07 / Method & sources
A small room for careful claims.
Gamemath explains what published return terms mean, and where the meaning stops. It does not assess games or offer a way to select or play them.
Audience: English-reading adults in Australia
Source pack reviewed 25 September 2026
What belongs here
The Australian guidance below supports statements about poker machines, theoretical return versus a session, independent plays and net loss despite a smaller payout. Great Britain material is used only as a technical reference for definitions or to identify a GB-specific exception. It does not describe Australian regulatory requirements or demonstrate that a GB machine design operates in Australia.
The $1-stake models and the twenty-play ledger are invented teaching examples. Their probabilities, prize sizes and observed results are not drawn from a real machine, do not represent Australian minimum returns, and do not forecast a person's experience. A complement such as “90% expected prizes leaves 10% not returned” applies only under the stated simplified fixed-stake counting model, not to a session.
Source register
Australian guidance
- Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission, Understanding poker machines — updated 1 June 2026. Used for theoretical RTP not being an individual session return and independent spins.
- Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission, Myths and misconceptions about winning — updated 24 February 2026. Used for independent spins and the due-win misconception.
- GambleAware NSW, Poker machines — undated on supplied source pack. Used for independent plays and the distinction between any payout and a net gain where a prize is less than the stake.
Technical references — Great Britain
These UK Gambling Commission pages supply terminology or a GB example, not Australian legal rules.
- Technical reference — Great Britain. Key terms relating to live RTP performance monitoring of games — updated 28 January 2021. Used for theoretical versus actual RTP and volatility as variation commonly represented by standard deviation.
- Technical reference — Great Britain. How to calculate RTP — updated 25 January 2021. Used for actual return as generated win divided by turnover.
- Technical reference — Great Britain. Return to player — how much gaming machines payout — updated 16 June 2021. Used for averaging across significant game plays and the GB compensated-machine history-dependent exception.
Dates & corrections
Source pack reviewed 25 September 2026. Dates above are the source update dates supplied for this edition, not evidence that the linked pages can never change. If a source is revised, the relevant claim and its date should be checked again before reusing it.
No public corrections inbox is supplied with this edition. If you received this site from a publisher, send them the page name, the sentence in question and a link to the source so the claim can be rechecked. This page will need a named contact before it can offer a direct public corrections route; none is invented here.