Small Wins or Huge Jackpots?

Let us assume that three $1 slot machines have the exact same house edge of 3%. Which machine would you rather play?

a) Machine has a maximum jackpot of $2,000.

b) Machine has a maximum jackpot of $10,000.

c) Machine has a progressive jackpot of $1,000,000+.

Would you rather have smaller, more frequent payouts or would you rather have the chance to go for broke and win a life changing jackpot?

A. I hate volatility.

I don't like playing slot machines for long periods of time, so I'd probably stick $20 in the $1M+ and see what happens.

I'd pick the machine with the $1199 jackpot, so I don't have to deal with taxes.

I'd go for A because even tho the payback percentage is the same, the hit frequency on the machine with the smallest jackpot will probably be higher, giving me more winning spins in the same amount of playing time. I'm not saying I'd end up winning overall, but I'd see more payouts, which is always fun.

I stay away from progressives as a rule, except for those that are not tied to a common jackpot pool. By that I mean I'll play Blazing 7s progressive machines because they each have their own progressive counter. I'd rather collect four small Blazing 7s JPs than try for one big one.

We have all seen the movies (The one that come to mind immediately are "What Happens in Vegas") where someone hits a ridiculous jackpot. I'm wondering (Yes I know the house edge is ridiculous on those machines) where I can find a machine that has a jackpot for like a couple million or something in Vegas. I'd like to give it a few spins, preferably something I can play without putting in a lot of money.

Quote: ahiromu

I'd pick the machine with the $1199 jackpot, so I don't have to deal with taxes.

The $5 Wheel of Fortune machine at the Tropicana in Atlantic City has the Wheel set up that way! No $5000 space, but lots of high $ spaces.

Quote: ahiromu

We have all seen the movies (The one that come to mind immediately are "What Happens in Vegas") where someone hits a ridiculous jackpot. I'm wondering (Yes I know the house edge is ridiculous on those machines) where I can find a machine that has a jackpot for like a couple million or something in Vegas. I'd like to give it a few spins, preferably something I can play without putting in a lot of money.

I'm guessing you've never been to vegas... You'll see them everywhere! Hell, just step off the plane and look right in front of you at the airport.

I haven't really looked around before, and the most I saw before was a few hundred k.

A few hundred K isn't good enough?

Generally, these are progressive jackpots, in clusters, all contributing to the jackpot. Sometimes the jackpot is pooled among the same type of machine in different casinos. Doesn't have to be casinos in the same company either.

Ever see a photo of a jackpot winner holding one of those giant checks, and the check has the logo of the slot manufacturer, but not the casino? THAT'S a jackpot that was pooled between a bunch of different company's casinos.


Until they hit, they keep growing. It's rare, but they do sometimes grow to over a million. So someone can report seeing a progressive that's over a million today. But if someone hits it tonight, you won't find it tomorrow.

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But back to the original question...

Option A - $2000. Much more likely that I'd win something.

Then again, you're talking about someone that very rarely bothers playing slots. Far too mindless for me.

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$1199? A LOT of slots pay $1199 for whatever prize should have been $1200, for exactly the reason you state. People don't mind that $1 extra dollar to not deal with the taxes. On the other hand, the casinos appreciate not having to deal with the paperwork.

I've also seen machines that had some prizes at $599 for the same reason (or perhaps they were older machines, and the law / limit changed since?)

I go with #2, the medium jackpot. I have no illusions about winning any of them, but to me the lotto sized wins are fantasy, and the small win is not enough to get my blood pumping; I don't believe I'll hit ANY of them, but in my head the $100000 will never hit, and the $2000 and $10000 feel about the same.

My biggest slot win was $4000, (last November, 3 5X pays on a $1 WoF). I also have a $3000 (spring of last year, a $1 "In the Money", 3 red 7s on pay line #3), an $1199 (the aforementioned $5 WoF), and several $1000 WoF hits, more than 5 but less than 10. As we are all well aware, it cost quite a bit of change to get those thrills.

Quote: ahiromu

We have all seen the movies (The one that come to mind immediately are "What Happens in Vegas") where someone hits a ridiculous jackpot. I'm wondering (Yes I know the house edge is ridiculous on those machines) where I can find a machine that has a jackpot for like a couple million or something in Vegas. I'd like to give it a few spins, preferably something I can play without putting in a lot of money.

Megabucks. Minimum jackpot $10,000,000, and the list of casinos that don't have them is probably shorter than the list that do (at least in Vegas; it's a statewide progressive).

Agree completely. The problem with penny slots is that there's a bigger house edge and even if you win, you're not going to make any real money. With Megabucks, so much of the payouts go to the huge jackpot in LED lights that if you're not hitting big you're losing big. If I play slots -- which is rare -- I go for Wheel of Fortune or something like that.

I will play penny slots if I want somewhere to sit and kill time, have a cigarette, and get a drink. I know the house edge is higher, but if Im only putting $10 in to kill some time, the house edge difference doesnt bother me.

as for the original question - Id go for the big money. My first and last gambles in Vegas last time I went were $10 in the megabucks machines. Think Ill do the same. Mainly because $2000 bucks would change my vacation, $10000 would change my clothes, but $1000000+ would change my life, and i would do it for the same reason I play the lottery. Im not paying for the 14,000,000 to 1 chance to win. Im paying for the right to dream. The winning would be a nice consequnce, but its not why I but a ticket.

In general I prefer smaller payments with a lower house edge.

Your hypothetical situation is that you get to choose your jackpot amount without any consequences on the house edge. Casinos use large jackpots as an excuse to take a larger percentage of the player's money. But I would go for a larger jackpot than I normally do considering that there is no edge. But not 1 million to 1. Even if the odds were in the players favor a million to one is still a long shot.

You realize that a million one dollar bills weighs 1000 kg which is the equivalent to 20 dumptrucks loaded with $1 bills. I know that there is no house edge so I can visualize my free odds as my $1 bill against these 20 dumptrucks. So even without a house edge the probability of me winning is infinitesimal. I can't wait for those kind of odds, so I would bet for a smaller jackpot.

The extreme seems to be the penny machines where you often win less than you bet. That kind of feedback is very popular, but it seems stupid to me.

Quote: pacomartin

You realize that a million one dollar bills weighs 1000 kg which is the equivalent to 20 dumptrucks loaded with $1 bills. I know that there is no house edge so I can visualize my free odds as my $1 bill against these 20 dumptrucks.

I think I'm going to have to challenge you on that one. A US dollar bill is 6 1/8" x 2 9/16". It would take 10,000 packs of 100 $1 bills to make $1,000,000. I don't have a 100-bill stack over here, but I estimate they are 3/4" high. So that would be 6.125 x 2.5625 x 0.75 x 10,000 = 117714.8 cubic inches, or 68 cubic feet. I think that could easily fit in one dump truck.

Apparently a 1 dollar bill is supposed to be .000124 m +/- 7 um. So a 100 bills would be 1.24 cm thick or .488189 inches.

A million dollars would also weigh about a metric ton so you might be able to get it into a large cube van.

I think we had this discussion earlier on in the forum about fitting $1,000,000 in $100 bills into a briefcase.

I also prefer a low volatility game on slots or Video Poker with low jackpots. I like a 1,000 to 10,000 credit jackpot. I want to have at least a shot of winning something significant and anything beyond that seems that too much of the money would be locked up in the jackpot with too little payouts.

My favorite VP is Pick-em poker (full pay).

Quote: Wizard

I think I'm going to have to challenge you on that one. A US dollar bill is 6 1/8" x 2 9/16". It would take 10,000 packs of 100 $1 bills to make $1,000,000. I don't have a 100-bill stack over here, but I estimate they are 3/4" high. So that would be 6.125 x 2.5625 x 0.75 x 10,000 = 117714.8 cubic inches, or 68 cubic feet. I think that could easily fit in one dump truck.

Mea culpa. This is a lesson not to blog while drunk. I was thinking of a billion dollars.
A weight of 1000 kg is a metric ton which should be fit in a full size Ford F-150 pickup truck (I doubt that you could comfortably carry it in a smaller pick up truck at over 30 mph.

So my visualization is a one full size pick up truck full of banknotes against my dollar bill.

This was talked about here

Quote: gambler

Would you rather have smaller, more frequent payouts or would you rather have the chance to go for broke and win a life changing jackpot?

I'm sure we all prefer to win the huge payout or atleast prefer to dream about winning the huge payout, but when it comes to actually buying a chance for it: I'd go for the lower payout since its an event that is far more likely to take place. Its sort of like choosing between a straight-up number bet in roulette and choosing to bet on RedorBlack. If you win on a number bet, thats great, but rather rare.

Quote: Wizard

A. I hate volatility.

Resurrecting an old thread, but I was thinking about this today:
Isn't volatility what you are paying for when you gamble in negative expectation games?
If the volatility==0, you wouldn't play.

Of course, if you are an advantage player (e.g. card counter), you definitely want the smallest volatility you can get (for a given return %).

For a 'gambler' though, the question of high or low volatility is complicated... too low and it isn't fun (try betting pennies on a coin flip!) and too high and it also isn't fun (too much risk!)

I think as a gambler you have a certain volatility you are comfortable with / desire. Given that volatility, you then look for the lowest house edge. For example, if you are willing to risk $200 and want about a 90% chance of lasting 100 trials, you want to size your bets so that the individual bets have a standard deviation of about 12 dollars. To pick an example which is easy to work with (but a poor choice of game IMHO), if you bet red or black on roulette, your bets would be 12 dollars and your expected loss for 100 trials would be about 60 bucks. If you instead bet $2 on a single number repeatedly, your standard deviation is also about $12, so you would get the same volatility and have an expectation of -$10 for the 100 trials.

Quote: DrEntropy

Isn't volatility what you are paying for when you gamble in negative expectation games?

I've noticed the kind of game that I am going to be able to play in FL fairly soon [that has any attraction for me at all] is going to be reasonable house edge but low volatility. I think I am going to have a hard time enjoying the gambling per se, although it will be interesting as hell to check it all out. For one thing, these games will be totally new to me. For another, just checking out the whole scene knowing the Seminole tribe is behind it all.

To answer your question, I think volatility is what you want unless you think you have worked out an advantage. I might post something on the FL games before I even go, as I have been thinking about that a lot. Of course volatility in a bad direction, worse if persistent, can send a guy to the funny farm, negative or positive expectation either one.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I've also seen machines that had some prizes at $599 for the same reason (or perhaps they were older machines, and the law / limit changed since?)

The top prizes on some machines are set to $599 or $399 when the top prize can be doubled or tripled. Like, on some machines the jackpot is paid on 3x pay, 3x pay, 3x pay in which case the stated prize is paid without tripling. But if the top prize is paid on 7, 7, 7 and there's a 3x pay available on reel 3 then the prize for 7, 7, 7 is set to $399 so that the max payout is $1197.

Here in Minneapolis, the local casinos don't seem to mind the paperwork for big wins so they set $1200 and $1250 top payouts (and higher, but these two strike me as odd). But outstate the Indian casinos seem to favor lower volatility, lower jackpots, and less paperwork.