In a previous article on progressives and slot machines, a player asked a reasonable question about how randomness and the odds of winning a jackpot intertwine:
Why do some machines say “increase your bet for a greater chance to win?“ If all wagers are tied into the random number generator [RNG]. How can it be random if increasing your bet increases your chances of hitting?
Anonymous
The trick to this question is that the RNG is randomly working within a predefined range of outcomes. That range of outcomes is how a slot can also make a certain amount back for the casino over time as a percentage of the amount wagered – the range of outcomes is built to do just that.
When it comes to progressives, the range of outcomes is not the same for all bet levels. The frequency of winning a progressive generally increases proportionally with your bet.
If you double your bet, you would expect to have roughly double the chances of winning it – so it would be expected that the double the bet player would win it twice as often as the one betting half that amount. But they won twice as much by betting twice as much, so it averages out.
Sometimes it’s done in other ways. On a game like Dancing Drums, the pot closes more often for higher bettors. The chances of winning the top progressive on any one pot close are the same, but you get more chances at it with the more frequent pot closing.
This setup ensures that basically in terms of dollars bet through the machine, players will see the progressive with a similar frequency. So those betting more through the machine will naturally see it more often.
That doesn’t mean it’s not random – you still have to place your wager at a moment where the RNG is aligned with awarding that prize. But the fact that the range of possible outcomes is known is how this distribution can be assured. It’s also how the game maker knows your chances improve – because it’s designed that way.
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