Jackpot Slots
Progressive and otherwise
by Lou Krieger and Arthur Reber
Although some slots have jackpot payouts associated with them,
others do not. The easiest way to determine whether you’re
playing a jackpot machine is to see if its payouts are all
proportional to your wager. If the payouts for all winning
combinations are multiples of each other, regardless of how
many coins you’ve played, there won’t be a jackpot
associated with that machine. Here’s how it works: The
smallest win on one of these machines might garner two coins
if you wager a single coin, four coins if you play two, and
six if you bet three. Top prizes are proportional, too, such
as 2,000 coins for a one-coin wager, 4,000 if you bet two
coins, and 6,000 if you play three. The ratio of payback to
bet size remains constant, no matter how unlikely the outcome.
Other slots have a jackpot element—but there’s
a lot of variation on this theme. The most common jackpot
element is an added bonus when you play what is known as
“maximum coin,” but if you don’t look carefully,
you may not even realize there’s a jackpot in place.
The simplest of these machines have a single payout line
with three payout schedules for each possible outcome. If
you hit an ordinary payout, nothing about the size of your
win changes. For example, if a double-bar symbol pops up
on each wheel, and you played a single coin, you may win
20 coins. If you played two coins, the same set of double
bars will pay 40 coins, and if you played three coins, it
will pay 60 coins. The ratio of the payouts to the initial
wagers match, and everything is straightforward, just like
the first machine we described.
But take a look at the top payout line and you’ll often
discover that you’re in for an extra bonus if you play
max coin. It works this way: If the three jackpot symbols
magically line up, you might win 2,000 coins if you wagered
one coin, 4,000 coins if you risked two, and a whopping 7,500
coins if you played three coins. Hitting the jackpot with
max coin in wins an additional 1,500 coins over and above
the amount you would have won on a non-jackpot slot.
On machines without a jackpot, there’s no advantage to
playing more than one coin at a time since the expected value
of your gamble doesn’t change. But on other machines,
there is an advantage to playing max coin. While the jackpot
may not occur very often, when it does, it provides a significant
payout.
Playing less than max coin produces a poorer long-term percentage
payback because it takes the bonus jackpot payout out of play.
But while max coin play increases your long-term payback,
it reduces the expectation of cash in your pocket in the long
run because you are tripling the amount of money risked on
each spin. Since slots have a negative expectation in the
long run, the more money you wager, the more you figure to
lose.
Think of it this way: Suppose
you’re playing a dollar machine that returns 94 percent
with single-coin play and 95 percent when the jackpot is factored
in (we’ve just made up these numbers to make a point,
but they probably aren’t off by much). With 500 spins
of single-coin play your expected payback is 94 percent of
$500, or $470. In other words, you expect to lose $30. If
you wager the three coins needed to bring the jackpot into
play, $1,500 of your money is now at risk. While you have
increased the return rate by a full percentage point, your
wallet is going to suffer. The expected return on an investment
of $1,500 is $1,425, which means that, on average, you’re
going to lose $75. This immutable aspect of the slot machine
makes maximum play a bad idea on almost all jackpot machines.
However, there is another angle to a jackpot machine, and
it’s more psychological than economic. If the jackpot
does pop up on a play where you only played one or two coins,
it will make you a very unhappy camper. You’ll get the
“standard” payback, but you won’t enjoy the
fruits of the bonus that only comes with max coin. And you’re
going to feel this way despite the fact that if you had put
in the third coin, you almost certainly would not have won
the jackpot.
We know this is hard to believe, but it’s true. If you
had taken the time to put in the third coin, or the few extra
microseconds it would have taken you to move your hand over
to the max coin button, the machine would have been in a different
“state.” Because you would have stabbed the spin
button at a different time, the random number generator would
have selected a different outcome and a different set of symbols
would have popped up, making it extremely unlikely that they
would be the magic ones that represent the jackpot. This element
of the random nature of modern slot machines is so fascinating—and
so poorly understood by many players—that we will devote
an entire column to it in the future.
Although ordinary jackpot slots have been around for a long
time and lots of folks like to play them, in recent years,
slot mavens have been moving toward progressive jackpot machines
where the size of the jackpot payout increases over time.
These come in two variations: those where each machine has
its own jackpot, and those where the jackpot is linked to
a number of interconnected machines. These are easy to spot
because of the electronic sign above the machine advertising
the current size of the jackpot.
It is also easy to tell these machines apart. If the jackpot
counter only changes when someone is playing, the machine
has its own dedicated jackpot. If the counter keeps going
up even though no one is sitting there at that moment, it
is one of the “ganged” varieties.
Several of these connected jackpot machines are seriously
connected. There may be dozens of them linked together in
a casino. Machines in several different casinos may even be
daisy-chained so that the jackpot keeps spiraling upwards
as hundreds of slots are being played across town, or even
across the state.
Here’s our rule of thumb on the likelihood of hitting
one of these monster jackpots: Don’t hold your breath.
It’s wildly improbable, along the lines of hitting first
prize in a major multistate lottery. However, the payout can
be comparable and the sheer number of dollars involved makes
them very seductive.
Should you play a jackpot machine? Well, if you want to play
one with its own dedicated jackpot, just be sure you sit down
at a machine that hasn’t hit the jackpot in some time.
Not because the machine is due—there’s no such thing
as a due machine—but because the payout will be bigger
if you’re fortunate enough to hit it. We’ve often
walked through casinos and marveled at how many people are
playing a machine with a jackpot currently at something like
$1,091 while, two stools down, there is an equivalent machine
whose jackpot is worth $1,292. We can only assume that people
are unaware of what the counter above the machine is telling
them.
How about playing the massively linked machines with their
gazillion dollar payouts? Sure, why not. As the casinos will
tell you (in fact, scream at you from billboards, flyers,
mailings, and other forms of advertising), someone has to
hit it so it might as well be you!
But keep this in mind. Any time you play a machine with a
progressive jackpot, you give up a small percentage of the
nominal, long-term payback. The money that trickles into the
jackpot has to come from somewhere, and (we hope this doesn’t
come as a surprise to anyone) it comes from you. All jackpot
machines are set at a slightly lower overall payout for the
non-jackpot outcomes. This tiny amount is shunted over to
pad the payout for the big winner.
Here are a few final thoughts to keep you sober-minded: If
you do hit one of these babies, it may not be all it’s
cracked up to be. First, you won’t get the cash up front.
A four million dollar jackpot is paid out over a twenty-year
period. Second, you’ll have to pay taxes on the annual
income. Third, the casinos are going to keep the remainder
“for you”—along, of course, with the interest
it generates. And, of course, your annual share is going to
be slowly eroded by inflation. But, hey, go for it. Winning
four big ones is sweet, even if it trickles in at a measly
200 thou a year. But we did want you to understand why the
casinos love those monster jackpots and go on a full-bore
public relations campaign when one gets hit.
Gambling For Dummies is in your neighborhood bookstore
now. Both Lou Krieger’s and Arthur Reber’s other
books are available online at www.ConJelCo.com
and at www.Amazon.com. You can
visit Lou Krieger online at www.loukrieger.com,
or send e-mail to loukrieger@aol.com.
When not writing about gambling Arthur Reber, Ph.D. is a Professor
of Psychology. He can be reached through e-mail at areber@brooklyn.cuny.edu.
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