Megabucks is one of the most popular progressive networks available. The probability of winning this jackpot has been estimated at 1 in 50 million. The amounts won on this machine vary from $10 million into the hundreds of millions. Like many lottery games, Megabucks is paid out as an annuity over 25 years.
Most routes to becoming a pro gambler are well known. Daily fantasy sports (DFS), card counting, poker, and sports betting are all common forms of professional gambling.
Slot machines, on the other hand, seem like the last type of gaming that would offer an opportunity to become a professional. Aren’t these the games that people mindlessly play for hours and lose lots of money? Yes, to a degree.
However, slot machines can offer a chance to win profits under the right circumstances. That said, I’ll discuss different ways to win with slots and if this career choice is ultimately worth the effort.
Bull Mystery Slot Machine
What Are the Different Ways to Beat Slots?
You might think the only way to beat a slot machine is by praying to the heavens. If so, you’ll be surprised to find there are actually three different ways to win with slots.
Banking Slot Machines
A banking (a.k.a. accumulator) slot machine features a bonus meter that gradually fills as one collects special symbols. A bonus feature will be triggered once the meter reaches the top.
The premise behind these games is that they entice gamblers to play longer in order to unlock bonuses. But some players don’t manage to trigger the bonus, because they either run out of time or money.
Assuming they leave, you can swoop in and take advantage. You can theoretically gain an edge with accumulator slot machines when the meter is nearly full.
What’s more is that many gamblers continue playing so that they can earn the bonus. In these cases, you may need to build up the nerve to persuade a gambler off their slot machine beforehand.
Those who engage in this practice are often referred to as slots “vultures.” They hang around games and do anything possible to get a seat when the bonus is set to come.
Therefore, you not only need the time to find nearly full meters, but also need the nerve to talk somebody off a slot.
Mystery Jackpots
A mystery slot machine offers a progressive jackpot that pays out at a specific point. For example, a game may deliver its top prize at exactly $250.
Much like with accumulator slots, some gamblers leave a mystery jackpot slot machine before it’s set to pay out. This creates another opportunity where you can gain an edge by stepping in at the right moment.
The biggest challenge in getting this advantage is knowing when to play a mystery jackpot slot. Here’s a formula via Michael “The Wizard of Odds” Shackleford for calculating a mystery game’s most-profitable point.
- Formula: t = m × (h + r) / (h + 2r)
- t = Target point
- m = Max jackpot
- r = Rise of meter (percentage of each bet that goes into the jackpot; e.g. 2%)
- h = House edge (including average value of progressive jackpot)
This formula isn’t perfect. After all, you may not know the house edge and/or jackpot contribution for the game you’re playing.
But you can at least guess these variables and come up with a reasonable target point. For example, most games see around 2% of every bet go towards funding the progressive jackpot.
Here’s an example for using these variables to determine when you’ll have an edge:
- Formula: $250 jackpot x (0.05 + 0.02 rise in meter) / (0.05 + 0.02×2) = $194.44
- You should begin playing when the jackpot reaches $194.44.
Progressive Jackpots
Progressive jackpots play a huge role in the popularity of slot machines. After all, some of these prizes can be worth seven or even eight figures.
For example, somebody won a jackpot of $21 million through Microgaming’s Mega Moolah in 2019. This prize is an exception to the norm, but it shows just how large slots jackpots can get.
You definitely can’t expect to win profits on a game with 88% payback. This RTP is as bad as it gets in the slots world.
However, Mega Moolah’s payback grows along with the jackpot. At a certain point, this slot, or any other progressive game, can feature such a large jackpot that the game itself offers over 100% payback.
Assuming you play progressive slot machines at this point, you’re theoretically earning profits. But this is a huge “theoretical,” because you’d have to actually win the jackpot at some point to eventually be profitable.
The odds of winning the biggest slots jackpots can be 1 in 10 million, or even greater. You certainly don’t have any guarantees with these games.
Why You Should Chase Slots Profits
You can see from the above description that slots winnings aren’t easy to come by. However, you may still find this pursuit worth the effort for a few different reasons.
Make Money With Entertaining Games
Millions of people around the globe play slot machines on a daily basis for the entertainment value alone. Now, just imagine if you could also make a living while enjoying these games.
Professional slots play gives you this opportunity. You can hang out in casinos and play different slots for hours while earning a living.
Pick up Comps on the Side
The profits that you accumulate from slot machines aren’t the only benefits to this profession. You can also earn rewards on the side of your play.
You simply need to sign up for a slots club card at any casino where you gamble. From here, your bets will be comped based on each casino’s formula.
Generally speaking, you often receive 0.01% of your total bets as rewards. Remember, this money is on top of the profits that you’re already making.
Make Your Own Hours
Many people dream of working a job where they can make their own hours. Professional slots play offers this very chance.
You decide when to visit the casino and how long you want to play. You can also choose which holidays to work and which ones to enjoy.
Of course, you may have to play at the busiest hours to truly capitalize on these opportunities. But you always have the choice of when to gamble.
Visit Different Casinos
If you want to be a professional slots player, chances are that you’ll have to move to Las Vegas to do it. After all, Sin City offers the most accumulator slot machines, mystery jackpots, and progressive jackpots in the world.
Assuming you enjoy visiting different casinos anyway, then you’ll love this aspect of being a slots pro. Vegas, for example, offers well over 100 different casinos.
Not all these gaming establishments offer great opportunities to make profits. But you may include over a dozen different casinos in your rotation.
Why You Shouldn’t Try to Be a Slots Pro
Professional slots players aren’t very common. One reason why is because there are a number of downsides to this job, including the following.
Inconsistent Income
Even if you have an advantage with slot machines, you’re never guaranteed profits on a given day. You’ll have a very small edge in any game and must rely on the luck of the draw in some cases.
If you’re playing an accumulator slot with a nearly full meter, for example, you still need to collect the one to two required symbols to trigger the bonus. Sometimes, you’ll get the required symbols very quickly. Other times, you’ll have to wait and lose money in the process.
Assuming you keep playing slot machines with an advantage, then you’re going to make profits. But you never know how much you’ll earn during each day or even week.
Advantage Play On Slot Machines - 4 Different Strategies Analyzed
Limited Opportunities
Accumulator slot machines used to be more common over a decade ago. However, many casinos found out that these slots caused major problems.
As covered before, vultures try to persuade gamblers off of machines with nearly full meters. Fistfights sometimes break out when vultures are too persistent or even downright rude.
Mystery jackpot games aren’t heavily prevalent in casinos either. They’re just not as popular as standard progressive jackpot slots.
Deal With Slots Vultures
Slot machine vultures are one of the ugliest parts of the trade. If you pursue accumulator bonuses, or even mystery jackpots, then you’ll be competing with these very same players.
They may harass you for infringing on their turf. Furthermore, they’ll try beating you to the punch when a favorable opportunity exists.
You may have no problem with this competition. But more competitors mean you’ll have a tougher time making profits.
You May Become a Vulture Yourself
In the end, you might discover that the only way to earn consistent profits is to become a vulture. Are you prepared to try and trick gamblers off of slot machines just so you can profit?
If the allure of being a professional slots player is that great, then you may answer “yes” to this question. On the other hand, you might hate the idea of bothering other players just to get their seat.
Conclusion
Slot machines aren’t my favorite route for trying to win gambling profits. Nevertheless, they can be beaten under the right conditions.
Banking slots, mystery jackpot machines, and progressive jackpot games can all offer an advantage. You just need to go about playing them in the correct manner.
Accumulator slot machines have meters that trigger a bonus when filled. If you continually play these games right before the meter fills, then you’ll have a long-term advantage.
Mystery jackpot games pay their top prizes at a specific point. When you play these slot machines near the payout point, then you can boost your chances of winning.
That said, accumulator slot machines and mystery progressive jackpots are the most feasible paths to winning. But they also have their downsides.
Both types of games are available in limited supply. With banking slots, you also have to worry about vultures swooping in to steal profitable opportunities.
In summary, becoming a slots pro is far from easy. But you may still consider this path if you really love slot machines and want to profit from them full time.
A progressive jackpot is a jackpot (a gambling grand prize or payout) which increases each time the game is played but the jackpot is not won. When the progressive jackpot is won, the jackpot for the next play is reset to a predetermined value, and resumes increasing under the same rule.
Many slot machines and video poker machines feature a progressive jackpot. The jackpot increases by a small predetermined amount each time the game is played. Often multiple machines are pooled or linked together to form a larger progressive jackpot which grows more quickly because more non-winning plays can be counted toward it.
Many lotteries feature progressive jackpots. After each drawing in which the jackpot is not won, a large amount of money is 'carried forward' to the jackpot for next drawing.
Progressive jackpot meter[edit]
The amount of the jackpot increases by a small amount for every play on any connected machine. The amount by which the jackpot advances is set by the casino ('the house'). A machine offering a progressive jackpot usually displays the amount of the jackpot, rather boldly, to attract players. After a player wins the jackpot, the jackpot resets to a preset minimum level.
For example, on a machine whose house edge is 5%, a generous jackpot contribution might be 1% (one fifth of the expected profit). The house is prepared to contribute some of the profit of a jackpot linked machine because players are attracted by the:
- relative novelty of progressive jackpots (generally, only a small fraction of the house's gaming machines will be connected to a progressive jackpot)
- constantly changing meter, often displayed on large LCD or LED displays
- large amount of the jackpot, which eventually motivates more players to play the game.
Qualifying[edit]
Usually the progressive jackpot is only offered to players who wager the maximum number of credits per play. All wagers, whether or not they are maximum-credit bets, contribute to the jackpot. As a result, a game which requires a 10-credit wager to qualify for the progressive jackpot tends to have its progressive jackpot rise to higher levels (relative to its break-even level) than a game that requires only a 5-credit wager to qualify.
Usually the jackpot can only be won by winning the combination with the highest payoff, e.g. a royal flush at a video poker game, or five of the most valuable symbols (lemons, cherries, alligators, etc.) on a slot machine.
Often, the displayed amount of such jackpots includes a base payout which is often simply the regular payout for the winning combination multiplied by the minimum qualifying bet. If the jackpot is 'reset' to this amount each time it is won then in essence the house is not providing any 'seed money' for the jackpot since the minimum that can be won in such a case would simply be the amount the player would normally be awarded for the jackpot-winning combination.
'Mystery' or 'must-hit-by' jackpots[edit]
A variation of the standard progressive jackpot is the 'must-hit-by' jackpot, which has substantial differences compared to traditional jackpots.
The value of every 'must-hit-by' jackpot is determined immediately after the preceding jackpot is won by a random number generator and stored within an encrypted computer connected to a gaming machine (or, more commonly, a network of machines) and is publicly disclosed to be within a certain range (for example, a small jackpot might be programmed to pay out at between $1,000 and $3,000). The jackpot pays on the wager that causes the jackpot to reach or exceed the threshold, with the maximum value within this range being the 'must-hit-by' amount.
Often such jackpots encompass a variety of games, with each game contributing a small percentage of wagers to the jackpot. Thus, these jackpots are often billed as 'mystery jackpots' since the conditions that cause them to be paid do not depend on achieving any specific result in the main game. Furthermore, it is not usually necessary to bet the maximum amount possible (or, often, to even bet any minimal amount above the minimum wager allowed by the software) in order to win a 'mystery jackpot' - although since it is a percentage of each wager that goes into the jackpot the odds of winning on a particular spin are usually in proportion to the amount of the bet. Or, to put it another way, one spin for twenty dollars would have the same odds of winning the mystery jackpot as twenty spins for one dollar each would, and also the same odds of winning the jackpot as would four hundred spins for five cents each.
Often, such games have several 'mystery jackpots' that usually differ by at least an order of magnitude both in terms of magnitude and frequency of payout, which can ensure that jackpots are seen to be won frequently (often, many times per day in the case of relatively small jackpots). One variation of this scheme (most often used by gaming corporations serving brick-and-mortar establishments over a large geographic footprint) is to have one main jackpot, several intermediate jackpots paid at the regional level, smaller jackpots paid at the site level and/or the smallest jackpots tied to each individual machine.
From the house perspective, a key financial consideration of such jackpots is that the portion of players' wagers directed to the jackpot are, in essence, only funding the portion of the jackpot within its specified 'range.' The gaming operator needs to fund each jackpot's minimum amount from the house edge of the main game, which is usually at least a third of the 'must-hit-by' amount especially in games with multiple jackpots as this creates an assurance that each jackpot will always be several times the value of the jackpot 'below' it. If the random number generator gives each value within the jackpot 'range' an equal chance of being the 'winning' value then under these conditions 'seed money' from the house would likely account for over half of the jackpot's total funding, for which the house would presumably need to compensate by increasing the house edge of the main game.
To counteract this issue and increase the average amount wagered before each jackpot is won, the mathematical formula used to calculate each jackpot is often skewed in such a way that makes it likely the actual average and median jackpots will be well above the average of the published minimum and maximum values. A simple example formula that would achieve this (expanding on the aforementioned example) would be simply to calculate the jackpot as being $1,000 plus the square root of a random number between zero and four million, which would result in a 75% probability of each jackpot being between $2,000 and $3,000 and a 25% probability of a jackpot being between $1,000 and $2,000.
Break-even point[edit]
In some games such as video poker, blackjack, or Caribbean stud poker, it is possible to compute an optimal playing strategy based on the average payoff (the amount of payoff times the chance of payoff). Because the jackpot of a progressive game constantly grows, it sometimes exceeds the break-even point for players, such that the jackpot wager becomes a 'positive expectation bet' for the player, with an average return to player (RTP) of greater than 100%. When the progressive jackpot is less than the break-even point, there is a negative expected value (house edge) for all players.
In the long run, with optimal strategy, a player can profit by only playing progressive games when their jackpots are above the break-even point, although the 'long run' can be quite long, tens of thousands of plays.
The break-even point cannot be easily calculated on a slot machine game, because the payback percentage for the game is normally unknown to the player. The break-even point in poker-based games can be calculated because the payback percentage for the game is a function of the paybacks and odds of the poker hands, which is based on a standard 52-card deck. The return of a slot machine is based on the published paytable, but also on the normally unpublished reels. For a five-reel slot machine, the player would need to know each symbol on each of the slot machine's five reels in order to calculate the odds. For a three-reel slot, the reels are normally weighted, and this would not be possible. However, in some circumstances the manufacturer may publish the payout of their machines.
Many online casinos allow the same game to be played in multiple currencies, in which case the break-even point and average return to player can change depending on the player's currency choice. This is because the jackpot amount may be converted between currencies so that the same amount is paid out to the winner no matter their currency choice, but the wager required to qualify for the jackpot is not. For example, consider a game that pays a $1000 / €900 / £700 jackpot, but requires a fixed $1 / €1 / £1 wager to qualify for the jackpot. In such cases, it is beneficial for the player to play in dollars, as the qualifying wager is a smaller proportion of the jackpot. Thus the break-even point will always be lower and the return to player will always be higher while betting dollars.[1]
Advantage play[edit]
Advantage players, who only play when the progressive jackpot provides them with a positive expectation situation, still generate revenue for the casino. Even though the player has an advantage over the house, the casino still profits from each play, because the bulk of the progressive jackpot has been pre-paid by the prior non-winning players.
Advantage gamblers sometimes organize teams of players to play machines where the progressive jackpots generate a positive expectation situation. Such teams often displace ordinary players, making the machines unavailable just when they are the most attractive to gamblers generally. Team members often have cell phones and work in shifts, calling a teammate to replace them when they're ready for a break. Some casinos have a policy of 'no team play', and will eject players suspected of playing on such teams. Such tactics do not work at online casinos because there are effectively an unlimited number of duplicate machines for players to play at, so the game cannot be monopolised by one player or small group.
Player's clubs[edit]
Most casinos offer slot clubs, which pay back a percentage of a gambler's wagers on their games in the form of cash rebates or other perks with a monetary value. Participating in a slot club can reduce the break-even point of a progressive jackpot game because of the value of the rebate on each wager.
Other jackpot games[edit]
Progressive jackpots are not limited to slot machines and video poker. Poker games sometimes include a progressive bad beat jackpot. Caribbean stud poker is another casino game which often has a progressive jackpot available, and some online casinos offer progressive versions of blackjack, roulette, and other casino games. Many lotteries feature progressive jackpots.
Progressive blackjack[edit]
Mystery Progressive Slot Machines
A progressive blackjack game usually does not differ from conventional blackjack, apart from the addition of an optional side bet which gives the player a chance to win a progressive jackpot. The side bet wins if the player is dealt one of several specific card combinations such as four suited aces. The awards can range from several dollars up to 100% of the jackpot depending on the different card combinations, and the winning hand paytable can differ between casinos.[2]
Progressive jackpot records[edit]
Developers of progressive jackpot machines have been competing for the highest prizes since their inception. Microgaming, an online casino services providers, host a jackpot system which is cross-product, where multiple games contribute to the pool[3]. On the 28th of September 2018, a record jackpot was won on their game Mega Moolah totalling €18,915,872, which exceeded the previous record by approximately 10%.[4]
The previous record win had been held for over five and a half years by another progressive jackpot game called Mega Fortune, which is developed by casino software provider NetEnt. The total win on that occasion was €17,861,800. Interestingly, this is the third time that the world record has changed hands between these two games since 2011.[5]
The Secret World Of Video Poker Progressives, By Frank Kneeland
In-House Jackpots[edit]
Progressive Slots Game
The In-House or Proprietary Progressive slot machines are the group of devices or programs that are linked together. These machines and applications are owned as well as operated by the land-based casino or its online variant. The progressive jackpots on these slot machines are not multi-million-dollar, but the winning prize is considered a substantial win. The In-House or Proprietary Progressive machines are most often hit compared to wide-area progressive jackpots.[6]
See also[edit]
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References[edit]
- ^'Jackpots with known break-even values'. CasinoListings.com. Retrieved 2015-03-18.
- ^'Blackjack Side Bets'. WizardOfOdds.com. Retrieved 2015-03-18.
- ^'Progressive Jackpot Slots'. Holy Moly Casinos. 2017-10-29.
- ^'Mega Moolah Record Win » New Casino Sites'. New Casino Sites. 2018-10-09. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
- ^'Progressive Jackpot Slots - Win Millions! | CasinoGuide'. www.casinoguide.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-17.
- ^'Slots 43: Types of Progressive Jackpots and Definitions'. In-House Jackpots. 2020-04-19. Retrieved 2020-08-09.