Payout percentage. What does it all mean and why is it a concern for players? Well, aside from the alluded connotations associated with its name (the greater the payout percentage, the better the payout), the fact that an online casino even has a published payout percentage to begin with, means they are keeping things transparent for the players - which is a good thing.

For those players who don't know a thing about payout percentage, anything in the upper nineties percentile is a competitive rate. Payout percentage is simply the ratio of wagered stakes (on the player's behalf) to paid out winnings (on the casinos behalf).

The thing about payouts is that they depend on the gaming software being used. Casino operators have no way of going into the software and manipulating exactly what they want the payout percentage to be, for say, their table games. Once the bets begin, the payout percentages are subject to fluctuation, and as always in the pastime of gambling, chance and circumstance.

This does not mean that one month the payouts will be 50% and the very next month will be 98%. The fluctuation and happenstance is due to player's themselves within the boundaries of the software Random Number Generator (RNG). In other words, the amount of one's bet, the amount of the payout on such a bet, and how many bets a player makes will all contribute to slight fluctuations in the payout percentage.

The software does not determine if a bet will win or lose based on the amount of the wager. This would not be random, which is precisely why in a payout percentage report, it will be stated whether the RNG of the software produced truly random winnings for that month. This being the case, the payout percentage is going to have a certain element of randomness.

Now, so long as the online casinos software is properly configured to begin with, this randomness will be at a minimum - subject to the source code of the software. In other words, minimum payouts are ensured. Players only need to look back at the payout reports for several consecutive months to verify an acceptable average from month to month. If each month has similar payout percentages, give or take up to around 4% difference, players can rest assured the current month will fall within this acceptable average.