Progressive slots are typically two-, three-, or five-coin machines, although some video nickel machines will take as many as forty-five coins. In every case, the maximum number of coins must be bet to qualify for the top prize. Because progressives require a larger bankroll than basic flat pays, I don’t recommend them for beginning slot players. The looseness or tightness of a progressive machine is entirely dependent on the current jackpot amount, since that determines the overall payback.

Progressive slot machines can be divided into three distinct categories. The categories roughly define how many machines are linked together (if any), and how large the progressive jackpots grow. As you will see later, the playing strategies for all the categories are quite similar.

Stand-Alone Progressives

At one time, all progressive slot machines were stand-alone. That was before someone thought of the idea of linking progressives together to make the jackpot meter tick up faster and higher. Most casinos still have stand-alones, the big difference being that the progressive jackpot is in the thousands of dollars instead of the hundreds of thousands or millions. Generally, you can identify a stand-alone by the lack of a large jackpot meter above the row or carousel. Instead, there is a meter on each individual machine, which doesn’t change unless someone is playing the game.

Local Progressives

The first linked progressives were groups of machines within a single casino that were connected together so that they all contributed to a common jackpot pool. The size of a particular progressive group may be as small as a half dozen machines or as large as several dozen. Each cluster of machines has a large meter that displays the current value of the jackpot. You can tell it isn’t a WAPS (see below) because the jackpot will be in the tens of thousands. If you are not sure, just ask an attendant or a floor supervisor.

Wide Area Progressive Slots (WAPS)

Wide area progressive slots are the big money progressive machines. In 1986, IGT set up the first citywide linked progressive machines in Las Vegas and called them Megabucks. They were so successful that dozens of wide area progressive systems have been started since then - the majority being operated by IGT. On most of them, the top jackpot runs into the millions, which accounts for their enormous popularity. The idea of linking hundreds of similar machines within a single gaming jurisdiction - such as Nevada or New Jersey - has resulted in very high payouts and frequent winners.

The individual casinos do not own the wide area machines. They are installed and maintained by a system operator such as IGT. When IGT sets up a new Megabucks machine, all the casino does is provide the floor space and take its cut of the action. IGT maintains the machine and all associated equipment including the interconnecting telephone lines. They handle all the needed administration and promotional activities, in addition to verifying and paying all the jackpots. Find greatest bonus offers and more promotions when you play slots online.

The most common games, however, have five reels, nine paylines, and encourage you to bet up to five coins per line. Because this adds up to forty-five coins, a maximum bet on a quarter machine costs $11.25 a spin - too rich for most players. Consequently, the nickel machines have taken on new popularity. At $2.25 per spin, the maximum bet on a nickel version is all most players are ready to contend with. Yet the casinos continue to display their greediness by putting more and more ten-coin-per-line nickel machines on the main floor. At $4.50 for a maximum bet, these nickel games are competing with the $5 machines in the high-limit area. As you play any of these computerized wonders, keep in mind that when you bet forty-five credits, and the machine loudly announces that you won thirty credits, you are still losing money.

Of course, none of this could happen if the nickel machines weren’t more convenient to operate than they used to be. The days of buying rolls of nickels from the cashier and feeding them, one at a time, into the machine are gone. Now all you have to do is slip a bill into the currency acceptor and start to play. Of course, when you are ready to cash out, you still have to contend with that little coin bucket. Even this inconvenience is disappearing as machines spit out cash tickets instead of coins.

Because most video games have multiple paylines and accept multiple coins for each payline, they might be called multiplier line games. Within that designation there are two types of video games with distinctly different playing strategies: bonus games and banking games. A third category, called multi-game, is a machine configuration that is important enough to be treated separately.

Bonus Games

Except for the video versions of spinning reel machines, almost all video games have secondary bonus screens that pop up when you hit certain symbol combinations. The bonus screens often require some action on the part of the player, and always award extra credits. Examples are:

Choose Your Bonus

Three to five objects appropriate to the game theme appear on the screen. By touching the screen, you select one of them, which then displays the number of credits you have won. An example is Bally’s “Boxcar Bonus.”

Free Spins Bonus

A set of bonus reels with special symbols and multipliers appears on the screen. When the reels spin, a bonus is awarded for winning combinations, which may include additional bonus spins. An example is IGT’s “Elephant King.”

Match Play Bonus

A bonus grid with hidden symbols appears on the screen. By touching the screen, you select grid spaces to find matching symbols and multipliers, which determine the amount of your bonus. An example is IGT’s “The Munsters.”

Pick to Win Bonus

Items that hide bonus amounts are displayed on the screen. By touching the screen, you pick items that reveal bonus credits and multipliers. An example is WMS’s “Monopoly.”

Banking Games

To the casual observer, banking games appear to be ordinary bonus games, in that a secondary screen is part of the mix. There is, however, an important distinction that puts them in a class by themselves. As the game is played, points or some form of game assets are visibly accumulated by the machine in a “bank.” When the bank reaches a certain condition or the achievement of some goal occurs as a result of continued play, these assets are paid out in the form of bonus credits.

This feature is designed to entice players to remain at the machine longer than they intended in an attempt to reach the payoff goal. Regardless of this enticement, some players may quit the game before reaching the payoff goal. This leaves the game in a favorable state for any subsequent player who knows how to take advantage of it. Of course, you will learn how to do it in a later post.

Multi-Game Machines

This is a configuration where the player has a choice of several different games within a single game machine. Most multi-game machines, such as Bally’s “Game Maker,” include a mix of video slot games and video poker games. The video slot games may be of the bonus and/or banking variety.