Bob Dancer's new progressive games at the M

Money, you are confusing yourself once again. Think of it this way. If the games were not progressives and everyone played perfectly, then the casino would have an edge of about 3.5% on all the games. That is what you call the "basic paytable". Now, the progressive is added. Each hand the progressives increase by 4% of the bet. But, the basic paytable is still returning 3.5%, so where is that 4% coming from? As alanleroy stated, it is coming from the casino edge. So, if all players played perfectly the casino edge would 3.5% - 4% .... oops, they would be losing money.

Now do you understand?

Note also the casino edge will actually be 3.5% - 4% + X, where X is the average error cost of the players skill.

What is generally meant by a chase the royal strategy is a strategy that changes over time as the progressive increases. Skilled players have a list of changes at various dollar values for the progressives and institute those changes as the progressive builds past those values. It is not an all or nothing type of approach.

Ok..I just invented a new game. It's called Progressive Heads or Tails. It's a dollar per bet and there are three players. Myself (The House), MoneyLA (Player 1) and Snidely333 (Player 2). It's played just like heads or tails, but for every flip, Player 1 automatically calls 'Heads' and Player 2 automatically calls 'Tails'. When Heads comes up, Player 1 wins a dollar from the house and Player 2 loses a dollar to the house. When Tails comes up Player 2 wins a dollar and Player 1 loses a dollar.

Now here's the fun part: Every flip, the house puts 25 cents into the Jackpot. Whenever Heads comes up 3 times in a row Player 1 wins the jackpot. Whenever Tails comes up 3 times in a row Player 2 wins the jackpot.

In MoneyLA's math, Progressive Heads or Tails is a break-even game for all players and the house. In AlanLeroy's math it's a losing game for the house....and a winning game for all players.

This is just how the proposed Dancer game works....except the basic pay schedule is not 100%...it's 96% and the jackpot hold is not 25%, it's 4%. They are not somehow reducing the Payouts to 92% to contribute to the Jackpot. They are taking the 4% out of the coin-in which increases the effective Player expected return to about 100%. As arci points out you just need to account for the player error to find the real house profit.

The operative word here is "collected." Please be advised that to understand something written, you must first READ IT.

I stand by that comparison. One has to, of course hit his fair share of RFs to get his fair share of the progressive amounts, but one has to hit his fair share of RFs, 4OAKs etc. to get the 96+% the machine promises in the first place. While Money's overall position on this subject is off-base, I can't see any problem with the statemant you quoted as it stands alone. Perhaps you were relating it to some other point he made?

I think you need to add the words 'in the long run' for it to stand alone.

How about this:

100% VP game. And, the house puts 2% of the coin-in to the progressive. With perfect play, the house loses 2%.

That works too...but I was just getting ready to invent progressive tiddlywinks.

Arc and others, I think the confusion here is about the terms being used here such as "edge" and payback and money won by the casino.

What I am talking about are separate things. Maybe this approach will clear this up.

1. the casino has a reduced paytable that allows a portion of the players' bets to go into the progressive jackpot pool. at the same time, what is considered a "full bet" by the players is not reduced (obviously).

2. as the progressive royal rises, the payback or edge increases for the players. If you want to say that decreases the edge for the house, well go ahead and say it. because in terms of dollars and cents it doesnt matter to the casino at all. "edge" is a meaningless term to the casino. the casino wants $$$.

3. the casino doesnt care if the progressive gets hit or not because its just the players money being returned to the players. and the casino is still making its pre determined profit using the reduced paytable. the reduced paytable already accounts for the base amount of the royal. anything above the base amount of the royal came from the players who suffered their loss using the reduced paytable.

that's my point. the casino doesnt care about the progressive being hit for huge amounts of money.

what would hurt the casino? what would hurt the casino is if some player walks up to a machine and hits the royal, then hits it again, and again and again without the progressive increasing at all. because the royal isnt supposed to hit more than 1 out of 42,000 times (or whatever).

the casino actually wants the progressive to build to huge amounts because as it does two things are happening:

1. more players are playing a game with a reduced paytable that will give the casino more $$$ profits
2. the progressive will rise in $$ value luring even more players to play the poor paytable that gives the casino more $$$ profits.

In the case of Bonus Poker there is a 6/5 paytable for this progressive. it is that 6/5 paytable which allows the players contribution to fund the progressive and for the casino to still make a boatload of profit. if it were a standard 8/5 paytable the casino could not allow the progressive to increase so quickly because it would hurt the casino's profits.

does this clear it up?

Let me give you another "make believe game" to illustrate what I am talking about.

I give you one die to roll. there are six sides to the die. it costs you $6 to roll this six-sided die. if you roll a "6" I will pay you the progressive. the progressive starts at $5 which is also the payout for any other number.

now, if you roll any other number besides the 6, I will pay you $5. and with each roll the "progressive on the 6" will increase by 50-cents.

the casino always will make a profit on every roll. at some point the progressive might be huge but the casino still made its profit. and this is because the progressive jackpot was funded by the reduced paytable for rolling the dice (bet 6 to win 5).

this is, in effect, what the casino is doing with this video poker game.

Now, you can attach whatever "edges" you want to this, but the bottom line is that the casino makes money. and thats my point. because even if the progressive gets to be a huge amount, the money came from the players.

and getting back to Nevada gaming regulations: this is why "progressives" must be hit. because it is determined that the progressive is based on contributions by players who played a reduced pay table. this is why the Majestic Lions machine at the MGM is now at about 2.2-million and why there is a single Red White And Blue slot at Caesars with a jackpot of about a half million. These are the last of the progressives that must be hit because its the players' money which was contributed to the jackpot pool as part of a reduced pay table.

The SIZE of the progressive isn't important to the house...it's the jackpot hold percentage that matters. That percent + the paytable determines whether it is profitable or not...Progressive Size only matters to players who are evaluting whether to play the game at any given point in time. But the long run house and/or player advantage is fixed...so maybe just semantics.