If any MG reps are reading this, they must by now be perspiring rivers
I have done further work, AND with some "real money". I played "Stallionaire" at 2, and this was completely different. For one, it CANNOT be "forced", as it always collects the feature when landing on it empties your wad. The "curry" one is a straight clone, and does the same. "Lucky Barstard" just eats and eats and I lost 500 (in FUN mode) without getting even TWO consecutive black bar wins.
I went ahead quickly on "Stallionaire" as I was forced to collect "cash accumulator". These games must surely save a little each time for the top feature, but forced collection along the way just sets back the game, just as collecting wins makes a mess of "forcing" a real Fruitie. It seems that Treasure Ireland IS unique in the download lobby, in that it is the only one where it is possible to refuse ALL features except the big one, rather than being forced into collecting something.
I am now looking out for an unsheduled MG lobby upgrade, as this might indicate we ARE onto something, and MG have done another of their quiet fixes. If they are REALLY using the local machine to store the "state" of these games for each player, this is a very dangerous short cut if they do this for REAL accounts as well as play ones, there would be an EASY manipulator, get the game about to pay, set a Windows restore point, force the feature, use windows restore, force the feature, etc..........
I have already looked into the possibility of the server being unable to tell the difference between "fun" and "real" play, in the same way that the forced state of the game is carried between different guest (fun) accounts. This is why I believe that MG reps must now be perspiring rivers, especially MiniVegas
I have, though, been able to discover that the state IS NOT PRESERVED when switching from one REAL account to another, and this MAY be a dead end, rather than the holy grail of an online "Fruit Machine Emptier".
There is still the question of losses needed to trigger the feature. I have always believed that the game has to take in slightly more than is paid out overall, so although "forcing" may sometimes make a profit, it must also make a loss. It seems that "forcing" simply alters some kind of control factor, and that each individual feature game is still driven by the RNG. Maybe the cycle starts off in "crap mode", but as more money is lost, weighting change, making it steadily more and more likely that the player will reach the top features. Dropping the stake means the weightings are recalculated based on the losses so far, and the amount that can be paid, this would mean a pretty quick jackpot for such a huge drop from 10 to 1, although the repeats would not be enough to cover the losses. I tried this in fun mode, dropping 1000 in at 2, and then dropping to 20p, at which point the feature dropped almost immediately, and repeated for an extra 500x plus a very large number of repeats of smaller wins. Despite this, by dropping from 10 to 20p, I won back only 280 of my 1000 - so this is one way these AWP games can make a fortune for the casino. Players must AVOID getting these games all excited, and then dropping the stake right down to zero out the balance, as the top feature will probably hit, but will pay far less than has been stored up at the higher stake.