Scenario one: the progressive has hit an astronomically high level such
that the machine now offers an ER of 120%, and the bank is packed with
expert players (probably more accurate and faster than I am) all
aggressively chasing the Royal.
Their aggressiveness and their speed both hurt your share of the play; while
you might be playing 1 of the 6 machines your chance of hitting the royal
might be only 1/7 rather than 1/6. But, your average losses per royal you
hit will still depend only on your own strategy. The strategy others follow
will slightly affect the average size of the jackpots you hit; the speed
with which they play will affect the number of plays you get involved in
(and thus, the average time you spend looking for plays).
Their accuracy hurts only the casino, and the casino is actually helped by
their aggressiveness, as the machine hold per jackpot hit will be higher
with aggressive play, and the time the good players have the bank locked up
will be minimized.
Scenario two: the progressives have just recently turned the games
positive, and both machines offer the identical 101% ER; as a result, no
experts have descended upon the machines to play.
When you play a stand-alone machine at this level, in a situation where you
will play it until it's hit, you will end up collecting every penny of meter
advance added by your own play. When you play a less-than-full bank, a
portion of your early meter advance will flow to the players who join later.
The effect is small for most modern banks, as their meter advance is
typically half a percent or less. A few banks, I think including the
Frontier 6-coin bank, have relatively high meter advance rates, making this
effect significant. In the past, there have been banks with 4% meter
advance (AC Claridge two-pair-or-better through the early 80s) or even 5%
(AC Caesars $1 6-5 JoB, for two cycles only, when first installed in 1982).
As you look over the shoulders of some of the players at the bank, you
see at least half of them making really stupid mistakes like holding a
kicker in a JoB game, drawing to inside straights and holding 3 straights
or 3 flushes with no high cards, and making all sorts of very fundamental
errors, which leads you to believe that you are, on average, _quite_
superior in your skills to the average players on that bank. The result:
their stupidity will contribute disproportionately to the meter while you
have a better than average chance of hitting the Royal. I'd pick the
bank.
Their stupidity will contribute substantially to the casino's coffers; to
the extent their play reduces their chance of hitting the royal, it
effectively also increases your share of the play. And, since short-coining
or holding a high pair rather than drawing for the royal (holding 3 royal
cards) increases the meter advance per time they hit the royal, it will
raise your average jackpot when you do hit, so it benefits you a bit, too.
But if their misplays involve going more aggressively for the royal (as is
typically the case), you are actually hurt by them.
On a stand-alone play, you have 100% of the play, 100% of the meter advance,
and you can choose an unaggressive strategy to maximize your return per
jackpot. The drawback of a stand-alone play comes when the play runs long,
and you have a problem finishing it. You'll have invested a lot of time and
a lot of money in the play, yet still be a cycle away from hitting, with no
other hope in sight. On a multimachine bank, your investment in any
particular play will be proportionately smaller (unless you're running a
team of multiple players on the bank), and it will be both less likely
(because the overall duration is much shorter) and less psychologically
difficult (because the investment was less) to walk away.