Pokies RTP in Australia: what the machines and online games actually return

Two kinds of RTP, two kinds of source

A pokie’s return to player is the share of all money staked on it that comes back as wins over its life. In Australia you’ll meet the figure in two very different places, and they’re not measured the same way.

In a pub, club or casino, the state sets a floor. Every machine must be configured to return at least that much over its lifetime: 85% in NSW, Queensland, the NT and Victorian pubs and clubs, 87% in the ACT and Tasmania, 87.5% in South Australia, 90% at Crown Perth. The setting above the floor is up to the venue.

Online, the studio that made the game prints its own figure on the game page or in the help file. That’s the number in the table below. Offering online pokies to people in Australia is prohibited under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, and online casinos are not licensed here; the table describes the games, not where to play them.

RTP of 15 popular online pokies

Every figure comes from the studio’s own page, read on 29 September 2026. The one exception is Cleopatra: IGT doesn’t publish an online RTP, so the figure is the game’s rule screen as quoted in an independent analysis.

“Not listed” means the studio shows one figure. It doesn’t prove there’s only one version; several studios supply lower settings to casinos without printing them on the public page. Links for every row are in Sources.

The same game can come in five settings

Two studios in the table say so openly. Light & Wonder lists five version numbers for Huff N’ More Puff, returning 96%, 94%, 92%, 90% and 87%. Play’n GO lists five for Book of Dead, from 96.21% down to 84.18%.

The casino picks the version. On $100 of turnover, the gap between Book of Dead’s top and bottom setting is $12.03 — more than the gap between any two games in the table. That’s why the help screen of the game you open matters more than any list, this one included.

Venue floors against online sheets

Put the two side by side and the online figures look generous: 96% against an 85% floor is $11 more returned on every $100 staked. The calculator does this for each state and each game above.

Two cautions keep that honest. A venue floor is a minimum, and many machines are set above it; the state only guarantees the floor. And an online figure is the studio’s top setting unless the game’s own screen says otherwise.

What RTP doesn’t tell you

RTP is an average over millions of spins. Your session is a few hundred at most, and in that stretch volatility decides far more than the percentage does. A high-volatility game like Book of Dead can drain $100 quickly and still be a 96.21% game over its life. The volatility guide covers how to read that side.

Nor does RTP change with the number of reels. Pragmatic’s 3×3 classics sit at 96.47% to 96.96%, level with its 5-reel games, while Light & Wonder’s 3-reel Huff N Xtra Puff tops out at 94%. The studio and the version decide it. 5 reel pokies has the detail.

Reading RTP on a venue floor

Pokies in Australian venues don’t come with a public RTP list, and the studios don’t publish per-machine settings. The game’s information screens, or a player information terminal where the venue has them, are where a setting is shown. The venues guide explains what each state requires and where to look.

Most of the machines on those floors are made by Aristocrat. Its games turn up online too, and the guide to Aristocrat pokies online shows what the studio has actually released and how to tell an official build from a copy.

Ainsley Duff

Editor, Payback Notes · Published 29 September 2026 · Checked 29 September 2026

Ainsley Duff writes Payback Notes from Adelaide. She reads RTP where it is actually published — state technical standards, provider game sheets and help files, venue pages — and puts a date and a link beside every figure.

What I checked for this page (29 September 2026): read the RTP of 15 online pokies on the studios’ own game pages (Cleopatra from an independent analysis, because IGT publishes none), matched the eight state minimums to their clauses in the national standard and state rules, and ran every dollar figure in the calculator by hand. Not done yet: the RTP settings running at any particular online casino or venue machine — those sit in each game’s help screen, and we haven’t photographed them yet.

How figures get in: how we verify RTP · sources for this page · how we earn. A commission never changes the RTP figures we publish or the order they appear in.