The New Progressives At The M

Hey folks--I stayed at the M Saturday night. I counted 20 machines that had that quarter progressive. (I didn't readily see the dollar versions and never looked further). I sat down to give one a try, and at 9pm I plus one other fellow were the only ones playing them. Most of the royals were around $1150, Joker Poker was at $2150, and the game I played--6/5 SDBP was at $1650.

My impression: The meters do climb unusually fast even when just one or two people play. During my time at the machine I saw probably a dozen people (mostly couples) come over, look over the paytables, and say "you're kidding--who'd play paytables like that!?" as they walked away.

As usual, I set a win goal ($50 here) and loss goal ($200) to try this thing out. I played about 45 minutes, finally hit my first & only quad (Jacks for 600 credits, and I used one of my special plays to get it) and got up & left with a $60 profit. I didn't "lose" anything due to the poor FH payout because I never hit a FH. Before I played at them I talked to Dancer's partner on this--Frank Kneeland--and he said they seeded the initial royals all low. He seemed disappointed.