German naturalist August Batsch described "Boletus volvatus" (the specific epithet derived from the Latin "volva", meaning "sheath", "covering" or "womb") alongside "B. luteus" in his 1783 work "Elenchus Fungorum". Batsch placed both of these species, along with "B. bovinus" and the now obsolete names "Boletus mutabilis" and "B. canus", in a grouping of similar boletes he called "subordo Suilli". "Boletus volvatus" is now considered a synonym of "Suillus luteus". Several authors have placed the slippery jack in other genera: Finnish mycologist Petter Karsten classified it as "Cricunopus luteus" in 1881—the genus "Cricinopus" defined by yellow adnate tubes; Lucien Quélet classified it as "Viscipellis luteus" in 1886, and "Ixocomus luteus" in 1888; and Paul Christoph Hennings placed it in the section "Cricinopus" of the genus "Boletopsis" in 1900.