Monet had some questions about these type slot games in the Ruby Star thread. It's an in depth subject because of the myriad of configurations involved. So a thread about Mystery Progressives is called for. I'll post what I know about them as time permits. And anyone else can chime in.

First, there was a thread over at WoV about whether it's random as to what numbers the mystery progressives hit at....and whether it would be legal to weight the randomness. DRich, a video game designer, said it was legal to weight the randomness and if he were to design any of these type slots he would make it weighted random where it would run to the top before hitting. There was no resolution in the thread as to whether the ones in the casinos today are completely random or not. My short answer is most are random but there are some that are not random, which I will get into later. First some history.

It was at the Mandalay Bay opening in 1998 when the mystery progessives first appeared in Nevada. That casino opening turned into a hustler's convention because of all the vulturable slots on the floor, the IGT Visions, the Williams games, the Oddyssey's...and the new fangled mystery progressives.

There were several banks of two-coin three-reel machines linked together usually with three mystery progressive meters on them. A typical bank would have one meter starting at $50 and must hit by $100, one meter with parameters of $100 to $250, and one meter with parameters of $250 to $500. These meters typically ran at 1 and 2%.

There were signs everywhere hyping the "Lucky Coin Bonus System." You don't have to hit a line pay or jackpot to win these bonuses, just bet the right coin-in number and you win the bonus.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if a meter started at $100 and must hit by $200 then you played when you found the meter above $190. Since the banks were linked, usually about 20 machines involved, you weren't a lock to win the progressive each time because of the competition from the ploppies and other hustlers. But if you played every time a number developed you won your share of meters.

These banks started drawing controversy. The ploppie/tourists had two complaints. The first, there weren't enough line pays on these machines. Thats an easy one to figure out. Three different meters with minimum reset money and 1 and 2% meters running meant a big chunk of the payback was in the progressives. That money has to come from somewhere so line pays were reduced.

The 2nd complaint from the ploppies was they hardly ever won the progressive money. This was a no brainer to figure out too. You got 20 machines with a smattering of ploppies on them running up the meters. When a playable number developed the hustlers swarmed in playing two machines, if they could, as fast as they could go. The ploppies didn't have a chance. So two months after the Mandalay Bay opening they stripped all the mystery progressives out of the joint.

I thought that was the end of it. But it wasn't long these MP's started popping up in other casinos with different games and configurations. And that's when I took to studying how they worked.