But it has nothing to do, how much the bet size is, because you can even hit a RJ with only $1,000 although (and this is the second mysterious thing!) all RJs started directly with $5,000 and not with $1,000 like in all another RTGs.
That is pretty odd in itself, as this is not supposed to happen!!!!! This can mean only one thing, and that is that individual RTG operators can not only set the payouts for the slots and combine several into a single RJ pool, but they can mess about with the chances of an RJ hitting on each bet, as well as determine what they will start at.
If they are seeding them with 5K instead of 1K, then without changing the other parameters this would effectively be giving away 4K for free each time an RJ hits. Even a 5K start would not explain why they get so high, it would only displace the mean value by +4K.
To get them to REGULARLY hit higher, they would have to adjust a few parameters controlling the RJ, such as reducing the chance of a hit per spin.
For example, if you threw a dice, you have a one in six chance of getting a 6 each throw. Weight that dice, and although it looks the same as all the rest, it has a greater chance of landing with the weight at the lowest point rather than the uppermost point. Put that weight on the "6" side, and it will land a good deal less frequently than 1 in 6, and a "1" would be far more frequent than 1 in 6.
With MG software, these parameters are fixed over all casinos. There is no more chance of hitting a progressive playing at one casino than another. It seems that with the RTG local RJ progressives, casinos can set them to hit low and often, or less frequently and higher, which of course induces players to "chase" the higher jackpots as they feel their high value means they are way overdue.
Unless Jade comes on to state that this observation that they start at $5000 is incorrect, or someone can post a shot of a Rushmore RJ below $5000, I have to assume that Rushmore have at least altered ONE parameter (the seeding value), that it is supposedly not possible for individual operators to fiddle with.
This makes me think of the ROGUE casinos, they clearly have FAR MORE scope than I suspected to alter the underlying workings of the game. I have to wonder what else RTG operators can mess with, and to what extent. I have seen allegations that they can disconnect players who are winning and increase the Blackjack to 255 decks instead of 1 or 2, we KNOW they can set slot payouts within a narrow band around 93% to 97% - they can change paytables, and thus overall return, on the card games at will, but at least that is obvious by looking at the paytable.
The big mystery is the slots, random reels?, keno with a slot display?, now it seems even the chance of winning the RJ is not "natural".
I am wondering if the next hit of an RJ is determined as soon as it is reset, and is stored as a set time in the future. Odd though it may seem, it would explain pretty much all the oddities at Rushmore.
1) More $ played, the higher the RJ's would grow before hitting, simply because it would be TIME, and not either spins or dollars that determined it.
2) Seeding at 5K could be compensated for by using a lower setting for the base game, such as 93%. This extra 2% would pay for the extra 4K added to each pool.
3) Grouping several slots into a single pool, and it being time based, would allow the RJ's to grow even faster, and to even higher values.
4) Where's Phynqster when you need him
I did not know this, so if a player plays $10 wagers and another plays $1 wagers the odds are 10X's greater the random event will happen for the player who wagered $10?
If so, that in itself says there is a way to manipulate the random jackpots.
Well, strangely enough, there was a post a while ago about a single player seeming to get one RJ after another. The explanation was that this was a high roller. This player could not play any more spins per given time than any other player, but they were playing $100 a spin rather than 20c, so had much more chance of hitting the Rjs, and it showed!!!
Manipulation? Not really, they were betting $100 a spin, and possibly losing the amount of the RJ in a short time anyway if they hit a bad streak, and the RJ could still have gone to another player.
Prediction? The only thing one can do is predict how to maximise the chance of hitting the RJ, not when to leap on and produce the magic spin.
For progressives that are governed by a specific winline on an UNWEIGHTED video slot, it is possible to calculate the chance of it hitting at each spin, and then calculating whether the level of the progressive justifies chasing it, a point which a bet on all possible outcomes once through gives a 100%+ payout (including the combination that would award the progressive).
Often, in land casinos, when this point is reached you get teams of "pro" players descending on a progressive and feeding it till (hopefully) it hits. Provided they have a big enough bankroll, and work together (and don't get spotted and chucked out), this is a long term way to make a profit.
The same principle can be applied (and indeed IS) to the big lotteries, where the total prize money exceeds the cost of buying a ticket covering every possible combination. In this case, you WILL hit the jackpot, the risk is finding it has been shared to a player not in the group (and the art is in calculating the "value" of this risk, and factoring it into the decision as to whether to hit the lottery, or wait and hope for another roll-over).