Posts 201 thru 207 make mention of the $6 max versions of this game, but without much detail. At first blush, it seems something's not quite right. So I can pay $4 and have a chance to win a life-changing progressive of $500,000+ OR I can pay $6 and have a chance to win $10,000? Hmmm, let me think... Obviously there's more to it than that. Having found nothing helpful in cyberspace, I thought I'd present my own hypothesis and am hoping for comments from the experts.
The bonus feature seems to work as follows:
Upon receiving three "Wheel" symbols, the Price-Is-Right wheel appears. There are five possible outcomes:
A% chance of winning the Grand Jackpot
B% chance of winning the banked 4x free spins
C% chance of winning the banked 3x free spins
D% chance of winning the banked 2x free spins
E% chance of winning 8-15 1x free spins
At max bet, E=0 so that's pretty straight forward and consistent between the $4 and $6 versions. My hypothesis for A is as follows:
$4 max - A is an infinitesimally small probability of winning an astronomical large progressive jackpot and thus can be ignored for analysis purposes
$6 max - A is a smallish, but not zero, probability of winning a moderate jackpot. I say moderate because $10,000 is something like 2x or 3x what one might win via the 4x free spins on a great run.
So how to analyze this? The game itself is already complex and yet another factor to consider? Sheesh. After giving this much thought, I decided the simplest means of analysis was to look at the $2 premium as a game unto itself. Considering ONLY the $2 premium, perhaps it works something like this...
The wheel appears somewhere around once per 135 spins. Over the course of 5,000 spins, approximately 37 wheels will appear. Over the course of 5,000 spins, $10,000 in premiums will have been paid via the extra $2 wager. So IF the chance of winning the $10,000 Grand Jackpot were 1-in-37, the RTP would be 100% for the $2 game-unto-itself. If the programmed chance of winning is 1-in-43, then the RTP is 84% according to the following:
43 wheels x 135 spins per wheel = 5,805 spins
37 wheels x 135 spins per wheel = 5,000 spins
So an extra 805 spins x $2 = $1,610 on a $10,000 jackpot (i.e. 16% --> 84% RTP)
Does that sound like a reasonable way to look at this? In other words, it's the same $4 max game with an additional $2 -EV game layered on top, the RTP for which we'll never know without some very costly empirical evidence. Thoughts?
My first post! Hope it was helpful