Where to find it
The paytable lives inside the game itself, usually behind an i button, a question mark or a side menu. You can open it before staking anything, and in demo mode too where the title offers one.
It is also the only formal description the studio publishes. Reviews, videos and roundups are retellings, and they often lag behind the version of the game you are actually looking at.
Lines, ways and clusters
Start with the question of how the game registers a win at all. There are only a few models in circulation:
- Fixed paylines. Symbols must land on a drawn path, normally left to right starting from reel one.
- Ways (243, 1024 and up). Position on the reel is irrelevant; adjacency across consecutive reels is what counts.
- Megaways. The number of symbols per reel changes on every spin, and the number of ways changes with it.
- Cluster pays. Touching groups of identical symbols pay, in any direction.
The model also determines how your stake is split. Line games divide the total bet across lines and pay symbols against the line bet; ways and cluster games usually pay against the total bet.
Symbol values, and the mistake almost everyone makes
Next to each symbol sits a number such as x100, and it is the most ambiguous entry in the whole table. For some studios it multiplies the line bet, for others the total bet, and for a third group it is a coin value that still needs converting through the denomination.
There is a quick test. Change the stake and watch the table: if the figures move, they are tied to money; if they stay put, you are looking at coins or bet multipliers.
Wilds, scatters and special symbols
A wild substitutes for regular symbols but, as a rule, not for scatters or feature symbols. Its variants are spelled out in the same section: expanding, sticky, walking, or carrying a multiplier of its own.
A scatter pays from any position and normally triggers the feature. The line worth reading is how many scatters are required and what each extra one adds, which matters far more than the scatter payout itself.
Bonus mechanics
The feature section is usually the longest part of the table and the most useful. Where a game has these mechanics, check three things:
- Free spins: how many are awarded, whether multipliers progress, whether the round can be retriggered.
- Hold and win or respins: what locks onto the reels and what resets the counter.
- Jackpots and prize tiers: whether they are fixed amounts or scale with the stake.
One distinction is worth keeping clear. Free spins inside a slot are a game mechanic, not a site promotion. Tonza does not run free spins as a bonus product at all — the welcome offer is a percentage match on the first four deposits, with the terms set out on the bonus page.
RTP, volatility and the win cap
Technical notes sit at the bottom of most paytables. RTP is the declared theoretical return over a very long run, and because some titles ship in several configurations, the figure shown inside the game is the one that applies to you. Volatility says nothing about the size of that return — it describes how the return is distributed, with high volatility meaning rare large payouts and long flat stretches.
The maximum win is quoted as a multiple of the total bet, and it is a hard ceiling. If a feature could theoretically pay more, the round is truncated to the cap.
The short checklist
- How wins are registered: lines, ways or clusters.
- What symbol values are measured against: line bet, total bet or coins.
- What the wild replaces and what the scatter triggers.
- RTP, volatility and the maximum win multiple.
Slots on Tonza have their own section, and frequently played titles are collected under top games. Seed-based verification of a round applies to the platform's in-house titles, Tonza Originals; for provider slots the paytable remains the primary source of truth about the mechanics.
