Slot industry standards

This question is mostly for people who have worked in the industry, done slot math, etc.

Suppose I see a 3-reel single-payline game with a single top-line progressive (like, by getting 3 wild/jackpot symbols on the payline). The reset value for the jackpot is relatively high (say, 1500x the bet). All other payouts are from a fixed pay table (there are no smaller progressives)

Obvously there's no way to know how high the jackpot has to be for the game to be +EV. I would need to know the RTP. for the machine (which I can make an educated guess about) and how much of that payback comes from the top line pay's reset value. For example, if the slot returns 90% and 2% of that payback comes from the top line pay, then the jackpot would need to be 6x the reset value to be break-even. If the top line pay accounted for 1% payback then it would need to be 11x. For a comparison, the payback for a royal in most VP games is about 2%.

Is there an industry standard for the amount of return that comes from the top line pay? Obviously it's going to be different for different games, but is there a "standard" range that it's usually in? Or maybe a different "standard" that different companies like to use, even if it's not industry-wide? I'm just looking for a starting point when I see a game that I don't have any other info on.

I'm $250 in on a loss on the Dragon Link games playing 50 cents a spin. But I'm averaging about a 50% RTP per 100 spins. So I figure I'm around 1,000 spins in on $500 coin-in and have only gotten $250 back, and I'm out $250. But I just missed hitting the Grand JP of $14.5K by one orb. Did I really think the last orb would show up for me? Hard to say. But I haven't even hit a Minor JP for $50 yet.

I think there's a gaping hole in people's wallets on these games unless they hit the Grand JP early then find another game to play, like Black Jack.

My luck has been like this guy's first session in the video below; losing half of the coin-in. He also has some advice to round off the cash-out of free play to the nearest dollar before pushing that cash-out button because the cents may not carry-over to the next machine. At the end of the video he does a rare experiment to see how inserting 20X $1 bills for $5 last chance spins will do. He has to cash out every win before the next bill goes in. He gets some real luck and cashes out a lot.

I typically have to wait 50+ spins to get to a bonus round, and the bonus payouts are abysmal. He is denom-hopping hoping to catch a break.

I finally won on Dragon Link & later a Dragon Cash high limit miracle! - StoryTime Slots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF9-K4RhOSc

Quote: SkinnyTony

This question is mostly for people who have worked in the industry, done slot math, etc.

Suppose I see a 3-reel single-payline game with a single top-line progressive (like, by getting 3 wild/jackpot symbols on the payline). The reset value for the jackpot is relatively high (say, 1500x the bet). All other payouts are from a fixed pay table (there are no smaller progressives)

Obvously there's no way to know how high the jackpot has to be for the game to be +EV. I would need to know the RTP. for the machine (which I can make an educated guess about) and how much of that payback comes from the top line pay's reset value. For example, if the slot returns 90% and 2% of that payback comes from the top line pay, then the jackpot would need to be 6x the reset value to be break-even. If the top line pay accounted for 1% payback then it would need to be 11x. For a comparison, the payback for a royal in most VP games is about 2%.

Is there an industry standard for the amount of return that comes from the top line pay? Obviously it's going to be different for different games, but is there a "standard" range that it's usually in? Or maybe a different "standard" that different companies like to use, even if it's not industry-wide? I'm just looking for a starting point when I see a game that I don't have any other info on.
link to original post

I would say no there was not really a standard. The big progressives like Megabucks used to put around 3% to the progressives. The ones I worked on would put about 2.5% to the large meter, 0.5% to the smaller meter. When the large meter reached a certain level we would only put 2% in an apply the other 0.5% to a hidden meter that would be applied to the large meter after reset.

Quote: DRich

Quote: SkinnyTony

This question is mostly for people who have worked in the industry, done slot math, etc.

Suppose I see a 3-reel single-payline game with a single top-line progressive (like, by getting 3 wild/jackpot symbols on the payline). The reset value for the jackpot is relatively high (say, 1500x the bet). All other payouts are from a fixed pay table (there are no smaller progressives)

Obvously there's no way to know how high the jackpot has to be for the game to be +EV. I would need to know the RTP. for the machine (which I can make an educated guess about) and how much of that payback comes from the top line pay's reset value. For example, if the slot returns 90% and 2% of that payback comes from the top line pay, then the jackpot would need to be 6x the reset value to be break-even. If the top line pay accounted for 1% payback then it would need to be 11x. For a comparison, the payback for a royal in most VP games is about 2%.

Is there an industry standard for the amount of return that comes from the top line pay? Obviously it's going to be different for different games, but is there a "standard" range that it's usually in? Or maybe a different "standard" that different companies like to use, even if it's not industry-wide? I'm just looking for a starting point when I see a game that I don't have any other info on.
link to original post

I would say no there was not really a standard. The big progressives like Megabucks used to put around 3% to the progressives. The ones I worked on would put about 2.5% to the large meter, 0.5% to the smaller meter. When the large meter reached a certain level we would only put 2% in an apply the other 0.5% to a hidden meter that would be applied to the large meter after reset.
link to original post

Thanks.

To be clear though, I'm not talking about the amount of your bet that gets added to the progressive. That's easy to calculate by just making a few spins and seeing how much the meter goes up. I'm asking how much of the game's RTP comes from the progressive's reset value.

So for example if the top line progressive resets at 1500 max bets (and pays 1500 bets if you aren't max betting and don't qualify for the progressive) and has a 1/150,000 chance of hitting, then it would account for 1% of the RTP, and assuming a 90% RTP, the machine would be +EV when the progressive got to 11x the reset value (16,500 bets)

To phrase this another way, if you were in a casino where you know that most of the slots at this denom were set to 90% payback, how big would this progressive have to be to make you think it might be a good play (if you had no other info?)

Eventually you are going to be several top JP's away from breaking even. I don't know how many spins that would take or what denom you're playing.
Maybe there is a way to Martingale sessions of 5,000 spins so you can recoup some losses.

Every spin has a negative expected value, there is no way to overcome this by changing your bet sizing as your still losing x*bet level. Where x is the games house edge.

Quote: CeeEnd

Every spin has a negative expected value, there is no way to overcome this by changing your bet sizing as your still losing x*bet level. Where x is the games house edge.
link to original post

That's not how progressives work

You're just living under the illusion that you'll collect the top JP. Unless you are camping out at a machine for every waking hour, you don't really have a shot at collecting it. That's why teams invade banks of slot machines.

Quote: CeeEnd

Every spin has a negative expected value, there is no way to overcome this by changing your bet sizing as your still losing x*bet level. Where x is the games house edge.
link to original post

Not true. If the progressive is large enough the game becomes positive EV.

nb: this is only a valid response if you are not the "reel money" or whatever guy on youtube as I do not help scammers. if you are him, it is all made up and I am lying.

It depends on the game, but it is generally a tiny fraction. Casinos mostly hate variance and liability.

Double Diamond is 8/72^3 for an ~800x win.
Triple Diamond is 4/72^3 for ~1333x win and 4/150^3 when top prize is ~26,666x.

Buy a pays are more devious and deadly since more of the return is tied up in the higher prizes.

Blazing/Sizzling/Whatevering 7 is 64/64^3 for a ~333x win.
Others can have about half of the return on top pay. Half!

For standard games, the probability of no jackpot to reach a +ev state is rather small. You would need to find something that had the meter moved from another game.

Assume Blazing 7 is 3cr/spin at $1 denom, 1% increment, and 92% RTP. We need 8% RTP to catch a +ev. That would need to add $900 to the meter. at 1% increment, that is 30,000 games without a win. chance is 0.0658785%

Quote: SkinnyTony

To be clear though, I'm not talking about the amount of your bet that gets added to the progressive. That's easy to calculate by just making a few spins and seeing how much the meter goes up. I'm asking how much of the game's RTP comes from the progressive's reset value.

So for example if the top line progressive resets at 1500 max bets (and pays 1500 bets if you aren't max betting and don't qualify for the progressive) and has a 1/150,000 chance of hitting, then it would account for 1% of the RTP, and assuming a 90% RTP, the machine would be +EV when the progressive got to 11x the reset value (16,500 bets)

To phrase this another way, if you were in a casino where you know that most of the slots at this denom were set to 90% payback, how big would this progressive have to be to make you think it might be a good play (if you had no other info?)
link to original post

If the jackpot increases by a fixed amount with each play, you can calculate the RTP by calculating the expected number of spins between jackpot wins (which is 1 / the probability of a spin winning the jackpot), multiplying this by the per-spin increase, adding the reset value, and calculating the RTP "normally" using this value as the jackpot's value.

In your example, the expected value of the jackpot, in terms of max bets, is 1500 + 150,000 x the per-spin increase.

Quote: itsmejeff

nb: this is only a valid response if you are not the "reel money" or whatever guy on youtube as I do not help scammers. if you are him, it is all made up and I am lying.

It depends on the game, but it is generally a tiny fraction. Casinos mostly hate variance and liability.

Double Diamond is 8/72^3 for an ~800x win.
Triple Diamond is 4/72^3 for ~1333x win and 4/150^3 when top prize is ~26,666x.

Buy a pays are more devious and deadly since more of the return is tied up in the higher prizes.

Blazing/Sizzling/Whatevering 7 is 64/64^3 for a ~333x win.
Others can have about half of the return on top pay. Half!

For standard games, the probability of no jackpot to reach a +ev state is rather small. You would need to find something that had the meter moved from another game.

Assume Blazing 7 is 3cr/spin at $1 denom, 1% increment, and 92% RTP. We need 8% RTP to catch a +ev. That would need to add $900 to the meter. at 1% increment, that is 30,000 games without a win. chance is 0.0658785%
link to original post

Thanks for the response.

The game I'm thinking about has several different skins but the symbols are all 7s of different colors (5 of them I think) and the jackpot symbol is a 3x wild. There's only one payline. Max bet is 3 credits. A single wild and nothing else pays 6 credits (2x bet). I can't remember what two 3x wilds with nothing else pay (obviously if you get a symbol on the other reel it's 9x the line pay). I believe the line pays for the different colored 7s are 480, 240, 120, 75, 60, and they can all be multiplied by 3x or 9x. Also mixed 7s pay 15 credits, and that can be 3x'ed. The jackpot resets at 4500 (1500x bet). I sometimes see the jackpot around 30k credits (6-7x the reset) but I also see a lot of people min betting which adds to the meter with no chance of hitting the jackpot (must bet max for a chance at the progressive, otherwise you just get 1500x your bet) so I don't want to read too much into that. At my casino it's a bank of machines with 3 denoms ($1, $2, $5) and the jackpots for each denom are shared across the bank.

I've played it a bit and I'm fairly sure that the 3 reels don't all have the same probability of hitting the wild/jackpot symbol -- the third reel seems to be a lot rarer (maybe by a factor of 5 or 10)

The examples you gave all have a relatively high return on the jackpot -- the smallest is 1.4%. With an 8% HE you would need the jackpot to be a little under 7x the reset. If the numbers are close to that this machine is sometimes playable (probably due to all the min betting that people do).

I'll try to get a picture of the machine the next time I'm there.

Alright, fair but wouldn't you need to know the frequency to hit said jackpot to be able to calculate the ev? How would accomplish that if? I mean unless you have par sheet data I guess but seems unlikely those things are easy to find.

Quote: CeeEnd

Alright, fair but wouldn't you need to know the frequency to hit said jackpot to be able to calculate the ev? How would accomplish that if? I mean unless you have par sheet data I guess but seems unlikely those things are easy to find.
link to original post

They are not difficult to find. Every casino has a copy of each PAR sheet for every paytable on the floor. Just get to know someone in the slot department or someone that works for the game manufacturer.

When I worked in the casino business I had access to almost every PAR sheet.

I figured those would be trade secrets, odd that they are so easly available. But maybe not 🧐

Quote: DRich

Quote: CeeEnd

Alright, fair but wouldn't you need to know the frequency to hit said jackpot to be able to calculate the ev? How would accomplish that if? I mean unless you have par sheet data I guess but seems unlikely those things are easy to find.
link to original post

They are not difficult to find. Every casino has a copy of each PAR sheet for every paytable on the floor. Just get to know someone in the slot department or someone that works for the game manufacturer.

When I worked in the casino business I had access to almost every PAR sheet.
link to original post

No one is going to risk their career handing out confidential information to an AP for free.

If someone ever asked me for that information, I would refer them to the 86 committee. We don't want you at our casino.

Quote: KevinAA

Quote: DRich

Quote: CeeEnd

Alright, fair but wouldn't you need to know the frequency to hit said jackpot to be able to calculate the ev? How would accomplish that if? I mean unless you have par sheet data I guess but seems unlikely those things are easy to find.
link to original post

They are not difficult to find. Every casino has a copy of each PAR sheet for every paytable on the floor. Just get to know someone in the slot department or someone that works for the game manufacturer.

When I worked in the casino business I had access to almost every PAR sheet.
link to original post

No one is going to risk their career handing out confidential information to an AP for free.

If someone ever asked me for that information, I would refer them to the 86 committee. We don't want you at our casino.
link to original post

I can tell you for a fact that casino employees that happen to be AP's will share that information with other AP's.

Quote: DRich

Quote: KevinAA

Quote: DRich

Quote: CeeEnd

Alright, fair but wouldn't you need to know the frequency to hit said jackpot to be able to calculate the ev? How would accomplish that if? I mean unless you have par sheet data I guess but seems unlikely those things are easy to find.
link to original post

They are not difficult to find. Every casino has a copy of each PAR sheet for every paytable on the floor. Just get to know someone in the slot department or someone that works for the game manufacturer.

When I worked in the casino business I had access to almost every PAR sheet.
link to original post

No one is going to risk their career handing out confidential information to an AP for free.

If someone ever asked me for that information, I would refer them to the 86 committee. We don't want you at our casino.
link to original post

I can tell you for a fact that casino employees that happen to be AP's will share that information with other AP's.
link to original post

I'm an AP and I would never do such a thing.

Working both sides of the felt seems like a good way to get sued by your employer.

Quote: KevinAA

Quote: DRich

Quote: KevinAA

Quote: DRich

Quote: CeeEnd

Alright, fair but wouldn't you need to know the frequency to hit said jackpot to be able to calculate the ev? How would accomplish that if? I mean unless you have par sheet data I guess but seems unlikely those things are easy to find.
link to original post

They are not difficult to find. Every casino has a copy of each PAR sheet for every paytable on the floor. Just get to know someone in the slot department or someone that works for the game manufacturer.

When I worked in the casino business I had access to almost every PAR sheet.
link to original post

No one is going to risk their career handing out confidential information to an AP for free.

If someone ever asked me for that information, I would refer them to the 86 committee. We don't want you at our casino.
link to original post

I can tell you for a fact that casino employees that happen to be AP's will share that information with other AP's.
link to original post

I'm an AP and I would never do such a thing.
link to original post

With that being the case it is less likely other AP's will share stuff with you. When you give, you get in the AP world.

But can you be sure that by giving others will return the favor?

Quote: CeeEnd

But can you be sure that by giving others will return the favor?
link to original post

Hmm. One of my Casino Friends told me she gave her Casino Friend $50 when she was up a LOT of money and her Casino Friend had lost money. One day she needed ONE DOLLAR and asked the same Casino Friend that was gambling on a slot that she had given $50 to that day she lost her money for ONE DOLLAR and the Casino Friend YELLED at her."I ain't got none !"😱😳 WHAT? 🤦‍♀️Just cash out and give her a dollar since you're gambling on a slot anyways! 🤦‍♀️She soon realized she YELLED at her Casino Friend who had given her $50 and was just asking for ONE DOLLAR and immediately started sucking up to her. 😱😳💡 The woman said something like,"She showed me her true ugly colors when she YELLED at me over ONE DOLLAR and refused to give me the dollar when I had given her $50 when SHE needed money. From that day, I am just CIVIL to her, no longer ever going to help her out when she needs help. 💡

Duplicate post

Quote: DRich

Quote: KevinAA

I'm an AP and I would never do such a thing.
link to original post

With that being the case it is less likely other AP's will share stuff with you. When you give, you get in the AP world.
link to original post

Fine with me. The dollar advantage for slot AP is not worth my career.

The excitement I get when an AP gets banned is incalculable.

Now that's an opinion I can agree with Nathan, most APs are parisites anyhow.

Quote: KevinAA

Quote: DRich

Quote: KevinAA

I'm an AP and I would never do such a thing.
link to original post

With that being the case it is less likely other AP's will share stuff with you. When you give, you get in the AP world.
link to original post

Fine with me. The dollar advantage for slot AP is not worth my career.

The excitement I get when an AP gets banned is incalculable.
link to original post

I guess it’s the same feeling aps have when they beat the casinos.