Hawkplay Hit frequency Meaning: The Third Number, After RTP and Volatility

Most of the confusion around Hit frequency comes from its imprecise version, since the term itself has a precise meaning.

Hit frequency (also called hit rate) — The share of spins that pay anything, even a small amount, separate from the total returned in the long run.

What Hit frequency actually means

Out of all spins played, the share that pay anything at all, even less than the stake, is the hit frequency. Alongside RTP and volatility, the game’s paytable and reel maths set it, yet it addresses a question different from both. Hit frequency describes nothing but how often the reels stop on any winning combination; RTP covers the long-run total returned, and volatility covers its spread between frequent-small and rare-large.

A worked example

Take a game with a stated 25% hit frequency: over a large sample, about one spin in four returns anything, and the rest return nothing. That works out at around 100 winning spins over 400, the majority probably below the stake if the game’s RTP and volatility are both moderate. RTP, not that figure, tells you if those 100 wins total more or less than was staked.

Using it in practice

Longer visible dry spells follow from a game with low hit frequency than its RTP alone implies, which shapes how a session feels whatever the long-run maths looks like. A studio that publishes hit frequency next to RTP lets you judge the feel of a session much better than either number can alone.

Hit frequency is among the terms found on game pages across this site; if the studio has not published the figure behind one, the page states that rather than quoting a comparison site’s number. Several spec tables here have empty cells for that reason.

The common misreading

The assumption is often made that high hit frequency means a game pays more, or is ‘looser’. It does not follow. One game can pay on 40% of spins and still give back just 90%, as most wins are below the stake; a second that pays on only 15% of spins can give back 97%, because each hit is large. How often wins occur and how much is returned overall are set independently of each other.

Neither RTP nor volatility is what hit frequency is, even if comparison tables occasionally merge the three into a single ‘how good is this game’ impression. The three numbers move independently, so a game may combine high hit frequency with low or high volatility, or any other mix; a full picture needs all three.

Checking Hit frequency at Hawkplay

1. Inside a Hawkplay game, there is an info or help screen to find; open the game first.
2. Check the Hit frequency entry and read it as defined above.
3. Line it up against the same entry on a different title, then decide which one to play at Hawkplay.
4. Before the first round at Hawkplay, note down your stake and your stop point.