We recently got a question from a friend of mine in the slot community, who was wondering if it’s true that what you bet, and what you bet it on, can have an impact on your chances of winning a progressive. She got an inquiry that read:
The Grand on Dragon Link is weighted to your bet. This means that a $5 bet on the low limit machine has a higher chance of hitting the Grand then a $5 bet on the high limit version. I believe this applies to the Major, as well.
Player Inquiry
She was curious if this was true, and it is, but isn’t just limited to Dragon Link. We’ll stick with Link games though for this example.
Let’s start with different bets on the same machine. Slot machines are structured so that your chances of winning a progressive, presuming you qualify, increase with bet. It stands to reason tht if you’re betting $5, you should have a better chance at winning that $10,000 grand than a 50 cent bet.
Sometimes, but not always, you’ll see a line in the pay table. Newer games are more transparent with some of the language than older slots, so you’ll find this line in Lightning Dollar Link, for instance, that doesn’t appear in Dragon Link:
An increase in wager proportionally increases your chances of winning the Grand jackpot.
Lightning Dollar Link pay table
While older slots often don’t include this language, this has traditionally been how progressives work – the newer pay tables just spell it out more.
So now about that low limit vs. high limit part of the scenario above. Here, again, it makes sense what is being said.
When you’re playing a high limit version of the game where the progressives are 10x as big as they are on a low limit machine, a $5 bet, which is going to be minimum or close to minimum bet, will have lower odds of triggering those much higher progressives than a middle of the road bet on a lower limit machine with smaller progressives.
Betting $5 to win a $500-$1000 Major is going to be easier to win than betting $5 to win a $5,000-$10,000 Major on high limit. In fact, your chances are likely to be about 10x better on the low limit – a quick math calculation and you can see why – the Major is one-tenth the size on low limit.
The reality is your chances of winning them on either machine aren’t necessarily great. But there will be a difference between the two, and if that’s important to you, factor that into your calculation of which one you want to play!
