The Great Tiki/The Great Spirit: unusual game that allows variable betting WITHIN the same advantage

A well-known trick to determine if a game truly has advantage potential or if it's a fake advantage game is to change the bet level and see if the game board changes with each bet. If it doesn't change, it's a fake advantage game (such as Konami's "Jewel Reward").

The Great Tiki and the identical The Great Spirit are games from slot manufacturer Aruze. It has progressive free games if you get the respective bonus, somewhat similar to Rich Little Piggies.

https://www.knowyourslots.com/the-great-tiki-buffalo-style-game-meets-volatility-meets-progressive-free-games/

Each bet level has its own set of progressive free games that have run up. So as usual, you check each bet level to see which one might have a tasty advantage. What's unusual about this game though is that on top of the bet level, there is a further amount of money you can pay: the wild multiplier. If you pay more money, you can enjoy the benefit of possibly getting wilds that have multipliers up to 7x. You have the option of paying this extra amount for any of the bet levels.

So does it stand to reason if you find a ton of free games that have run up, you'd want to max bet the optional multiplier bet to 7x? Or perhaps max betting this has no effect on your EV but only increases the volatility? I don't have much experience with this game since I have only seen it outside of my home casino, but I want to get others' thoughts on it in case I encounter it again on my travels.

Quote: McSweeney

A well-known trick to determine if a game truly has advantage potential or if it's a fake advantage game is to change the bet level and see if the game board changes with each bet. If it doesn't change, it's a fake advantage game (such as Konami's "Jewel Reward").

The Great Tiki and the identical The Great Spirit are games from slot manufacturer Aruze. It has progressive free games if you get the respective bonus, somewhat similar to Rich Little Piggies.

https://www.knowyourslots.com/the-great-tiki-buffalo-style-game-meets-volatility-meets-progressive-free-games/

Each bet level has its own set of progressive free games that have run up. So as usual, you check each bet level to see which one might have a tasty advantage. What's unusual about this game though is that on top of the bet level, there is a further amount of money you can pay: the wild multiplier. If you pay more money, you can enjoy the benefit of possibly getting wilds that have multipliers up to 7x. You have the option of paying this extra amount for any of the bet levels.

So does it stand to reason if you find a ton of free games that have run up, you'd want to max bet the optional multiplier bet to 7x? Or perhaps max betting this has no effect on your EV but only increases the volatility? I don't have much experience with this game since I have only seen it outside of my home casino, but I want to get others' thoughts on it in case I encounter it again on my travels.
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This game has been out for a while but interestingly, doing a quick google search, i can't find the playable #s for this game.

anyway, if it's +ev, i would definitely do the extra $ for the multiplier

If your penny slots are around 87-88% I'd look for a green at 60+ on Tiki. Bet max to get the 7X multipliers. Variance is big on this one.

If you hit a 7X 7X 6X bonus win early you'll probably start taking high 40's.

Just a bit of an update: I took a trip to another casino and played this game when I saw it in the following state at $1.00 Bets (which counts the optional 7x multiplier, which I paid for):

77 Mini,
25 Minor,
58 Major,
101 Grand.

Again, I haven't had an opportunity to observe this game much since it's outside my home casino, but the Mini games struck me as being extremely high. As far as I can tell, there's no advantage to triggering a Minor over a Mini (like there is in Buffalo Diamond because you get a bigger multiplier) and the only factor that matters is the amount of free games. So the Mini games being so high is especially valuable since it's the easiest one to hit.

I got super lucky and not only got a huge line hit with multiple multipliers lined up (you know it's a big win when Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" starts playing), but I also triggered the Mini free games after a mere 113 spins; by that time, the Mini was at 81 games. I re-triggered a zillion times (which is not unusual with this game since it's very easy to retrigger). The vast majority of my spins were dead spins, but I got a couple big hits with multiple multipliers in the bonus. I ended up winning $158.85 in the bonus round, with an overall profit of $387.37 in the session, which is quite massive when you consider I was only doing $1.00 bets.

It's kind of scary though that the Mini games had run up to 77 because it shows you that it's possible to sit there for a very long time trying to trigger the bonus. Maybe I had found the outlier of all outlier machines and it rarely gets that high?