243 lines=daft
Dormant Account
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2013
- Location
- Scotland
There's no question that the Gladiator Jackpot slot on Playtech is being pushed hard in the promotion on all the playtech sites I use.
On William Hills there is even an 'ABOUT TO HIT' sign on the logo underneath the huge figure, as a call to action to play Gladiator Jackpot.
My issue is with the actual bonus game that potentially awards the huge jackpot.
For those who haven't played Gladiator this is a quick summary. The game spits out a sequence of nine masks.
They are either
bronze masks which pay 1 x stake for lowrollers and highrollers,
silver masks which pay 2 x stake for lowrollers and 3 x stake for highrollers
or gold masks that pay 4 x stake for lowrollers and 5 x stake for highrollers
For the sake of definition, Gladiator will define you as a lowroller if you play less than 25 pounds per spin (approx)
If you bet between 25 pounds and 250 pounds per spin then you get the enhanced highroller payout on silver and gold masks. (Quite right too!)
Now I was lowrolling a bonus yesterday, and whenever I've had bonus rounds in the past (it's my fourth favourite playtech slot) I usually get a screen of almost all bronze masks with a few silver.
That makes sense of course as, assuming the logical breakdown of the lowroller odds equates to the payout, there should be four bronze masks to every two silver masks to every one gold mask.
This would give odds of 1 in 40,353,607 of getting nine gold masks. But of course the chances of getting a gold mask could well be significantly slimmer than 1 in 7. We have no way of knowing.
But anyway, I hit a run in the bonus round as follows
mask 1 - Gold
mask 2 - Gold
mask 3 - Gold
mask 4 - Gold
mask 5 - Gold
mask 6 - Gold
mask 7 - Bronze
mask 8 - Gold
mask 9 - Bronze
Bearing in mind I had hardly ever seen TWO gold masks max in the bonus round, you might imagine how I was feeling after the fifth and sixth masks revealed!
All in the context remeber of that 'ABOUT TO HIT' sign on the promo page under the Gladiator logo
So after mask 9 I thought wow near miss. This chicken must be about to lay a two million dollar egg!
And I played that slot for the rest of the afternoon accordingly, far more than I would otherwise have played Gladiator. (After all, there's only so much of Joaquim Phoenix' camped up gurning you can deal with)
Between coffees and endless clips of hammy acting, a couple more of the mask bonus rounds drop in throughout the day, standard bronze mask stuff
then, about two hours after the first, I get this bonus round
mask 1 - Gold
mask 2 - Gold
mask 3 - Gold
mask 4 - Gold
mask 5 - Gold
mask 6 - Gold
mask 7 - Bronze
mask 8 - Gold
mask 9 - Bronze
That's where I started to get a bit angry. Even assuming the relatively conservative odds of a gold mask being a 1 in 7 shot, it is 1 in 117649 that the first 6 masks would be gold
not to mention the next three 'let down'/near miss masks followed the identical order.
It seems extremely likely therefore that the mask sequences are a predefined 'production' that are triggered according to a progressive RNG, but giving the impression that each mask is being turned over one at a time like a 'pick me' bonus.
In my opinion, This. is. Wrong.
Not least because it is a call to action to any lowroller that plays less than 25 pounds per spin that they have a serious chance of hitting the prog because it is so 'ABOUT TO HIT' that suddenly gold masks seem to be hitting all over the place.
And how many I wonder have pumped money they couldn't really afford to spend into the slot after getting the 7 gold tease, and feeling the sense of urgency that such a near miss effect creates?
Obviously I feel a bit dumb for falling for the ruse. So am I overreacting? is this all par for the course and perfectly ok? Because to me it feels like a bit of a con, especially with so high a jackpot being dangled on the stick
On William Hills there is even an 'ABOUT TO HIT' sign on the logo underneath the huge figure, as a call to action to play Gladiator Jackpot.
My issue is with the actual bonus game that potentially awards the huge jackpot.
For those who haven't played Gladiator this is a quick summary. The game spits out a sequence of nine masks.
They are either
bronze masks which pay 1 x stake for lowrollers and highrollers,
silver masks which pay 2 x stake for lowrollers and 3 x stake for highrollers
or gold masks that pay 4 x stake for lowrollers and 5 x stake for highrollers
For the sake of definition, Gladiator will define you as a lowroller if you play less than 25 pounds per spin (approx)
If you bet between 25 pounds and 250 pounds per spin then you get the enhanced highroller payout on silver and gold masks. (Quite right too!)
Now I was lowrolling a bonus yesterday, and whenever I've had bonus rounds in the past (it's my fourth favourite playtech slot) I usually get a screen of almost all bronze masks with a few silver.
That makes sense of course as, assuming the logical breakdown of the lowroller odds equates to the payout, there should be four bronze masks to every two silver masks to every one gold mask.
This would give odds of 1 in 40,353,607 of getting nine gold masks. But of course the chances of getting a gold mask could well be significantly slimmer than 1 in 7. We have no way of knowing.
But anyway, I hit a run in the bonus round as follows
mask 1 - Gold
mask 2 - Gold
mask 3 - Gold
mask 4 - Gold
mask 5 - Gold
mask 6 - Gold
mask 7 - Bronze
mask 8 - Gold
mask 9 - Bronze
Bearing in mind I had hardly ever seen TWO gold masks max in the bonus round, you might imagine how I was feeling after the fifth and sixth masks revealed!
All in the context remeber of that 'ABOUT TO HIT' sign on the promo page under the Gladiator logo
So after mask 9 I thought wow near miss. This chicken must be about to lay a two million dollar egg!
And I played that slot for the rest of the afternoon accordingly, far more than I would otherwise have played Gladiator. (After all, there's only so much of Joaquim Phoenix' camped up gurning you can deal with)
Between coffees and endless clips of hammy acting, a couple more of the mask bonus rounds drop in throughout the day, standard bronze mask stuff
then, about two hours after the first, I get this bonus round
mask 1 - Gold
mask 2 - Gold
mask 3 - Gold
mask 4 - Gold
mask 5 - Gold
mask 6 - Gold
mask 7 - Bronze
mask 8 - Gold
mask 9 - Bronze
That's where I started to get a bit angry. Even assuming the relatively conservative odds of a gold mask being a 1 in 7 shot, it is 1 in 117649 that the first 6 masks would be gold
not to mention the next three 'let down'/near miss masks followed the identical order.
It seems extremely likely therefore that the mask sequences are a predefined 'production' that are triggered according to a progressive RNG, but giving the impression that each mask is being turned over one at a time like a 'pick me' bonus.
In my opinion, This. is. Wrong.
Not least because it is a call to action to any lowroller that plays less than 25 pounds per spin that they have a serious chance of hitting the prog because it is so 'ABOUT TO HIT' that suddenly gold masks seem to be hitting all over the place.
And how many I wonder have pumped money they couldn't really afford to spend into the slot after getting the 7 gold tease, and feeling the sense of urgency that such a near miss effect creates?
Obviously I feel a bit dumb for falling for the ruse. So am I overreacting? is this all par for the course and perfectly ok? Because to me it feels like a bit of a con, especially with so high a jackpot being dangled on the stick
