Elephants – Thunderkick – volatility, ethereal mood and elephant sized prizes
Set in the fairytale world of the Thunderkick game studio, Pink Elephants is indeed a slot worth testing. The games graphics and soundscape are made to precision, and it is one of the finest slots in the gaming world.
Pink Elephants is a game of six reels, with four symbols in each, thus offering an amazing total of 4096 paylines.
The game includes stacked symbols, that is, patterns that fill several points on the reel. Peanut symbols, when 3 or more of them appear on the screen, trigger free games, during which pink elephants carrying a small crystal ball appear, and this is the basis of the whole idea of the game.
During free games you must collect as many of these crystal balls as possible and whenever you have managed to collect ten pieces, you win more free games and one of the other symbols turn into pink elephants on every reel.
The best possible situation is when a player has managed to collect 40 crystal balls, in which case all the remaining free games contain nothing more thanks pink elephants and letter symbols on the reels. During these rounds, it is possible to collect such a glowing pile of elephants on the screen that there is a need for sunglasses:
6. Dead or Alive – NetEnt – game from a time when NetEnt still made games, in which you could win something
Dead or Alive is a legendary slot from NetEnt surely known among all those who have played at least a bit more.
This 9-line Western-themed treat, release already in 2013, has maintained it unwavering popularity among players despite having perhaps one of the most boring basic games ever. (Maximum win during basic game is 111x bet).
In this game as well, all the fun starts when the player gets on the screen at least three scatter symbols, which entitles you to have 12 free games.
During free games, all winnings are paid in double, and what’s more important is that all the received wild symbols are locked on the screen for the duration of the remaining free games.
Due to largely to the fact that this slot only has 9 paylines, five wilds on the line start to pay and hard. It won’t hurt if they stay on the line for the rest of the rounds so we’ve seen more +2000x bet winnings in this game than in any other slot.
This is an example where the wilds are on three lines:
7. Immortal Romance – Microgaming – a rush of blood!
Immortal Romance is in many ways perhaps the most iconic slot that Microgaming has every released.
This 243-line game was, among other things, the first slot in history, to which real musicians were hired to make soundtracks for both the game itself, and also songs for each of the four free games in the game.
This game was also set out to build around four different characters, each of which was released with history and information already well before the game’s release date on December 5, 2011. This information is readable, and the songs can still be listened to on Micrograming’s own website.
Let’s get to the point and tell what’s the thing in this game that attracts players from year to year. It is none of the four different free games, during which you can surely win decent wins but yes, the big money rests on the toughest feature of the game, Wild Desire!
This feature can activate at any time when a round is set off. In this case, the reels keep on rolling somewhat longer than normal, and you will start to hear the sounds of a heartbeat in the background. This is where your own heart starts pounding while waiting for how many reels have blood drops above them falling down, turning the whole reel into a wild.
Certainly, at least one full reel wild appears on the screen, but it is also possible to turn the whole screen red by turning all five reels into wilds, or anything in-between.
After all, this screen is full of wilds, but it is such a beautiful sight, and it is starting to pay:
8. Raging Rhino – WMS Gaming – Rhinos from the savannah in the bankroll
Set in the African savannas, this six-reel and 4096-payline game by Williams Interactive was familiar to live casino players already years before its release for online casinos in 2015.
The game has become a role model for many other slot providers, including one game mentioned earlier in this article, the Pink Elephants, which has clearly absorbed its influence from Raging Rhino.
The game features stacked symbols, wild symbols and scatter symbols. During the basic game, the wild only acts as a wild, replacing any symbol except for scatter.
Getting three or more diamond scatter symbols on the screen triggers free games, where the fun part comes with the multiplier wilds multiplying with each other crosswise on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5! The multiplier is drawn when the wild hits and is 2x or 3x.
If the best paying rhinos are really inspired to gallop through the savannah, you can at best have three rhinos on the first reel, multiplier wilds 3x, 3x, 3x, 3x on the mid-reel, and still three more rhinos on the last reel. And that is how the main win of the game has been achieved and you can move in this list to the next slot.
In this image the player was quite close to the maximum:
9. Lucky Lady’s Charm 6 – Novomatic (Greentube) – money to the bank with six reels
For years Novomatic has been a really popular game provider, especially among players in central Europe. Since the beginning, the company has generated sturdy game with volatility as well as actual hits like Book of Ra, out of which more copies have been made than from any other slot.
Luckily for online players, Novomatic also brought their games online and started to publish them under its subsidiary Greentube.
The game we selected for closer look is Lucky Lady’s Charm 6, which is a really boosted version of the original 9-payline and five-reel game, which is a game of high volatility itself.
In this new version, the number of reels has been increased by one and the free game multiplier raised from the original three to six!
The game also features a wild symbol that doubles winnings during basic game as well as during free games. Due to that in free games actually any combination of six patterns with a wild increase your balance considerably.
A little foretaste of what kind of profits this game could take you:
10. Book of Dead – Play’n GO – the most popular game in online casinos
In the previous presentation of Lucky Lady’s Charm 6 we already mentioned game copies and Book of Dead from Play’n GO is perhaps one of the best examples of such.
Many players consider it to be authentic and right version even though the original representing the same genre, Book of Ra from Novomatic came out years earlier.
This or that, Play’n GO has managed to do what other have often failed. That is to make their own version more popular than the original version has ever been.
This 10-line Indiana Jones themed game has gained unwavering popularity and month after month it ranks at the top end of the most played games in online casinos.
The Book of Dead as well as Book of Ra are once again based on free games, and particularly on the ‘special expanding symbol’ feature, which means that before the start of free games, a random symbol is drawn, which when hitting on the reel during the free game expands to cover the entire reel.
During the free spins, the player hopes only to get the drawn symbol to each of the five reels, any of them, in which case the entire square will be filled with the drawn symbol.
According to the theme of the game, we recommend that the best paying Indiana Jones symbol of the game to appear as a special symbol and then fill the screen with those.
Nobody is preventing from taking this combination paying 5000x bet more than once during the same free game.
Here is an example of how to win the main payout at least once:
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