PH365 Hit frequency Explained — How Often a Game Pays Anything

There’s an exact definition behind Hit frequency, yet the looser everyday version of it drives most of the confusion.

Hit frequency (also called hit rate) — Regardless of the overall amount paid back over time, this is the share of spins that produce a win, no matter how small.

What Hit frequency actually means

All hit frequency measures is a fraction — how many spins, out of the total played, return any payout at all, even one under the stake. The game’s paytable and reel maths determine this figure the same way they determine RTP and volatility, yet it’s answering a separate question from both. RTP covers the long-run total paid out, volatility covers the frequent-small versus rare-large split of that total, and hit frequency covers nothing more than how often the reels land on a winning combination.

A worked example

When a game states a 25% hit frequency, about one spin in four pays something on average across a large sample, while the other three return nothing. That works out to roughly 100 wins across 400 spins, most of them probably under the stake when RTP and volatility are both moderate. Whether 100 wins together beat the amount staked or came up short isn’t answered by that figure at all — that’s what RTP tells you.

Using it in practice

Low hit frequency stretches a game’s visible dry spells beyond what RTP alone implies, and that shapes session feel even when the long-run numbers are ordinary. Wherever a studio publishes both hit frequency and RTP, reading them together tells you far more about how a session will actually feel than either figure alone. Remembering it works better paired with what volatility means, since those pages usually bring up both together.

Hit frequency, among other terms, recurs across this site’s game pages, and wherever a studio’s figure goes unpublished, the page states that plainly rather than borrowing a number from a comparison site. Because of that, several spec tables on this page sit blank rather than filled in.

The common misreading

People frequently assume a high hit frequency signals a game that pays more, or is ‘looser’. It does not follow. One game might hit 40% of spins yet return only 90% overall since most wins fall below the stake, while another hitting just 15% of spins can return 97% because its wins pay generously. How often a win lands and how large the total return is are each determined on their own.

Hit frequency differs from both RTP and volatility, even though a comparison table might mash all three into one ‘how good is this game’ verdict. Since these three numbers move independently, a title might pair high hit frequency with low volatility, with high volatility, or with any other mix, and only all three together give the complete picture.

Checking Hit frequency at PH365

1. Open a game at PH365 and find its info or help screen.
2. Hit frequency shows up there — interpret it against the definition given earlier.
3. Compare it with the same entry on another title before you pick one to play at PH365.
4. Write your stake and your stop point down before the first round at PH365.