Volatility is a concept that the ever-growing online slots industry has borrowed from the stock market. Volatility is also referred to as variance, and it is a measure of the size of slot machine payouts compared to the frequency with which they occur.
Many slot machines will deliver winning combinations on a fairly regular basis, but these frequent wins will be of low value most of the time. These slot machines are said to have low volatility and low variance. On the other hand, some slots do not pay out very often at all, and a player will have to budget for hours of play to stand a chance of hitting a winning combination. However, when these infrequently paying slots do deliver a win, it is generally a substantial jackpot.
