The paytable is the only document that tells you what a slot will actually do with your money. Before you spin, check four things in the help screen. These are the RTP version the casino is running, the volatility rating, how wins form and which symbols carry the weight, and what the max win and feature trigger imply. Do that and you’ll know within a minute whether a game suits your bankroll.
I checked the published figures for four games that cover the range. Those are Pragmatic Play’s Gates of Olympus 1000, Play’n GO‘s Book of Dead, and NetEnt‘s Starburst and Dead or Alive 2. The figures are current as of October 2026. If you’d like to try any of these games, most licensed Canadian casinos carry them in their slots library.
Which RTP Is This Casino Actually Running?
The RTP in the help screen is the figure that applies to you, and it can differ from the number on a review site. Providers often certify several RTP configurations, and the operator picks one. Check the screen, not the headline.
Take Gates of Olympus 1000 from Pragmatic Play. According to Pragmatic Play’s official game page, as covered in SlotVault’s earlier review, it sits at 96.50% RTP with the top rating on the studio’s five-point volatility scale. Book of Dead from Play’n GO is listed at 96.21% with high volatility, and Starburst from NetEnt at 96.09% with low volatility. Dead or Alive 2, also from NetEnt, carries 96.8% RTP with extreme volatility. Those are the published numbers, and your help screen is the final word.
Two traps are worth knowing. Some games show a range tied to play modes, so read the notes beside it. Progressive jackpot titles include the jackpot contribution in the headline figure, which inflates it relative to what you collect on ordinary spins.
If a configured figure isn’t shown at all, treat that as a red flag. In Ontario, games are certified under the AGCO framework, and the help screen is where that certified figure belongs.
How Volatile Is It, Really?
Volatility tells you how the RTP is delivered, and it’s usually the number that decides whether a session feels fun or brutal. Low volatility pays small wins often. High volatility holds most of the return back for rare, large hits.
Starburst is the clean low-volatility example. NetEnt built it around frequent small wins, which is why it rarely produces a dramatic swing in either direction. Book of Dead is the opposite. Play’n GO classes it as high volatility, and its return leans heavily on the feature round.
Pragmatic Play makes this easy by showing a one to five score. Gates of Olympus 1000 sits at five, so expect long dry stretches. SlotVault’s game review suggests budgeting 150 to 200 base spins to reach a feature, though that’s a guide rather than a guarantee. For a deeper look at how bands behave, our high versus low volatility guide covers bankroll sizing.
Match the number to your stake. A $0.20 spin on a five-out-of-five game burns through a $40 bankroll far faster than the same stake on Starburst.
How Do Wins Form, and Which Symbols Matter?
The paytable shows whether a slot pays on lines, in clusters or across ways, and that changes how you read every symbol value. A top symbol paying 500x means something very different depending on how hard it is to line up.
Starburst uses 10 fixed paylines on a five-reel, three-row grid, and it pays both left to right and right to left. According to SlotVault’s review, the bar and the lucky seven are the high symbols, while the coloured gems fill the lower tiers. The both-ways rule is the reason hit frequency stays high, and the paytable states it in a single line most players skip.
Gates of Olympus 1000 has no paylines at all. Per the game’s paytable, you need eight or more matching symbols anywhere on a six-by-five grid, and winners tumble away so new symbols can drop in. Our breakdown of cluster pays, paylines and Megaways explains why the same symbol value behaves differently in each engine.
Book of Dead sits in between. It’s a classic line slot, but the paytable’s real information is in the special symbol. The Book acts as both wild and scatter, and in the feature round one symbol is chosen at random to expand across the reels. The top-paying explorer pays 500x the line bet for five on a line, though that figure is from the paytable as I’ve read it, so confirm it on your screen.
Read the top symbol, then read the lowest. If the gap between them is huge and the low tiers pay barely more than your stake, the game is built around its feature.
What Do the Max Win and Feature Trigger Tell You?
The max win is the ceiling of the certified math model, and the trigger requirement tells you how often you’ll get close to it. Together they show where the game keeps its value.
Gates of Olympus 1000 caps at 100,000x. According to Pragmatic Play’s game page, multiplier symbols range from 2x to 1,000x and are collected during the feature round. Four or more scatters start it with 15 spins. The original game’s 5,000x ceiling came from a 500x multiplier cap. The extra headroom only matters inside that feature.
Dead or Alive 2 offers a verified 100,000x ceiling, per figures SlotVault has published, and three feature modes with different risk profiles. Book of Dead tops out at 5,000x. NetEnt’s max win figure for Starburst is not confirmed in the data I reviewed, so check the game’s info screen. Its lean design, with no feature round at all, suggests a modest ceiling.
That ceiling doesn’t change your odds of hitting it. It changes where the money sits.
Check the paytable for add-ons too. Gates of Olympus 1000 includes an ante bet that raises the stake by 25% for a higher scatter frequency, plus a direct feature purchase at 100x the bet. Starburst, by contrast, has no feature purchase and no secondary mechanic beyond its expanding wild and re-spins. Those options change your cost per spin, so decide on them before you start, not mid-session.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find a slot’s RTP? Open the game’s help or info screen, usually a question mark or menu icon, and look for the Return to Player line. That figure is the configured RTP at your casino.
Is a higher RTP always better? No. Volatility decides how that return arrives, so a high RTP on a five-out-of-five volatility game can still drain a small bankroll quickly. Read both numbers together.
Does a bigger max win mean better odds? No. Gates of Olympus 1000 and Book of Dead share similar RTPs but have ceilings of 100,000x and 5,000x. The ceiling shapes the feature, not your chance of reaching it.
Do all casinos run the same RTP on the same game? Not necessarily. Providers can certify several configurations, so confirm the figure in your own help screen rather than trusting a review.
Final Verdict
Four checks take about a minute, and they turn a lobby full of similar-looking games into clearly different products. Confirm the RTP, match the volatility to your stake, learn how wins form, and treat the max win as a description of the feature, not a promise. If you play with deposit limits and reality checks switched on, you’ll also know your budget before the first spin.
Sources
- SlotVault.io, Gates of Olympus 1000 game review, https://slotvault.io/game/gates-of-olympus-1000/
- SlotVault.io, Starburst game review, https://slotvault.io/game/starburst/
- SlotVault.io, Gates of Olympus 1000 Review: What the 100,000x Max Win Actually Means, citing Pragmatic Play’s official game page
- SlotVault.io, FanDuel vs BetMGM Casino Ontario: Which Pays Faster in 2026?, for Book of Dead figures
- SlotVault.io, Best High Volatility Slots at Ontario Online Casinos (2026), for Dead or Alive 2 figures
