Is this progressive royal amount a 0.04% occurance and possibly a bug at Palace Station

I played a 25 cent game with a royal which had grew to over $4,200 before I left. Meter rise was around 1 penny per $1.25 bet. Chat gpt claims the game went over 316,000 spins without a royal or 7.9 cycles. This is Triple Bonus Poker, a bank of five machines across from cashier. Either I am spilling the beans on an ultra rare 25 cent progressive, or I am finding a bugged game. Chat gpt says this is a 0.04% occurance or 1 in 1,200 chance. I recently read the thread on here about the Green Valley Ranch game which had a bug. This game today didnt show me anything visible other than up to five players pounding away for 12 hours and missing every last four card royal. I called the gaming commision and they said they will check the RTP, etc of the games. I honestly hope I wake up to discover someone finally hit it but I'm naturally fearful because of what happened at Green Valley last year that these five machines could be robbing players including myself. What is the opinion of those here who know more about video poker and variance and probabilties more than I do?

I'm getting better numbers.

Played using WOO strategy for Triple Bonus, but without any changes for a higher royal flush, the probability of a royal flush is 1 in 50,000. This would imply 6.4 cycles.

The probability of not getting a royal flush in 320,000 hands is 1 in 600. While that's unusual, it's not proof of a rigged game. If you visit 600 different banks of progressive machines, you'll find an average of one of them in this state, just due to random chance.

While the players are probably choosing royal flush eligible cards now, and have for some time, it's also possible that much of the initial progressive increase was caused by ploppies who play badly, such as choosing a pair of numbers over 3 to a RF.

Quote: brocktherock68

I played a 25 cent game with a royal which had grew to over $4,200 before I left. Meter rise was around 1 penny per $1.25 bet. Chat gpt claims the game went over 316,000 spins without a royal or 7.9 cycles. This is Triple Bonus Poker, a bank of five machines across from cashier. Either I am spilling the beans on an ultra rare 25 cent progressive, or I am finding a bugged game. Chat gpt says this is a 0.04% occurance or 1 in 1,200 chance. I recently read the thread on here about the Green Valley Ranch game which had a bug. This game today didnt show me anything visible other than up to five players pounding away for 12 hours and missing every last four card royal. I called the gaming commision and they said they will check the RTP, etc of the games. I honestly hope I wake up to discover someone finally hit it but I'm naturally fearful because of what happened at Green Valley last year that these five machines could be robbing players including myself. What is the opinion of those here who know more about video poker and variance and probabilties more than I do?
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1 in 1200 is rare, but not ridiculously so. Since you will never take notice of the other 1199 times someone does hit a Royal in those 316,000 spins, I don’t think you can make any conclusion. Good find and analysis. If you are going back tomorrow give us an update.
And welcome to the forum.

Someone who grinded the game with very incorrect play for four days and lost $6,000 chasing it, text me and said someone finally hit it at around $4,900 (I assume because when I left three hours earlier it was close to $4,700). An old man who hadn't been grinding it and recently sat down was the lucky one. 7.8 missed royal cycles maybe? 1 in 2,400 event? I personally lost $550 after two days and had a chance to walk a $475 winner early on day 2 after a nice string of higher paying quads. This is before getting $300 in 10x multiplier freeplay back and $40 food and future mailer fp. So just a small loss. I went on a 1k downswing at one point and asked for more food $ and Palace Station is so tight they wouldnt give me any more bc they gave me $40 before the downswing lol. But theyre wise to see how much multiplier day money I got.

Red Rock has a $1 version of this, and it got above 16K. I was playing 6-5 Bonus and it was still quite good.

Quote: brocktherock68

I played a 25 cent game with a royal which had grew to over $4,200 before I left. Meter rise was around 1 penny per $1.25 bet. Chat gpt claims the game went over 316,000 spins without a royal or 7.9 cycles. This is Triple Bonus Poker, a bank of five machines across from cashier. Either I am spilling the beans on an ultra rare 25 cent progressive, or I am finding a bugged game. Chat gpt says this is a 0.04% occurance or 1 in 1,200 chance. I recently read the thread on here about the Green Valley Ranch game which had a bug. This game today didnt show me anything visible other than up to five players pounding away for 12 hours and missing every last four card royal. I called the gaming commision and they said they will check the RTP, etc of the games. I honestly hope I wake up to discover someone finally hit it but I'm naturally fearful because of what happened at Green Valley last year that these five machines could be robbing players including myself. What is the opinion of those here who know more about video poker and variance and probabilties more than I do?
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I don't think those numbers can be correctly derived without knowing what the wagers were. If it was played 1,580,000 times with only one quarter bet it would be that high without anyone ever qualifying to win the progressive. The Royal may have been hit multiple times but the progressive would only pay if they played 5 coins.

Google AI wrote:
A break-even jackpot in video poker is the point at which the increasing progressive jackpot makes the machine’s total return 100% or higher, assuming expert play. For example, in 8-5 Jacks or Better, the Royal Flush must reach 8,666 coins for a break-even point. Key, lower-tier jackpots (e.g., 4 Aces) can make games break even at much lower amounts, such as 2,760 credits.
Casino City Times

Key Break-Even Points (Progressive Royal Flush):
8-5 Jacks or Better: ~8,666 coins.
8-5 Double Double Bonus: ~9,515 coins.
9-7-5 Double Bonus Poker: ~5,763 coins.
9-6 Double Double Bonus: ~5,846 coins.
Casino City Times

Key Takeaways:
Optimal Strategy Required: Break-even points are calculated assuming perfect, mathematically optimal play.
Smaller Jackpots Matter: In multi-level progressives, smaller, more frequent jackpots (e.g., Four 2s-4s) can make a game break-even faster than a massive royal.
Reset Amounts: The game is only "+EV" (positive expectation) when the current jackpot is above the break-even threshold.
Watch the Paytable: The base game must be reputable (e.g., 9/6 for JoB, 9/7/5 for DB) for the progressive to be worth chasing.
Casino City Times
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https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/video-poker/12541-progressive-video-poker/#post207834
January 7th, 2013 at 7:08:40 PM

Quote: tringlomane

If you are wanting to know how much the machine pays with optimal strategy, you can just input the value of the progressive into the Wizard's (JBs) Strategy Calculator. Then it will also give you the optimal strategy at the same time since strategy changes become important as the progressive gets higher. Mainly throwing away high pairs for particular 3 to a Royal draws.

https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/calculator/


As far as Break-even points for various progressive games, I'm not sure if anyone has created a table though.

For 9/6 JoB the breakeven point is 976 for 1 (4880 for 5), $1220 at quarters.

For 8/5 Bonus Poker, the breakeven point is 1120 for 1 (5600 for 5), $1400 at quarters.

Every 1000 extra credits (based on max bet) in a progressive machine is about a 0.55% increase in return.
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https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/video-poker/12541-progressive-video-poker/#post208432
January 9th, 2013 at 3:20:29 PM

Quote: bublite

Figuring out the break-even for a given game while playing "basic strategy" is easy using the wizard's video poker return tables.

For example, 9/6 Jacks or better has a total return of 99.54%, with the 800-coin royal flush being responsible for 1.98% of that return. To get to break even we need the return on the royal to be 0.46% more, or 23% higher (0.46/1.98). So 4000*1.23 = 4920 coins (5-coin bet) Would be the break-even point for this game.

You could do a similar calculation for determining when you would have a 1% edge. 1.46/1.98 = .74; 4000*1.74 = 6960 coins.
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Looks like this page needs an update for the new 2026 $2K/W-2G form threshold with a $16.1K standard deduction for singles.
Taxable Return from Video Poker
https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/taxable-return/
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So winning at $4,900 on the quarters machine is $3,900 above the non-progressive amount of $1,000. $3,900 times 4 is 15,600 quarters above initial jackpot amount. 15.6 times 0.55% is an 8.58% swing in the HA from nominal if won. On a dollar machine, the $4,000 normal amount would be replaced by a $19,600 jackpot for the same HA increase not counting a better pay table for lower hands.

With the new $2K threshold for W-2G forms that would be a jackpot at 8000 coins, or 4,000 coins above normal for a 2.2% increase in the player advantage before the player says the jackpot is too high for taxes so I'm not playing it.