When is a progressive not a progressive?

I've recently been getting hammered playing a game that's been released here in the UK. All of the info I've gathered tells me that it's an EV+ play, however my results are atrocious. I estimate that I've accrued approximately £600 in EV so far, but my results are around negative £4500. This is betting £2 a spin.

I know I'm probably suffering the raw side of variance, which is easy enough to handle with a tried and tested game I've been playing for a long time, however with this one I've been considering if there is something different in the game design compared to other progressives I know.

I know the overall RTP of the game (it's a legal requirement here that it be published on the machine). I know the contribution rate to the progressive. And the info I've gathered so far gives me a rough idea of the average value of the jackpot when it hits.

The game states a 93% RTP overall. I always assume this to mean that with the jackpot at it's reset value, the expected return on the next spin is 93%, and that from that point onward with each spin the jackpot doesn't hit then the expected return on each next spin increases slightly.

It's occurred to me that without breaking any laws, the game designer could make the game appear to be a progressive, but it's not.

When the jackpot hits it's usually accompanied by free spins (in addition to the jackpot value). For example, if I win the jackpot when it's at £300, I will usually get a win of around £330-£360 after the free spins have spun.

The game could be designed so that when the random number generator decides how much is going to be paid to the player, instead of having 'give the player the jackpot' as an option, it just determines a figure to pay the player and considers whether or not to include the jackpot in how it awards the win.

For example, it decides to pay the player £360, and jackpot is currently at £300. So it pays the jackpot, then gives free spins with a total win of £60. In the same situation but the jackpot was only at £260, it could decide to give the player their £360 by awarding the jackpot along with free spins which add £100. This way the published RTP of 93% would be consistent on every spin.

I don't have any evidence providers are starting to design games like this (I really hope they aren't!), however I was wondering if anyone who's been involved in slot design has every used an approach like this before?

Quote: blackjacklad

The game states a 93% RTP overall. I always assume this to mean that with the jackpot at it's reset value, the expected return on the next spin is 93%, and that from that point onward with each spin the jackpot doesn't hit then the expected return on each next spin increases slightly..

I would expect that the RTP is the expected return of each spin averaged over many jackpot cycles. The meter accumulation and the reset meter amount are returned to the player at a predictable frequency and must be part of the RTP. This RTP is higher than the expected return of the first spin. Your model should be adjusted to use this definition of RTP.

Quote: blackjacklad

It's occurred to me that without breaking any laws, the game designer could make the game appear to be a progressive, but it's not.

When the jackpot hits it's usually accompanied by free spins (in addition to the jackpot value). For example, if I win the jackpot when it's at £300, I will usually get a win of around £330-£360 after the free spins have spun.

The game could be designed so that when the random number generator decides how much is going to be paid to the player, instead of having 'give the player the jackpot' as an option, it just determines a figure to pay the player and considers whether or not to include the jackpot in how it awards the win.

I was playing poker in a casino with VLTs in Washington state. I deliberately threw away dealt trips on a video poker hand and a won bonus match card that paid me for trips. So, yes VLTs use this exact method of having a bonus round to make the payoff whatever it was predetermined to be.. That casino also had wheel of fortune progressive. The lowest progressive had a value that would appear to make the game +EV, but we know VLTs have a constant low EV. Out of curiosity, I played I and won the lower progressive, but I always assumed the VLT just pulled out a lottery ticket with a winning amount greater than the minor progressive and gave me the progressive plus a reel win big enough to reach that value. If I had not received any payoff from the reels in addition to the progressive, than I my theory would have been disproved, but I did get a reel win on the spin that dropped the minor progressive.

If you don't know how US VLTs work, this might not make as much sense to you. Do you have VLTs in the UK?

Thanks for your response, it's interesting to know that in other jurisdictions 'progressives that aren't progressives' exist. I'm hoping I've just had bad variance rather than those kind of games being introduced here - in 5 years as a full time AP nothing has been as lucrative for me as progressive jackpots!

We don't have VLT's here, though I'm familiar with how they work. The slot machines here that I'm referring to are standalone machines running on RNGs. From experience the progressives usually can be beaten, i.e. identical games on machines next to each other, one with a progressive at £100, the other with the progressive at £2000, the RTP on the second machine is higher.

I thought all games outside of the US were fruit machines aka they always take their share and the results are not based on RNG...

Quote: blackjacklad

When the jackpot hits it's usually accompanied by free spins (in addition to the jackpot value). For example, if I win the jackpot when it's at £300, I will usually get a win of around £330-£360 after the free spins have spun.

The game could be designed so that when the random number generator decides how much is going to be paid to the player, instead of having 'give the player the jackpot' as an option, it just determines a figure to pay the player and considers whether or not to include the jackpot in how it awards the win.

For a VLT, there would always have to be free spins or an associated reel win to bring the payoff up to the amount of the lottery ticket win value. For a progressive going up by pennies, it would be an amazing coincidence if the winning lottery ticket was pulled with a win value exactly equal to the current meter value.

Since your machine is not a VLT, it would not need to always have an associated win to balance things out. However, game designers must be generally aware of how VLTs fake progressives. It might occur to them to screw progressive APs by making a progressive which actually has a flat RTP. In this case, the associated win would be inversely correlated with the progressive meter on the spin where it hits. I would think this correlation would be obvious fairly quickly if you kept statistics. You would be able to prove the correlation even quicker if you were willing to play through the reset. If you were playing for a higher major progressive, you would naturally cycle through the lower meter multiple times. You would expect to hit the meter at low levels several times and maybe get better associated payouts.

I keep stats on all meters on all of my must-hit chases. I recently triggered the minor 11 times on one chase before hitting the major. I have great stats on the average hit level for many minor progressives and decent stats on several major progressives. Any progressive player should be checking the stats to make sure the progressive is not rigged like the AGS MH progressives are. Everi MHs also seems rigged to me.

I haven't been everywhere, but in my experience for most casino slots in most countries this isn't the case.

I hadn't realised the VLT machines print lottery tickets, we don't have anything akin to that here. This is the first progressive I've tackled that has variable additional wins attached to the jackpot hitting, previously I've never considered them playing such a devious trick.

Quote: blackjacklad

I hadn't realised the VLT machines print lottery tickets, we don't have anything akin to that here. This is the first progressive I've tackled that has variable additional wins attached to the jackpot hitting, previously I've never considered them playing such a devious trick.

I meant a virtual lottery ticket. This is a charade that is needed to conform to the law that only allows lotteries, not Class III RNG slot machines. With a USA VLT, your slot wager purchases a virtual lottery ticket from a virtual box of tickets when you press bet. This lottery is conducted on a computer. After that, the VP or slot game is just an amusing way of informing you of the win amount on the virtual ticket that you bought.

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Quote: Hamay1964

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