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| Jackpot Slots Progressive and otherwise by Lou Krieger and Arthur Reber Although some slots have jackpot payouts associated with them, others do not. The easiest way to determine whether you’re playing a jackpot machine is to see if its payouts are all proportional to your wager. If the payouts for all winning combinations are multiples of each other, regardless of how many coins you’ve played, there won’t be a jackpot associated with that machine. Here’s how it works: The smallest win on one of these machines might garner two coins if you wager a single coin, four coins if you play two, and six if you bet three. Top prizes are proportional, too, such as 2,000 coins for a one-coin wager, 4,000 if you bet two coins, and 6,000 if you play three. The ratio of payback to bet size remains constant, no matter how unlikely the outcome. Other slots have a jackpot element—but there’s a lot of variation on this theme. The most common jackpot element is an added bonus when you play what is known as “maximum coin,” but if you don’t look carefully, you may not even realize there’s a jackpot in place. The simplest of these machines have a single payout line with three payout schedules for each possible outcome. If you hit an ordinary payout, nothing about the size of your win changes. For example, if a double-bar symbol pops up on each wheel, and you played a single coin, you may win 20 coins. If you played two coins, the same set of double bars will pay 40 coins, and if you played three coins, it will pay 60 coins. The ratio of the payouts to the initial wagers match, and everything is straightforward, just like the first machine we described. But take a look at the top payout line and you’ll often discover that you’re in for an extra bonus if you play max coin. It works this way: If the three jackpot symbols magically line up, you might win 2,000 coins if you wagered one coin, 4,000 coins if you risked two, and a whopping 7,500 coins if you played three coins. Hitting the jackpot with max coin in wins an additional 1,500 coins over and above the amount you would have won on a non- jackpot slot. On machines without a jackpot, there’s no advantage to playing more than one coin at a time since the expected value of your gamble doesn’t change. But on other machines, there is an advantage to playing max coin. While the jackpot may not occur very often, when it does, it provides a significant payout. Playing less than max coin produces a poorer long-term percentage payback because it takes the bonus jackpot payout out of play. But while max coin play increases your long-term payback, it reduces the expectation of cash in your pocket in the long run because you are tripling the amount of money risked on each spin. Since slots have a negative expectation in the long run, the more money you wager, the more you figure to lose. Think of it this way: Suppose you’re playing a dollar machine that returns 94 percent with single-coin play and 95 percent when the jackpot is factored in (we’ve just made up these numbers to make a point, but they probably aren’t off by much). With 500 spins of single- coin play your expected payback is 94 percent of $500, or $470. In other words, you expect to lose $30. If you wager the three coins needed to bring the jackpot into play, $1,500 of your money is now at risk. While you have increased the return rate by a full percentage point, your wallet is going to suffer. The expected return on an investment of $1,500 is $1,425, which means that, on average, you’re going to lose $75. This immutable aspect of the slot machine makes maximum play a bad idea on almost all jackpot machines. However, there is another angle to a jackpot machine, and it’s more psychological than economic. If the jackpot does pop up on a play where you only played one or two coins, it will make you a very unhappy camper. You’ll get the “standard” payback, but you won’t enjoy the fruits of the bonus that only comes with max coin. And you’re going to feel this way despite the fact that if you had put in the third coin, you almost certainly would not have won the jackpot. We know this is hard to believe, but it’s true. If you had taken the time to put in the third coin, or the few extra microseconds it would have taken you to move your hand over to the max coin button, the machine would have been in a different “state.” Because you would have stabbed the spin button at a different time, the random number generator would have selected a different outcome and a different set of symbols would have popped up, making it extremely unlikely that they would be the magic ones that represent the jackpot. This element of the random nature of modern slot machines is so fascinating—and so poorly understood by many players—that we will devote an entire column to it in the future. Although ordinary jackpot slots have been around for a long time and lots of folks like to play them, in recent years, slot mavens have been moving toward progressive jackpot machines where the size of the jackpot payout increases over time. These come in two variations: those where each machine has its own jackpot, and those where the jackpot is linked to a number of interconnected machines. These are easy to spot because of the electronic sign above the machine advertising the current size of the jackpot. It is also easy to tell these machines apart. If the jackpot counter only changes when someone is playing, the machine has its own dedicated jackpot. If the counter keeps going up even though no one is sitting there at that moment, it is one of the “ganged” varieties. Several of these connected jackpot machines are seriously connected. There may be dozens of them linked together in a casino. Machines in several different casinos may even be daisy-chained so that the jackpot keeps spiraling upwards as hundreds of slots are being played across town, or even across the state. Here’s our rule of thumb on the likelihood of hitting one of these monster jackpots: Don’t hold your breath. It’s wildly improbable, along the lines of hitting first prize in a major multistate lottery. However, the payout can be comparable and the sheer number of dollars involved makes them very seductive. Should you play a jackpot machine? Well, if you want to play one with its own dedicated jackpot, just be sure you sit down at a machine that hasn’t hit the jackpot in some time. Not because the machine is due—there’s no such thing as a due machine—but because the payout will be bigger if you’re fortunate enough to hit it. We’ve often walked through casinos and marveled at how many people are playing a machine with a jackpot currently at something like $1,091 while, two stools down, there is an equivalent machine whose jackpot is worth $1,292. We can only assume that people are unaware of what the counter above the machine is telling them. How about playing the massively linked machines with their gazillion dollar payouts? Sure, why not. As the casinos will tell you (in fact, scream at you from billboards, flyers, mailings, and other forms of advertising), someone has to hit it so it might as well be you! But keep this in mind. Any time you play a machine with a progressive jackpot, you give up a small percentage of the nominal, long-term payback. The money that trickles into the jackpot has to come from somewhere, and (we hope this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone) it comes from you. All jackpot machines are set at a slightly lower overall payout for the non-jackpot outcomes. This tiny amount is shunted over to pad the payout for the big winner. Here are a few final thoughts to keep you sober-minded: If you do hit one of these babies, it may not be all it’s cracked up to be. First, you won’t get the cash up front. A four million dollar jackpot is paid out over a twenty- year period. Second, you’ll have to pay taxes on the annual income. Third, the casinos are going to keep the remainder “for you”—along, of course, with the interest it generates. And, of course, your annual share is going to be slowly eroded by inflation. But, hey, go for it. Winning four big ones is sweet, even if it trickles in at a measly 200 thou a year. But we did want you to understand why the casinos love those monster jackpots and go on a full-bore public relations campaign when one gets hit. Gambling For Dummies is in your neighborhood bookstore now. When not writing about gambling Arthur Reber, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology. |
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