A slot's RTP figure is not one number fixed at the moment of development. Most providers build a game with several pre-certified RTP tiers baked into the math model, and the operator integrating that game selects which tier actually goes live on their site. Hacksaw Gaming's own page for Wanted Dead or a Wild lists four selectable configurations directly: 96.38%, 94.55%, 92.33% and 88.42%. Four different casinos can offer what reads as the identical game under an identical name, at four meaningfully different costs to the player, and none of them are lying about the RTP they post.
The Provider: Building a Menu of Certified Tiers
A provider's math team designs a game's mechanics, its symbols, reels, feature triggers and paytable, once. What gets varied across tiers is the underlying paytable weighting, calibrated to land on a specific target RTP for each build, while the mechanics and feel of the game stay identical across every tier. NetEnt's Starburst is documented running a default configuration around 96.09%, with a lower build near 90.05% and a higher one reaching 99.06%, according to SlotCatalog's industry RTP database, which tracks provider-declared configuration ranges across the market.
Our own game database shows the same practice from the inside. Wheel of Fortune and Zeus are both recorded here as "Varies by version" rather than carrying one fixed RTP figure, exactly the pattern described above: multiple certified builds exist, and no single number applies to the game as a general label.
How a Tier Is Actually Built
The mechanism behind each tier isn't a different game, it's a different paytable weighting layered onto identical mechanics. The reel strips, feature triggers, grid size and bonus round structure stay fixed across every tier a provider certifies, and what changes between a 96% build and a 92% build is the underlying probability distribution assigned to each outcome, recalibrated to land on the new target figure. GLI's GLI-19 standard reflects this directly by requiring both a theoretical and an actual RTP percentage tracked per configuration, treating each tier as its own certified object rather than a variation on one master figure.
This is also why a lower-RTP tier isn't simply "the same odds with a worse number attached." The paytable recalibration that produces it is a real change to how often specific outcomes occur and how large they are relative to each other, tested and certified independently of every other tier the same game offers.
Aggregators and the Same-Name Search Problem
A player searching a game's RTP through a search engine or a third-party aggregator site, rather than checking the specific operator they're using, will often find a range rather than a single figure. SlotCatalog, one of the more widely used industry RTP databases, explicitly flags a "RTP Ranges" disclosure banner on multi-tier games rather than presenting one number, precisely because no single figure describes the game across every operator offering it.
That range exists because the aggregator is compiling data across many operators' selected configurations, not because the underlying game's RTP is genuinely unknown or unstable at any individual site. The figure that applies to an actual session is whichever single configuration the specific operator in use has selected and certified, not the midpoint or average of a range shown on a third-party comparison site.
The Operator: Choosing Which Tier Goes Live
The selection of which tier actually runs happens at integration, generally set per operator or per brand, not per player or per session. An operator contracting a game from a provider or an aggregator chooses a configuration from the available menu, and that choice then applies uniformly to every player at that specific site.
The same underlying mechanism exists in land-based gaming, where a single physical game can ship with several certified paytables and a venue configures which one runs on its floor when the machine is installed. It is not a mechanism unique to online slots so much as an online implementation of a practice that predates it by decades.
Why Multiple Tiers Exist: Tax and Margin
RTP configuration is, in practical terms, a pricing lever, not just a technical option. Reporting in iGaming Business quotes Helen Walton of G Games stating plainly that operators are already using RTP this way, and that standard UK-facing RTPs have shifted from around 96% down toward 94%, with 92% increasingly requested, in direct response to higher UK gambling taxation. Eyal Loz of RubyPlay is quoted in the same reporting noting that a cut from 96% to 92% roughly doubles the effective cost of play for the player, even though the game itself hasn't changed at all.
Germany offers a documented case of what happens when this lever gets pulled hard. Regulus Partners' analysis, cited in the same reporting, links a 5.3% turnover tax to RTPs pushed down toward 90% or lower across the German market, alongside a licensed market contraction from roughly €800 million in 2022 to around €470 million by mid-2025, with the black market growing to an estimated €2 billion over the same period. A lower RTP tier is, from the operator's side, a direct response to a specific tax structure, not an arbitrary or unexplained choice.
The Regulatory Floor: Minimum RTP by Jurisdiction
Several jurisdictions set an explicit legal minimum RTP a configuration must clear before it can be offered at all.
| Jurisdiction | Minimum RTP | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Malta | 85% (lowered from 92% in 2021) | MGA, Article 22 of the Player Protection Directive |
| New Jersey | 83% | N.J. Admin. Code § 13:69E-1.28A(a) |
| Pennsylvania | 85% at the lowest wager tier | 58 Pa. Code § 461a.7(a) |
The UK works differently, and it's worth stating precisely rather than assuming a parallel floor exists. UKGC's RTS 7D technical standard doesn't set a numeric minimum RTP; instead, it prohibits changing a game's rules, payouts or outcome probabilities once that game is live for real-money play, except through mechanisms the game's own published rules already define. That's a consistency requirement rather than a floor: it doesn't set how low a UK-facing configuration can go, it sets that whichever configuration is live has to stay fixed and disclosed while players are using it.
Why Regulators Watch This Closely
Tier flexibility is exactly what makes RTP configuration a regulatory concern rather than a purely commercial detail. A mechanism that lets an operator select a lower-cost configuration in response to a tax change is the same mechanism that could, without a disclosure and consistency requirement layered on top, let an operator quietly select a worse configuration for a player base less likely to check. UKGC's RTS 7D rule against changing a live game's payouts addresses that risk directly, not by capping how low a configuration can go, but by making sure whichever one is live stays fixed and disclosed rather than adjustable after the fact. Malta's floor works differently again, setting an absolute number no configuration can fall below regardless of disclosure, currently 85% after the 2021 revision down from 92%.
Neither approach eliminates the underlying tier-selection mechanism, and neither is designed to. Both exist to bound what that flexibility is allowed to do once a game is actually live.
Certification: Who Checks the Live Number Matches the Selected Tier
Selecting a tier and actually running that tier correctly are two different claims, and a separate layer of independent testing exists to check the second one.
eCOGRA's RTP Percentage Testing service verifies that a game's theoretical RTP is genuinely achievable through large-sample simulation, checking whether pay combinations converge on their expected probabilities and how base game, feature and jackpot contributions combine into the overall stated figure. eCOGRA's own service description lists this specific offering as currently available for the Italian and Maltese markets.
iTech Labs' RTP and RNG audit certification goes a step further operationally, auditing actual RTP calculated from live server logs against the theoretical, declared figure for that specific configuration, and testing specifically for cases where a game's implementation doesn't match its declared rules or RTP.
GLI's GLI-19 standard, used widely across regulated markets, requires systems to maintain and report both a theoretical RTP percentage and an actual RTP percentage, and explicitly accounts for the multi-tier reality described throughout this piece: test labs are instructed to certify the specific configuration a game will run under, "the final configuration of which depends on the options chosen by the operator," rather than certifying a single figure for the game as a general product.
What This Means in Practice
A game's RTP, as posted on a specific site, describes the tier that operator selected and had certified, not a universal property of the game's name. Two sites offering a game under an identical title are not necessarily offering the same underlying math, and neither is required to be, provided the configuration each one runs is the one it certified and disclosed. The figure worth checking is always the one posted at the specific operator a player is actually using, not a remembered or assumed figure from the game in general.
Responsible Gambling
Understanding how RTP configuration works explains why the same game's posted figure can differ between operators, not which figure or which operator is worth choosing, and nothing here should be read as guidance toward any specific site. Any operator offering these games to players in Malta must hold a Malta Gaming Authority licence and meet that jurisdiction's minimum RTP requirement, and the Responsible Gaming Foundation provides free, confidential support for anyone who wants it.