Unified Theory of Progressive Jackpots
As the Wizard has taught us: "Every progressive jackpot eventually becomes +EV (Expected Value)". This is easiest to see with must-hit-by progressive jackpots where you can figure out how much coin-in it will take to trip the jackpot, subtract house edge, and if the jackpot amount is higher than the expected loss from house edge, you have an advantage.
But how do you deal with these progressive jackpots that AREN'T must-hit-by? They are unknowable, and you risk chasing them forever. Surely, though, we can spin enough times on a game and figure out the average amount of spins it takes to trip a jackpot and use that as a soft must-hit-by number.
The problem is, the major jackpots are too unreliable. Days and weeks go by and major jackpots that aren't even that big still go untripped. I don't want to be 20 grand in and still haven't tripped the stupid $1,000.00 major jackpot. This is why I want to develop a strategy where I essentially ignore major jackpots and concentrate on the minis and minors; you know, the ones that you actually win.
But that brings us to a second problem: because people are winning minis and minors so frequently, they never get a chance to build up high enough to be +EV. Obviously it depends on the game, but a normal range for a mini/minor jackpot is something like $10.00 - $100.00. And because it still takes some effort to win a mini jackpot, that amount is so small that it's probably not going to cover your losses to house edge in the journey to getting the jackpot.
However, one game in particular that intrigues me is Quick Hit. This is a game that forces you to max bet to be eligible to win jackpots. However, even if you don't max bet, the progressives still get fed. My casino has 3 different Quick Hit machines, each of them with varying max bet amounts:
A machine with a $1.50 max bet
A machine with a $3.00 max bet
A machine with a whopping $45.00 max bet!
Now think about this: are people going to max bet $1.50? Of course they are! That's chump change. Will people max bet $3.00? Probably! In other words, the jackpots in these two games are going to be tripped all the time, preventing them from building up too high. The one that particularly intrigues me is that $45.00 max bet game because that amount is so outrageous that people are too scared to max bet. This means that when people play this machine, they are still feeding the jackpots with their dinky $3.00 minimum bets, yet there is no chance that they will trip the jackpots. This strikes me as an opportunity for the lowest value jackpot to build up enough to be +EV.
Take a look at the jackpot screen for this $45.00 max bet game (Quick Hit Jungle):
You can't see it well, but if you look very closely underneath each jackpot amount, you can see "with max credits bet" written, informing the players that you must max bet $45.00 in order to win jackpots. In order to hit it, I need to get 5 Quick Hit symbols. If you fail to max bet and get 5+ Quick Hit symbols, you get a flat amount that is always lower than the jackpot. I regard the lowest one, Jackpot #5, as the most important one of them all because it's the one I am realistically going to win and my ticket to overcoming my house edge losses. Right now the jackpot is sitting at $1,088.90 and from my limited period of time tracking this game, that strikes me as higher than usual; it starts at $450.00 and is currently 24x the amount of the max bet. Compare that to the $3.00 max bet Quick Hit machine, where the highest I've seen the bottom jackpot so far is $43.04 (only 14x the max bet) and the $1.50 max bet Quick Hit machine, where the highest I've seen the bottom jackpot so far is $24.14 (only 16x the max bet).
My best guess is that it will take on average 250 spins to trigger Jackpot #5. 250 x $45.00 = $11,250.00 of raw coin in, minus 11% house edge (I think my casino is more like 8%, but I'm being conservative to be safe) is a loss of $1,237.50. This means Jackpot #5 needs to be $1,237.51 in order to be +EV. Again, that 250 spins number is a complete guess, but I need to use SOMETHING as a starting point in order to start collecting some real world data in the field. If I decide to pull the trigger on a progressive jackpot, perhaps I will blog the results of my experiments in this thread. Don't worry, I won't be posting pictures boasting about my Rolex watches and sweet Vegas penthouse suites. It'll be more like me posting my sweet cardboard box underneath the bridge if things go badly. Right now I am still in the observation period as I gather data and get a feel for what an unusually high progressive jackpot amount is for any given game. But I think if the lowest value Jackpot #5 on Quick Hit Jungle builds up to $1,400.00 I'm gonna go for it and max bet $45.00 like a madman until I get it, making sure to count my spins for the sake of science.
SUMMARY OF STRATEGY:
-You're not going to win the major jackpots, so concentrate on the minor jackpots and use them as your anchor. If you happen to get lucky and trip one of the major jackpots, that's just gravy.
-Progressive jackpots where you are eligible to win jackpots with minimum bets will rarely, if ever, be +EV because people will trip the minor jackpots too frequently to allow them to build up to +EV status.
-Progressive jackpots that are fed with all bet amounts but force you to max bet to be eligible for jackpots are more likely to become +EV, especially ones where the max bet amount is so outrageous that no sane person will want to max bet.
Quote: McSweeney
But how do you deal with these progressive jackpots that AREN'T must-hit-by? They are unknowable, and you risk chasing them forever. Surely, though, we can spin enough times on a game and figure out the average amount of spins it takes to trip a jackpot and use that as a soft must-hit-by number.
Just get a PAR sheet for the game and it will tell you the odds of hitting the jackpot. Bribe a slot tech or find someone on the internet that has access to PAR sheets.
Quote: McSweeney
My best guess is that it will take on average 250 spins to trigger Jackpot #5. 250 x $45.00 = $11,250.00 of raw coin in, minus 11% house edge (I think my casino is more like 8%, but I'm being conservative to be safe) is a loss of $1,237.50. This means Jackpot #5 needs to be $1,237.51 in order to be +EV. Again, that 250 spins number is a complete guess, but I need to use SOMETHING as a starting point in order to start collecting some real world data in the field. If I decide to pull the trigger on a progressive jackpot, perhaps I will blog the results of my experiments in this thread. Don't worry, I won't be posting pictures boasting about my Rolex watches and sweet Vegas penthouse suites. It'll be more like me posting my sweet cardboard box underneath the bridge if things go badly. Right now I am still in the observation period as I gather data and get a feel for what an unusually high progressive jackpot amount is for any given game. But I think if the lowest value Jackpot #5 on Quick Hit Jungle builds up to $1,400.00 I'm gonna go for it and max bet $45.00 like a madman until I get it, making sure to count my spins for the sake of science.
Your thinking is off here. For calculating how many spins to win the progressive, you need to use the base reset number. Anything above that is player pre-funded. But you're also thinking that every non-winning spin contributes toward that jackpot. That's not true, you have to pay all the line hits that might be hit in the process.
Rakin Bacon, Heavenly Riches (Red Ribbon and Minor), Quick Hits Platinum, etc... at my local casino I monitor the mini and minors on a regular basis. I have sat down at them with the progressives higher than usual and with $100 in have triggered them more times than not. Of course there are times Ive burnt thru the $100, and there are times I have spent more than the progressive was, but there may be something here for sure if someone wants to do the work for it.
Quote: Roberto21I’m sure your intuition is right, hence why they don’t make PAR sheets publicly available or people really could target any progressive.
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not sure if you looked hard enough
- Freedom of Information requests
- Various Gaming Commission’s
- Corrupt Industry Insiders (e.g. Sujay Prabhu)
- Data-trackers (e.g. Ross Bybee slots)
- Slot educator’s (e.g. Peter Liston, who said he has the PAR sheets for Lightning/Dragon Link lying around, but couldn’t find them).
I’m aware there are a few available online. I believe the one’s that are publicly available are listed on the Easy Vegas website. But I am yet to find any online of modern day progressives. It’s a shame, because it’s not that hard to calculate +EV if you know the odds, and Grand and Major cycles can take too long to manually collect meaningful data for.
If anyone has official PAR sheets for any modern progressive slot games please DM me. Thanks :)
Quote: Roberto21I’ve looked just about everywhere.
- Freedom of Information requests
- Various Gaming Commission’s
- Corrupt Industry Insiders (e.g. Sujay Prabhu)
- Data-trackers (e.g. Ross Bybee slots)
- Slot educator’s (e.g. Peter Liston, who said he has the PAR sheets for Lightning/Dragon Link lying around, but couldn’t find them).
I’m aware there are a few available online. I believe the one’s that are publicly available are listed on the Easy Vegas website. But I am yet to find any online of modern day progressives. It’s a shame, because it’s not that hard to calculate +EV if you know the odds, and Grand and Major cycles can take too long to manually collect meaningful data for.
If anyone has official PAR sheets for any modern progressive slot games please DM me. Thanks :)
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I have some for you but your going to have to wait til I find them and that may take a few days … and it’s not a joke you can look through my posts I had at one point found a huge number of leaked par sheets directly on (it think it was igt or Bally’s websites) then I downloaded them to one of my computers
I am not sure if the progressives are in them
Also they are not labeled with names so you will have to do some more research about what slot is what based on the info from the par sheets (it’s not going to say “this is the par sheet for game x it’ll say this is par sheet for 472027283) they obfuscate the names in case someone like me gets a hold of them in bulk like I did
Quote: Roberto21That would be very much appreciated! Any multi-line, major-brand video slots you have info for please send my way! It’s nice to get a look under the hood of a slot machine.
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You'll generally get better results if you have something of value to trade.
I start at 25x and pop in a $50 and walk away if i dont hit.Quote: mwalz9I agree with your concept in a sense. Granted this is all speculation and I have never done the math or searched for +EV methods, but there are 4 or 5 slot games...
Rakin Bacon, Heavenly Riches (Red Ribbon and Minor), Quick Hits Platinum, etc... at my local casino I monitor the mini and minors on a regular basis. I have sat down at them with the progressives higher than usual and with $100 in have triggered them more times than not. Of course there are times Ive burnt thru the $100, and there are times I have spent more than the progressive was, but there may be something here for sure if someone wants to do the work for it.
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at every 5x increase, i try another $50.
so $3 max bet, i start at $75.
every $25 increase in the progressive, i try again.
and sometimes i get lucky with the 6 quickhit or the minor, depending on what the slot calls it.
i've only hit the major/7qh a handful of times over the years. never the grand/8+ qh.
and because of the major/7qh, this play is +ev for me overall.
at what point do you start to play?
Since then, I have yet to see it that high again. So I've decided to lower my standards and will go after it if I see it at $1,300.00 (or even less than that if Jackpot 6 is also quite high, like maybe over $4,000.00).
However, I have experimented with many other non must hit by progressive jackpot games (ones with much lower stakes than $45.00 per bet). I have made a profit on some machines, but overall, I am down money. Does this mean I will give up and abandon the strategy? NO. The right move is to simply be more strict with my minimum jackpot demands and adjust them upwards until I get into the black.
I also want to modify one thing I said in my original post. Whether or not you're eligible for jackpots with a minimum bet isn't all that important. What's more important is how fast the progressive meters move. A rule of thumb is that any jackpot where the meter moves more slowly than $1.00 per $100.00 coin in will very rarely or sometimes never get into +EV position. Konami games tend to have horrible meter movement, so I have crossed most of them off my watch list.
