Possibly a silly question

I've noticed that my odds of hitting a big payout seem to be a lot better when playing in Demo/Practice mode than when playing for real.

There are two possible ways I could go in my thinking of why this happens.

Option 1: The tinfoil-hat route is to suspect that these slots are purposefully designed to be more generous in demo mode in the hopes of enticing you to play for real, chasing those big payouts.

Option 2: The more reasoned route is to assume that because I'm playing with monopoly money, I tend to bet bigger sums per spin than I would playing with my own funds, and therefore the payouts are bigger and more frequent.

Should I chalk it all down to Option 2, or is there anything to the first theory?

Hi csw46,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have to say that this second theory is closer to me, a demo is a limited version of a game that people can play to get a better idea of the game itself, so it makes sense to have a bigger budget to see what the game has to offer.

In fact there might something to both theories you mentioned. 

More and more software providers are allowing different RTP configurations to be set by the operator. It is possible that in demo mode, game is set to the highest possible one, and real money mode can be different. RTG games would always be the first to come to mind regarding RTP changes, but Play n Go for example also have various RTP configurations available. On the other hand, to my knowledge so far, NetEnt and Microgaming do not have such options 

One thing that is common on land based machines is for the casino owners to set RTP based on denomination. In other words, the bigger coin size you choose, the bigger the RTP. This is a well known fact for land based casinos, but Im not sure if its true for online casinos as well. But iit very well might be, I have read multiple forum posts over the years in which people are reporting better outcomes when they bet bigger summs. 

One important thing to note is that these differencies in RTP are no more than several percent, and therfore are not easily spoted. One would have to place great many bets to even have a chance of noticing it.

I knew about the bigger RTP for a bigger bet, thanks to the slots guide on this site, but I wasn't sure if the other theory was just me spinning silly conspiracy theories.

awesome feedback

i fell the same way this was a great post tho thank you 

I think its all controlled