The Progressive Slot Machine

 

This article primarily talks about how progressive slot machine jackpots work. Before we get to that, let me give you a brief introduction of the progressive slot machine jackpot first. A progressive jackpot is a jackpot for a gaming machine (for video-poker and slot machines mostly) where the value of the jackpot augments marginally for every game played. Generally, more than one machines are chained together in order to form one huge progressive jackpot that grows rapidly as multiple players simultaneously contribute to the jackpot. Enough with definition, let us go to the point..

The first thing that needs to be mentioned is the progressive jackpot meter. The amount of the jackpot is shown there as a monetary value. The jackpot is most likely to be won by winning the combo with the highest payoff. For instance, five of the most valued symbols (lemons, cherries, alligators and so on) on a slot machine or a royal flush at a video poker game guarantees a win. Once someone wins the jackpot, it resets itself to a preset minimum level. The amount of jackpot augments little by little as more and more plays occur on a connected machine. The house (casino) decides how much the jackpot progresses every time. For instance, on a machine whose house edge is 10%, a good jackpot contribution should be 2% (one-fifth of the anticipated profit). The casino is prepared to contribute a significant portion of the profit because players are attracted to several things. First of all, there is the lucrative amount of the jackpot which gradually lures more players to participate in the game. Secondly, we have the volatile meter that is often displayed on gaudy LED screens. And last but not least, players are also attracted by the relative novelty of progressive jackpots. Generally, the only ones to wager the greatest number of credits per play are eligible to win the jackpot. Regardless of maximum credit bets, all wagers contribute to the jackpot and consequently, a game requiring a ten credit wager to qualify for this kind of jackpot will tend to have the jackpot rise to higher levels than a game that merely needs a five credit wager to qualify.

After the jackpot meter, we need to mention the break-even point. In games like video poker, it is not that hard to make up a playing strategy based on the frequency for each payoff against the odds of hitting that particular payoff. As the progressive video-poker’s jackpot relentlessly grows, it can reach a break-even point eventually. Then, the machine actually turns into a positive expectation bet for a player. On the contrary, the expected value or house-edge for all players is considered negative when the break-even point is more than the progressive jackpot. A video-poker player can ultimately make money after playing for a long, long time. It should be mentioned that this break-even point cannot be computed on a slot machine game since the player is unaware of the payback percentage. On the other hand, it is very possible in the case of video poker.

I hope the readers now have a good idea about how progressive slot machine jackpots work.