Betaro releases free 2026 Slot Study built on 521 million real-money bets

Betaro, the slot demo and data site, has published The Betaro Slot Study 2026, based on 521,008,025 real bets logged between February 2 and October 26, 2026 at 21 crypto and sweepstakes casinos. Of these, 260.5 million bets were placed on 10,481 slots, which are the focus of the study.

The full study, including charts and eight downloadable data tables, is available at betaro.net/reports/slot-data-study-2026.

Remakes run the charts

Fifteen of the 25 most-played slots this year are remakes, sequels or spin-offs, accounting for 62.4% of bets on the top 25. Over the last 30 days, Sugar Rush 1000 attracted 6.6 times the bets of the original Sugar Rush, while Madame Destiny Megaways drew 35 times the original’s total. However, The Dog House (2019) still attracted twice as many bets as The Dog House Megaways 1000.

Most new slots disappear within two months

Of 497 slots launched between mid-February and late July, 105 entered Betaro’s weekly top 100. Only 21 remained eight weeks after launch. After four weeks, a typical major launch had around a tenth of the play share recorded during its best week.

Sweet Bonanza 2500 was the year’s strongest launch, capturing 3.2% of all slot bets in its first 30 days and remaining the third most-played slot in October. By contrast, Big Bass Raceday Repeat fell to 342nd and Junkyard Kings 2 from a top-10 debut to 1,963rd.

Pragmatic Play pulls ahead

Across four casinos tracked throughout the year, Pragmatic Play’s share of slot bets rose from 43.1% in March to 49.4% in October. Hacksaw Gaming fell from 23.3% to 19.0%, while Nolimit City dropped from 10.4% to 8.0%. ELK Studios grew from almost nothing to 1.5%. Across all casinos, Hacksaw’s Wanted Dead or a Wild remained the year’s most-played slot, with 6,063,998 bets.

An $18.1 million spin

Betaro’s biggest recorded win was $18,146,506 on Paperclip Gaming’s Sky Drop at Stake on October 18, from a $12,013 bet hitting 1,511x. Eight of the year’s ten biggest wins occurred at Stake.

The biggest multiplier was a 500,000x max win on Valkyrie’s Odin’s Vault at Stake, turning an $0.80 spin into $400,000. Nine of the ten biggest multipliers were full max wins, seven on Stake Engine games.

Slot payout rates and win frequencies

Around a third of spins (33.9%) returned a payout, even if less than the stake. One in 4.5 paid at least double, one in 114 reached 100x, and one in 2,550 hit 1,000x. Volatility had little effect on how often slots paid, but significantly affected larger wins: low-volatility slots hit 1,000x once every 17,240 spins, compared with once every 1,960 spins for high-volatility games.

“People in this industry talk a lot about what’s popular, but most of it is guesswork or marketing,” said John Marshall, founder of Betaro. “We count real bets every day, so we put the whole year on one page and made it free for anyone to use. The launch numbers surprised me the most. Hundreds of slots come out, and only a couple of dozen are still getting real play two months later.”

Marshall added: “Studios are going back to their old hits, adding bigger multipliers or a new feature, and players follow. It isn’t guaranteed. The original Dog House still outdraws its Megaways 1000 version two to one.”

Free to use

Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, the study allows journalists, analysts, affiliates, operators, studios and creators to reuse findings, charts and tables, provided they credit Betaro and link to the study.

Data collection methodology

Figures come from bets logged at the 21 casinos, grouped by game and day. As casinos were added during the year, including Stake in May, trends are measured by share of play rather than raw bet counts. The analysis excludes crash, instant-win and casino-original games. Wins count only when payouts match the stake multiplied by the recorded multiplier and remain within the slot’s official max win. Amounts are in US dollars, as reported in public casino bet feeds.