The Endless Stupidity Of Chasing Progressives

[ChopleyIOM]

One of my little quests at 3Dice over the years has been to hit a progressive on their single-liner games. These are really simple slots but I quite like them, they have a selection of reel wins (with varying multipliers), a spinny wheel bonus round, and the progressive wins themselves.

The progressives tend not to actually be that big, 1500-2000x stake would be a pretty chunky amount for them to get to, we're not talking Mega Moolah type stuff here. In fact they're generally smaller prizes as a multiplication of stake than you can hit on their normal slots.

There are four single-liners to choose from, they all work on the same principle but have ascending levels of volatility. I have learned the hard way that Triple Dough and particularly Penta Pay can be somewhat ruinous, whereas Double Dough and Old Glory are fairly tame. (Penta Pay has a 1000x stake reel win, whereas Double Dough maxes out at 160x on the reels, to give you an idea.)

(Ignore The Joker, whilst that is a progressive it's a totally different sort of game, is a five-liner, and requires playing five coins for a chance of the progressive.)



Following my spawn on Cleopatra's Conquest the other week (2906x basegame hit, and then a couple of other decent wins on other slots):

New(ish) 3Dice Slot - 'CLEOPATRA'S CONQUEST', chasing the scatters.... - Casinomeister Forum

I decided to once again settle down for a crack at hitting one of the single-liner progressives. As it happened Double Dough represented the most favourable stake/prize ratio, and with it being gentle volatility overall I set about the task.

Long story short, after a total of over fifteen hours of constant plugging away at it, I did not win the progressive, although my wagering had contributed a chunk more to its value.

On the plus side it wasn't too bad in terms of losses, as my balance 'only' diminished by 1260x over that time. (The reels and wheel kind of just kick back percentage less progressive once you get a decent chunk of spins through it as its pay profile is so flat, this contrasts sharply with Penta Pay which can tear you a new arsehole.)

Logged back into 3Dice this morning and decided I couldn't be arsed with more Double Dough so I started playing Gemini (Twin Spin!), and what pops up in the chat feed? (The progressive scales with stake, so this person must have been on $2 spins as opposed to my 20p spins.)



And true enough, loading in Double Dough, the progressive is back to its reseed value of 1000x.



Now to be clear on this, I'm not complaining about the games. I know exactly that the deal with them is, I know that the chance of hitting the progressive win is very small, and that if you don't hit it, you're bleeding away some RTP to a win that you almost certainly won't win. I get that.

I also know it's a pretty stupid endeavour if you look at it rationally, most of 3Dice's regular videoslots can and do hit bigger wins than any of these single liners are capable of even including the progressive - and yet once in a while I'll decide I'm going to dig in for long extended sessions trying to win one of the buggers, and to date, having done ~120,000 spins across the four games, I've yet to see those three progressive symbols drop in on the winline.

I think the thing with these progressives is that they feel very winnable, they're not that massive, and you see them get won on a fairly regular basis, I just figure that eventually my number will come up, I mean, there's no way I'd chase a Mega Moolah or Jackpot King progressive as you're looking at beyond lottery odds to win one of those things.

Anyone else got a weakness for chasing a progressive, or am I stuck in my own little crazy corner?

Just as an aside I've hit the top reel wins on both Triple Dough and Penta Pay, which are 600x and 1000x respectively. In the case of Triple Dough it's two 3x multipliers working together to make 9x , and Penta Pay does two lots of 5x to make 25x. In both cases the third 3x/5x symbol is the progressive win.

(The other thing that makes Triple Dough and Penta Pay more dangerous is you need to play three coins for the wheel/progressive, so your minimum stake is effectively increased by 50% to 30p, whereas Double Dough and Old Glory are two coins, so only 20p.)

 

[dunover]

One of my little quests at 3Dice over the years has been to hit a progressive on their single-liner games. These are really simple slots but I quite like them, they have a selection of reel wins (with varying multipliers), a spinny wheel bonus round, and the progressive wins themselves.

The progressives tend not to actually be that big, 1500-2000x stake would be a pretty chunky amount for them to get to, we're not talking Mega Moolah type stuff here. In fact they're generally smaller prizes as a multiplication of stake than you can hit on their normal slots.

There are four single-liners to choose from, they all work on the same principle but have ascending levels of volatility. I have learned the hard way that Triple Dough and particularly Penta Pay can be somewhat ruinous, whereas Double Dough and Old Glory are fairly tame. (Penta Pay has a 1000x stake reel win, whereas Double Dough maxes out at 160x on the reels, to give you an idea.)

(Ignore The Joker, whilst that is a progressive it's a totally different sort of game, is a five-liner, and requires playing five coins for a chance of the progressive.)

View attachment 202076

Following my spawn on Cleopatra's Conquest the other week (2906x basegame hit, and then a couple of other decent wins on other slots):

New(ish) 3Dice Slot - 'CLEOPATRA'S CONQUEST', chasing the scatters.... - Casinomeister Forum

I decided to once again settle down for a crack at hitting one of the single-liner progressives. As it happened Double Dough represented the most favourable stake/prize ratio, and with it being gentle volatility overall I set about the task.

Long story short, after a total of over fifteen hours of constant plugging away at it, I did not win the progressive, although my wagering had contributed a chunk more to its value.

On the plus side it wasn't too bad in terms of losses, as my balance 'only' diminished by 1260x over that time. (The reels and wheel kind of just kick back percentage less progressive once you get a decent chunk of spins through it as its pay profile is so flat, this contrasts sharply with Penta Pay which can tear you a new arsehole.)

Logged back into 3Dice this morning and decided I couldn't be arsed with more Double Dough so I started playing Gemini (Twin Spin!), and what pops up in the chat feed? (The progressive scales with stake, so this person must have been on $2 spins as opposed to my 20p spins.)

View attachment 202068

And true enough, loading in Double Dough, the progressive is back to its reseed value of 1000x.

View attachment 202069

Now to be clear on this, I'm not complaining about the games. I know exactly that the deal with them is, I know that the chance of hitting the progressive win is very small, and that if you don't hit it, you're bleeding away some RTP to a win that you almost certainly won't win. I get that.

I also know it's a pretty stupid endeavour if you look at it rationally, most of 3Dice's regular videoslots can and do hit bigger wins than any of these single liners are capable of even including the progressive - and yet once in a while I'll decide I'm going to dig in for long extended sessions trying to win one of the buggers, and to date, having done ~120,000 spins across the four games, I've yet to see those three progressive symbols drop in on the winline.

I think the thing with these progressives is that they feel very winnable, they're not that massive, and you see them get won on a fairly regular basis, I just figure that eventually my number will come up, I mean, there's no way I'd chase a Mega Moolah or Jackpot King progressive as you're looking at beyond lottery odds to win one of those things.

Anyone else got a weakness for chasing a progressive, or am I stuck in my own little crazy corner?

Just as an aside I've hit the top reel wins on both Triple Dough and Penta Pay, which are 600x and 1000x respectively. In the case of Triple Dough it's two 3x multipliers working together to make 9x , and Penta Pay does two lots of 5x to make 25x. In both cases the third 3x/5x symbol is the progressive win.

(The other thing that makes Triple Dough and Penta Pay more dangerous is you need to play three coins for the wheel/progressive, so your minimum stake is effectively increased by 50% to 30p, whereas Double Dough and Old Glory are two coins, so only 20p.)

View attachment 202077
View attachment 202078

Did you not get rodgered by Tunzamunni once too, on Viper? As with all progressives, the 'ticket' so to speak is a reflection of minimum stake. So each spin you get one ticket for a 20p minimum play or whatever it is, and ten for a £2 play. So the $2 player was always 10x more likely than you, given an equal amount of spins, to win the jackpot. This is why most of the Mega Moolahs went to £5 and £7.50 players etc.

So yeah, I'd be inclined to agree with you that minimum stake jackpot chasing is a fool's errand. An exercise in futile hope over pragmatism.

 

[conker]

@ChopleyIOM you should bring all your experiences together from your posts and stick an ebook up on Amazon. I know your frustrations can torment you, but they don't half make good reading . Thanks for sharing as always.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Did you not get rodgered by Tunzamunni once too, on Viper? As with all progressives, the 'ticket' so to speak is a reflection of minimum stake. So each spin you get one ticket for a 20p minimum play or whatever it is, and ten for a £2 play. So the $2 player was always 10x more likely than you, given an equal amount of spins, to win the jackpot. This is why most of the Mega Moolahs went to £5 and £7.50 players etc.

So yeah, I'd be inclined to agree with you that minimum stake jackpot chasing is a fool's errand. An exercise in futile hope over pragmatism.

These ones appear to work on a different principle, and my reading of it is that your chance of winning the progressive remains identical on each stake, however the size of the progressive itself changes relative to stake.

Before you enter the game you need to choose your coin size, and this is then fixed for that session on the game.



So with a 10p coin size, this is what I get. (Remember it's two coins to activate the progressive, so 20p spins.)


Whereas a £1 coin size results in this.


Or if you've been getting some Starmer-style freebies, or maybe some Tory Covid PPE contracts and you're feeling very flush, a £5 coin size gets you this.


I'm not quite sure how the maths behind it work, last night when I was playing on 20p spins, before finally giving up and going to bed, this is where the progressive was.



But after it got won this morning, on a higher stake, the 20p progressive reset to £200, so there's clearly a link there. Obviously on 20p spins I'm contributing less to the progressive than the £2 spin players so I get why my progressive is smaller, but when the £2 spin player won the progressive, my 20p progressive got reset as well.

I don't know what happens if that was reversed, so if I won the progressive on 20p, surely it can't reset the £2 progressive as well, as otherwise all of those contributions from £2 spins will basically have disappeared.

20p and £2 both reset to 1000x stake, but different amounts. However on £2 coin size (£4 stake) the progressive is currently £6237 which is 1559x, and £5 coin (£10 stake) is £16,293, or 1628x stake.

So, erm, I'm not sure really.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

@ChopleyIOM you should bring all your experiences together from your posts and stick an ebook up on Amazon. I know your frustrations can torment you, but they don't half make good reading . Thanks for sharing as always.

I guess that's what my YT channel is for really, there are lord knows how many hundreds of hours of my waffling up on there

Back on my earlier YT channels I did a lot of online slots coverage, but on the current incarnation I basically stick to the fruit machine content. The online casino stuff generated a fair bit of aggro for me one way or another, especially when I had a pop at The Bandit and also Roshtein and the shifty casinos he was playing at - so these days I just steer clear of the whole thing. (I've reuploaded a handful of my old online slots videos to my current channel, but not many.)

I like writing too, hence these long review/experience posts here at CM

 

[jasonuk]

But after it got won this morning, on a higher stake, the 20p progressive reset to £200, so there's clearly a link there. Obviously on 20p spins I'm contributing less to the progressive than the £2 spin players so I get why my progressive is smaller, but when the £2 spin player won the progressive, my 20p progressive got reset as well.

It sounds like an asymmetric progressive to encourage people to bet bigger.

That would mean that a 20p progressive winner gets their 1000x seed (£200) plus any contributions made at 20p stakes; and a £2 progressive winner gets their 1000x seed (£2000) plus any contributions made at 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 stakes.

So that would suggest around £6240 carried forward from previous (and very recent) contributions at £5 and £10 stake. 1000x seed for £10k + £6240 + £54 of new contributions at lower stakes = £16294.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

It sounds like an asymmetric progressive to encourage people to bet bigger.

That would mean that a 20p progressive winner gets their 1000x seed (£200) plus any contributions made at 20p stakes; and a £2 progressive winner gets their 1000x seed (£2000) plus any contributions made at 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 stakes.

So that would suggest around £6240 carried forward from previous (and very recent) contributions at £5 and £10 stake. 1000x seed for £10k + £6240 + £54 of new contributions at lower stakes = £16294.

OK then that makes sense TBH I think it's a decent way to do it because you don't feel like you're getting a massively gimped 'progressive experience' as it were. (Mega Moolah is famously terrible for this, whereas the Blueprint 'Jackpot King' series handle it very well.)

The game is identical on any stake, with exactly the same reel sets used, and it's only fair that those lumping away on bigger stakes, so contributing more to the progressives, get a bigger prize should they land it.

Mind you it's all slightly academic for me as I can't land the bloody progressive for love nor money. Mainly money.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Just hit this again, straight 1000x pay. Actually saw it come in as well, was rather hoping the third 5x symbol would drop into place but I'll settle for 1000x!

I should also note I was 1166x down from my starting position at this point too, so all this has done is repaired most of the damage on this most foolish of missions to land the progressive on Penta Pay, the highest volatility of all the single-liners.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Gah! I'm not complaining, but come on folks, just the three, and I'll leave the game content.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

I think the sensible thing to do here might be to give up.

I started on this yesterday with £700 and somehow after many hours of constant spinning I'm actually in profit despite not hitting the progressive, which is only 1676x stake anyway. This morning I've hit 1000x, 500x and 333x and my balance is nearly £850.

EXECUTIVE DECISION TIME - I'm going to abort and I'll go and make a video about an old fruit machine for my YT channel instead.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

This was my balance's low point a little earlier this morning, so quite the recovery really. Sometimes I think the knack is knowing when to bail out.

 

[jasonuk]

EXECUTIVE DECISION TIME - I'm going to abort and I'll go and make a video about an old fruit machine for my YT channel instead.

I better get caught up then, I've got a few I haven't watched yet!

The interesting aside here would be the RTP curve:

• If you know the reel strips (since 3Dice tend to use genuine reels) then you can work out the base RTP excluding progressive and the probability of landing the jackpot
• You would thus know the expected RTP contribution to the jackpots (which would be calculated as seed and increments - similar to how WMS do it)
• Putting that together, you can work out when the game is EV+ - although as you've already said, as with any progressive it would be theoretical rather than tangible.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

I better get caught up then, I've got a few I haven't watched yet!

The interesting aside here would be the RTP curve:

• If you know the reel strips (since 3Dice tend to use genuine reels) then you can work out the base RTP excluding progressive and the probability of landing the jackpot
• You would thus know the expected RTP contribution to the jackpots (which would be calculated as seed and increments - similar to how WMS do it)
• Putting that together, you can work out when the game is EV+ - although as you've already said, as with any progressive it would be theoretical rather than tangible.

Yeah I think this would definitely be possible (I'm 99.9% sure all these games use genuine reel strips), the problem of course is that, as I've found myself, you can quite easily go 125,000+ spins without landing a progressive, so your EV+ position really is indeed far more theoretical than realisable.

I could just email Anna at 3Dice and ask her, I asked her about the progressive contributions on Battle of Bastogne and she emailed me back with the numbers for how the RTP was sliced up into MEGA and MINOR progressive contributions, and the rest of the game. (And she specifically made the point that the progressive contributions were skewed towards the MINOR as that one was easier to win, which is true as I've won that twice on smaller stakes.)

Since I've given up on Penta Pay and all the other single-liners don't have great jackpots at the moment, there's always the option of 'The Joker', this has a fixed coin size of 10p and you need to play five coins to activate the progressive win, so 50p per spin. It's currently sat at 3210x stake.

I mean, obviously there is the option of withdrawing my balance but that's for wimps

You can see winline five is the progressive (currently £1605), I've had the three 3Dice symbols on a couple of the other winlines, but they only pay £100-£400 on those.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Well it's super easy to work out the progressive contribution on this, as it goes up by 10p for every £2.50 wagered (I'm assuming I'm the only person on the site playing it now as it's completely consistent).

So out of the 95.22% stated RTP, 4% of that goes to the progressive which leaves 91.22% for the rest of the game. It's actually pretty tame volatility though, with those single line 3Dice symbols being the biggest other pays on there at 200-800x.

Still, an 8.88% house edge, assuming no progressive is won, is pretty harsh, and at a 50p spin requirement, it could still get expensive.

Then again, speculate to accumulate and all that.....

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Start:

£848 balance
Progressive at £1605.20p

Eight Hours Later....

End:

£575 balance
Progressive at £1700.30p

So I've put nearly £100 into the progressive, my little present to the 3Dice community (I don't think anyone else was playing it as I only saw messages for my big wins coming up in chat.)

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Right I'm going in for day two of this bastard, it is my now MY progressive to win and I won't be having anyone STEALING the money I've put into it.

Some shifty character has played some money through it overnight, trying to dip their hands into my pockets, albeit not much, as the progressive starts today's session at £1702.30p.

I have no idea why I'm doing this, yesterday I had a withdrawable balance of £848, today that's down to £575, and without the progressive win on this session, that traffic is only going carry on in the wrong direction.

However that's defeatist talk, so it's ONWARD TO VICTORY!

 

[philderby]

Looking forward to updates

 

[dunover]

Like watching a bloke trying to empty the pool with a sieve.

 

[Reelsoffun]

Never knew you was into the 3 reel progressives chops, I have dug out the one I did over 2 decades ago.... It might be of interest to you as it had at the time some rare things going on for this type of progressive, the main ones being you didn't need to play max coins to win the progressive, had fairly high frequency JACKPOT hit rate and it had a coin flip 50/50 gamble for all other wins. max 5 gambles.

The RTP varied depending on coins played 92% - 96%

You could play 1-5 lines so 1 to 5 coins in effect.

What's super annoying is that I had this coded onto a real MPU5 RIO machine ( converted from a super streak IIRC ) But alas I no longer have the machine or ROMS as it would be running on MFME!

If you got any questions you can ask, as I know you love the nuts and bolts of the maths etc

Managed to dig out a pic of the concept art/slot taken from a old flash file, the real machine was different but similar, I did have a photo of the real machine, if I ever find it I post it, but had many house moves since then so probably got binned by the misses.

 

[Reelsoffun]

I did forgot to say that the player often gets genuine near misses on max lines due to the first reel has a stacked progressive 7’s so landing that and one on middle of reel 2 gives you the chance of progressive win if it lands any position on last reel.

Obviously, ordinarily the player wouldn’t know just how close they are to a jackpot at that point but as I designed it I know exactly what it is and it’s very close

 

[ChopleyIOM]

I did forgot to say that the player often gets genuine near misses on max lines due to the first reel has a stacked progressive 7’s so landing that and one on middle of reel 2 gives you the chance of progressive win if it lands any position on last reel.

Obviously, ordinarily the player wouldn’t know just how close they are to a jackpot at that point but as I designed it I know exactly what it is and it’s very close

I was wondering about this on The Joker, I'm sure the reels are 'real reels' but only one of the five paylines pays the progressive with the three 3Dice symbols, I've had them on two of the five paylines, but paylines other than the progressive payline. I guess there's an equal chance of getting them on any, you just need to hit the one in five chance to get it on the progressive payline. This also means of course that hitting them for any of the other wins they award (200x-800x depending on payline) is also vanishingly unlikely.

Your sim looks pretty cool, although for now I am locked into the madness of trying to hit it for real on The Joker

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Well that's seven and a half hours of lumping away at it today. The bad news is that I didn't win the progressive, the good news is that, somehow, I actually ended up £25 in profit on the session. Not bad going for a game with 91.22% RTP once the progressive contribution is removed.

The progressive now stands at £1779.90p. That's my money, I want it back! Well, some of it is, at least.

The other news is that me and Mrs Chopley were able to finish off watching 'RIVALS' on Disney+ whilst The Joker did its thing. Rivals has a lot of shagging in it, but then it is based on a Jilly Cooper book. Mrs Chopley remembers reading it as a teenager in the late 1980s.

Anyway, that progressive had better still be there when I get back to it tomorrow, or there'll be trouble.

START:



FINISH:

 

[Reelsoffun]

Your sim looks pretty cool, although for now I am locked into the madness of trying to hit it for real on The Joker

Not really a sim as exact math of the real built machine, I wish I had never sold it, probably worth a small fortune now as I only had one made! Glasses, reels bands, ROMS, all custom made.

Going on the way things have gone would have been a slot collectors must have for sure. Ah well too late now lol, maybe I will put some in the flash ver if I still have it see if I can jackpot it before you hit the joker LOL

 

[ChopleyIOM]

DING DING ROUND THREE.

I'm feeling good about this session. Progressive ahoy!

£1797.20p up for grabs.

 

[Reelsoffun]

Good luck I feel you’re going to need bucket loads to hit the progressive…….