Every case site prints a return-to-player number next to the case. Most of them land between 86% and 92%, and most of them are technically true. The problem is what the number measures: coins in, coins out, at the site’s own price list. It says nothing about how many coins your 100 dollars bought, what the bonus did, or what the skin you finally withdraw is worth once it leaves the site.
So we measured the whole chain on twelve of the biggest sites. Deposit 100 dollars, open cases, withdraw, sell at market price. The case page said 90 on nearly all of them. What comes back ranges from 64 dollars to 91.
The five layers between your money and a skin
Think of it as a pipe. Real money goes in one end, a skin comes out the other, and every joint leaks a little in the site’s favour. The case RTP sits in the middle and is the only leak the site prints a number for.
- The deposit. 100 dollars becomes 142 coins on one site, 200 on another, “110 USD” on a third. Sometimes that is a real bonus. Sometimes it is just a different unit, and the price list is in the same unit, so nothing changed.
- The deposit bonus. “Plus 5%” sounds like free money. It is, as long as you remember it is 5% on the way in against a much bigger number on the way out.
- The site currency. Coins, gems, diamonds. When a coin is worth 70 cents, every price on the site looks cheaper than it is, and the gap between what you paid for the coins and what they buy at the exit is margin.
- The withdrawal markup. This is the big one. The skin you won is listed at the site’s price, and on most sites that price sits well above what the same skin sells for on Buff163, CSFloat or Youpin. The case RTP was calculated against the inflated number, so a 90% case on a site with a 30% markup is a 69% case in cash terms before anything else is counted.
- The exit. Nobody can spend a skin. Selling it costs 2% to 15% depending on the marketplace. That is the same on every site, so we leave it out of the comparison, but remember it when you read the table.
The layers multiply. Lose nothing at the deposit, 10% on the case, 30% at the withdrawal, and the pipe returns 0.90 ÷ 1.30 = 69 cents on the dollar. The case page said 90.
How we measured it
Everything comes from two sources: the site’s own published odds table, and live cash prices. No openings were needed except on one site that publishes no odds.
Case RTP. Every provably fair site shows a table of items, prices and chances for each case. The expected payout is the sum of price × chance; the RTP is that divided by the case price. We checked that the chances sum to exactly 100% (they do, to the roll, on every site) and used the site’s own listed prices, which is what the site itself does.
Balance per 100 dollars. Read off the deposit screen: how many coins you get, and what the price list treats one coin as.
Skin markup. We took items across every price tier, from 4-dollar pistols to 2,000-dollar knives, and compared the site’s withdrawal price with the lowest cash price on Buff163, CSFloat and Youpin on the same day. On most sites the ratio is a flat multiplier; it barely moves between a 30-dollar AK and a 700-dollar karambit, which tells you it is a setting, not a market.
The formula.
Real RTP = case RTP × (balance per $100 ÷ 100 × coin value) ÷ (1 + skin markup)
Where a site lets you withdraw deposited money as crypto, we show that path too, with its fee, and the better of the two counts in our scores.
Prices were checked on 24 and 25 October 2026. Sites that price in euros were converted at 1.12 dollars.
A worked example: G4Skins
| Step | Number | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 100 dollars buys | 105 coins, priced as dollars | deposit screen, 5% bonus |
| A 500-coin case pays out on average | 432.53 coins | sum of price × chance over 23 items |
| Case RTP | 432.53 ÷ 500 = 86.5% | what the site would print |
| Site price ÷ market price | 1.298 | four items: Bayonet Lore FT $254 vs $196, Sport Gloves Vice WW $389 vs $292, AK X-Ray FT $690 vs $532, AK Aquamarine WW $34 vs $27 |
| Real RTP | 86.5% × 1.05 ÷ 1.298 = 70.0% |
The 5% bonus is worth 4 points. The 30% markup takes 20. That is the whole trick: give 5 visibly, take 30 invisibly.
What an odds table tells you if you read it
The G4Skins case above has 23 items. Sort them by how much each one contributes to the expected payout (price × chance) and every item lands in one of three buckets.
| Bucket | Items | Contribution each |
|---|---|---|
| $28 | Crimson Kimono, Poseidon, Butterfly Lore, Vox Eminor Holo, AWP Prince, Pandora’s Box, Hedge Maze, Vice FN, Wild Lotus… | $27.9–28.0 |
| $2.36 | CZ75, AK Aquamarine, Five-SeveN Case Hardened, USP Monster Mashup, AWP Chromatic, Bayonet Lore FT, Sport Gloves Vice WW | $2.36–2.38 |
| $0.13 | AUG Amber Slipstream, 35% of all opens | $0.13 |
Nobody built that case by picking skins and checking the odds. They picked a target payout per slot and solved for the chance. The two items in bold are the interesting ones: Sport Gloves Vice appears twice on the reel, once as the 7,303-dollar Factory New at 0.383% and once as the 389-dollar Well-Worn at 0.607%. Same name, same picture. When “Vice” lands, it is the cheap one 61% of the time, and it is weighted like a 28-dollar CZ75. The odds table is honest to the decimal and still engineered so the most exciting-looking hit is usually the cheap one.
Hellcase shows the same fingerprint from the other side. Five of its cases, from a 31-euro Wallbreaker to a 161-euro Panda Knife, land on 86.0%, 88.0%, 88.0%, 92.0% and 92.0% to the first decimal. Round targets, odds solved backwards.
The results
Twelve sites, sorted by what comes back as skins. Crypto is the same deposit withdrawn as crypto instead, where the site allows it.
| Site | Case RTP | $100 buys | Skin prices vs market | Real RTP, skins | Real RTP, crypto |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CSGOEmpire | 91.2% | 162.70 coins ($0.61) | market price | 91.2% | 89.8% |
| SkinRave | 90.0% | 200 coins ($0.50) | +4.6% | 86.0% | 90.0% |
| CSGOGem | 90.0% | 166.66 coins ($0.60) | +7.1% | 84.0% | 90.0% |
| CSGOBig | 90.0% | 169 coins ($0.59) | +8.5% | 82.9% | 88.7% |
| CSGORoll | 90.0% | 142.84 coins ($0.70) | +11.2% | 80.9% | not available |
| Rain.gg | 90.0% | 142.72 coins ($0.70) | +14.2% | 78.8% | 90.0% |
| Skin.Club | 92.5% | $100 | +20.1% | 77.0% | skins only |
| FarmSkins | ~80% (estimated) | $110 | +20.6% | ~73% | skins only |
| Clash.gg | 90.0% | 140.44 coins ($0.71) | +27.5% | 70.6% | 85.8% |
| G4Skins | 86.5% | $105 | +29.8% | 70.0% | skins only |
| Key-Drop | 87.9% | €107 (+20% bonus) | +53.1% | 68.9% | skins only |
| Hellcase | 88.0% | €98 (+10% bonus) | +51.5% | 63.9% | skins only |
Read the two middle columns together. The coin pegs are not fees; 142.84 coins at 70 cents is exactly 100 dollars. The markup column is the fee. Everything from Clash.gg down charges more at the exit than the case itself does in the middle.
Three kinds of site
The table splits cleanly into three business models, and the markup column is how you tell them apart.
Open marketplace. CSGOEmpire lists skins from other players and takes its cut from them, not from you. Pick a sensible listing and you withdraw at market price. That is why 91.2% on the case page is 91.2% in your pocket.
A “marketplace” that is really one provider. Rain.gg, CSGOGem, CSGOBig and Clash.gg show you a marketplace tab, but the skins come from a single supplier such as Skinsback or Waxpeer, and the site adds its cut on top of the supplier’s price. It is presented as free withdrawals; the data says 7% to 28%. The crypto column is the tell: on these sites the same deposit withdrawn as crypto returns 85% to 90%, so the skin markup is a choice, not a cost.
Closed system. Key-Drop, Hellcase, G4Skins and Skin.Club price the skins themselves, at or above Steam Community Market level, and skins are the only way out. The markup is 20% to 53%, and the case RTP was calculated against those prices from the start.
Two things we found on the way
Hellcase sales are not sales. The odds table of the Diamond case does not change when the case goes on sale. At the sale price of 139.47 euros it returns 86.0%; at the list price of 166.03 euros the same odds return 72.3%. The discount is what brings it up to normal.
CSGORoll’s crypto withdrawals do not apply to your deposit. Roll has two currencies. Roll Coins, the ones you buy, “can not generate Roll Chips” and only come back out as skins. Roll Chips, the only thing redeemable for crypto, come from winning with promotional coins (daily cases, rain, referrals) at a rate the site sets, with a 100-chip minimum and the network fees on you. For a depositing player the crypto path does not exist, which is why the table says “not available” instead of a percentage.
FarmSkins publishes no odds at all. Its number is an estimate from a sample of openings and should be read as “at best”. For comparison, if its small case used Valve’s own drop rates (79.92% Mil-Spec down to 0.26% for a knife), it would be worth 88 cents per opening. Whatever the real odds are, the site could show them in a second and chooses not to.
How to check any site yourself
- Open a case page and find the odds table. If there is none, that is your answer.
- Multiply each item’s price by its chance and add them up. Divide by the case price. That is the case RTP the site is showing you, and you have just verified it.
- Note what 100 dollars buys at the deposit screen and what one coin is priced as.
- Pick five items from the withdrawal shop across price tiers and look each one up on Buff163 or CSFloat. Divide site price by market price and average.
- Real RTP = case RTP × (coins ÷ 100 × coin value) ÷ (site-to-market ratio).
It takes about fifteen minutes per site, and the markup step is the one that matters. The other layers are usually honest; that one almost never is.
What to take from this
- The RTP next to the case is a real number measuring the wrong thing. The number that matters is how far the site’s skin prices sit above market, and no site prints that.
- Same advertised RTP, 27 points of difference in what you get. That is a bigger gap than any difference between the cases themselves.
- If you want skins, use a site with an open marketplace. If you are on a site with a provider “marketplace”, withdraw as crypto and buy the skin elsewhere.
- A deposit bonus is worth a few points. A markup costs tens. Weigh them accordingly.
These figures are now part of how we score sites: the real RTP is the biggest single factor in the Fairness & Odds category, and every review shows its own Real RTP card with the date the prices were checked.
