Odds on slot machines with multiplayer "bonus"?

I do not play slots very often at all (my girlfriend loves them) but I was just down in Vegas and ended up playing a lot of slots. A large percentage of the time we played the video slots where four or so machines are all linked together and any one player activating the group bonus causes all players to cash in on it. On a separate large video screen the bonus round plays and the outcome is then multiplied by each individual player's current multiple (increases with speed of play and amount of coins bet) to give each individual win.

It seems to me (and was indicated on some of the machines) the more players playing, the more likely to hit the group bonus. This seemed to play out, as playing with a full set of machines seemed to activate the bonus more often. Many times the payout was quite large (large to me at least - $100-200 on a $2 bet).

So my question is, are the odds on these machines better than individual slots, or do the odds just suck unless you have all machines filled with players?

Thanks in advance!

These are generally called "community bonuses". In my opinion it's a good concept but no manufacturer has gotten it quite right yet. I don't know if it's just the math of these types of games but so far they have all had pretty short life spans.

I can't speak for all of these games but I do know that some trigger independently of the number of people playing or the amount they wager. As a simple example a community bonus bank might check once each second to determine if the bonus should be triggered. Maybe it's a one in 600 chance or so. This will be going on even if no one is playing the bank. If it makes the test and the bonus is triggered then any machine that is currently being played enters the bonus.

Mark

Thanks for the info - I noticed on some machines it wasn't clear how the bonus was triggered, it just happened. On others, getting say three or more "bonus" items on the reels activated the bonus for everybody.

I played the Wheel Of Fortune game at Venetian that had this structure. I liked it a lot. It was possible to increase your bonus multiplier but I'm not sure playing faster was the trick, I think it also had to do with the number of active players.

The part I liked best was the bonus itself ('natch). The game would display a pizzle and give you a list of all the letters that appear in the puzzle. Then each of (up to 3 out of 5) the active players would get a turn picking a letter. The more times the letter appeared, the more credits were awarded to that player. So there was some element of skill. However, if you picked a letter that appeared only once, odds were good that it would give you a 'random' bonus pick so that the bonus credits would even out a bit.

The machine also keeps track of the high bonus scores for the day which is kind of fun. You can have your name up on the screen all day.

Has anyone else noticed that the voice of the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz community gaming slots is Billy West? I picked that up as I walked by the game in the Flamingo. I heard the voice of the old scientist character from Futurama and turned around and it was the Wizard of Oz. It made me giggle.