Page 6 - April 2003 • Southern California Gaming Guide

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
Playing Progressive Slots Eby Bill Burton
very slot player who has ever walked into a casino has probably had the fantasy of hitting “The Big One”—that life-changing progressive jackpot that will put you on “Easy Street” for the rest your life. You imagine the thrill of lining up the winning
symbols and dream about how you will spend all that money! Then reality kicks in and deep down you know that you have a better chance of getting struck by lighting than you do hitting the big jackpot. Does this mean you should not play progressive slot machines?
Wide-Area Progressives.
These are the machines that offer life-changing jackpots. The slots are linked together from many unrelated casinos. These machines are operated by an independent single gaming company. Slot maker IGT operates MegaBucksTM, QuartermaniaTM, and others in many different states (see page 10). The casino shares in a percentage of the winnings, but the operator owns the games. The jackpots may be large, but so are your chances of hitting the big prize. Because of the costs of linking the machine and the administrative costs to run these wide-area games, the payback percentage on these machines is lower than on other slots.
It’s all right to try your hand at the big progressive machines hoping that lady luck will shine on you, but don’t make it the mainstay of your slot play. Instead set aside a certain percentage of your playing bankroll and use that for a shot at the big one. Winning one of these is pure luck and is a gamble along the lines of buying a lottery ticket. Don’t spend your entire bank roll chasing a progressive jackpot dream. Most importantly remember, playing slots is entertainment. Have Fun!
Until next time, remember: “Luck comes and goes...Knowledge stays forever.”
Bill Burton is the Casino Gambling Guide and columnist for the Internet portal About.com. He also writes for several national gambling publications. He is the author of Get the Edge at Low Limit Texas Hold’em available for $15 postage paid. Send checks to Bill Burton, P.O. Box 310299, Newington, CT 06131-0299 or order online at: http://vegas.home.attbi.com/. His website is located at: http://casinogambling.about.com.
Column: Bill Burton About Gambling
Page 6
April 2003
While the odds of hitting a life-changing jackpot may be astronomical, you don’t have to avoid all progressive machines. As long as you have some realistic expectations, you can give them a shot. There are also some progressive machines that are better than others if you want to hit the jackpot. First let’s take a look at the basics of progressive machines.
The big progressive jackpots are created by taking a percentage of all the money played into the machine. This means that the jackpot continues to grow as more people play the machine until somebody hits the win- ning symbols for the top award. Because a percentage of the coins played forms the progressive jackpot, the actual payback percentage will be less on the other winning symbols, and in some cases the payback percentage on the progressive machines will be less than other machines in the casino. This is true for the machines that offer the life-changing jackpots. Not all progressive slot machines are the same. There are actually three different types of progressive machines.
The Stand-Alone Progressive
The stand-alone progressive machine is not linked to any other machines. Instead of having a xed top jackpot it takes a percentage of the coins played and adds that to the award for the highest winning combination. It has a meter on the front of the machine that shows the jackpot as it accrues. In most cases the payback is equal to the other machines of that denomination, but it’s just distributed differently to give you a varying amount for the top prize. The progressive jackpots for stand-alone machines is much lower than the ones from machines that are linked together. Blazing 7s is such a machine. In-House or Proprietary Progressives
These are a group of machines linked together and owned and operated by the casino. They may be just in a single casino or linked together with several properties. The jackpots may not be the multimillion variety, but they can be quite substantial. They generally hit more often that the big wide-area progressives.