"Can someone tell me is there a formula I can use to calculate when
a progressive has turned the machine or bank of machines positive
(100% or higher?)
I have looked at the information and tables on the web, but short of
carrying them with me, I'm pretty much clueless when I'm in a casino
if a particular progressive is positive. The way I can usually tell
is all the seats are taken and people are playing quite quickly."
Assuming no other ev enhancements (i.e. cash back, etc) and no
strategy changes, most people would use the linear approximation
approach which is taking (A) the delta or difference between the
100% and the current paytable assuming the RF pays a fixed amount
(usually the reset amount), i.e. 800 for 1, and (B) dividing this
delta by the contribution per RF on a per unit basis.
If you use 9/6 JOB as an example, then (A) is 100% - 99.54% or 0.46%
or 46 basis points in investment parlance. In investments, they uses
basis points since it's easier to work given 100 basis points is
1.00%. For every 1 unit increase in the RF, say from 800 for 1 (a
(4,000 coin jackpot) to 801 for (a 4,005 coin jackpot), the return
improves by a small amount - by about 1/4 of a basis point
(it's .2476 of a basis point). The (B) is simply 46 basis point
short-fall divided by .2476 or 185.7835 unit improvement in the RF
(185.7835 is the result of 46/0.2476) such that the RF must be
985.7835 for 1 (a RF jackpot of 4,928.92 coins)*.
Assuming I hadn't lost you yet, to get the contribution per basis
point, you would take 1/RF cycle * 10,000 (note that the 10,000
number is to standardize the unit contribution per basis point). In
9/6 JOB, the RF cycle is 40,390.55 such that [1/40,390.55 * 10,000]
will get you to .2476. The .2476 means that every 1 unit increase
in the RF will increase the game return by improve by 0.2476 basis
points on a linear approximation basis assuming no strategy
deviations.
In the 9/6 JOB progressives that I cheery pick, I only need the
quads to be at 27 for 1 (any quad pays 135 coins at max coins) for
the game to be positive or over 100%. Here, each 1 unit improve in
quads increase the return by 23.625 basis points.
Cheers.
* The correct answer with strategy changes is 976 for 1 (4,880
coins); however, we are assuming no strategy changes to make our
lives easier.
Once again, the formula is (A) / (B) where (A) is the difference
between 100% and the base paytable and (B) is [1/(royal flush cycle)
* 10,000] or [10,000/(royal flush cycle)] if that is easier to
remember.
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "eharas" <eharas@o...> wrote: