The Golden Rule in AP is EV trumps probabilities. You see people play progressives and have say 127/128 win rate in say roulette, but on that 128th spin or only loss in the cycle, you get back to your EV when you lose all your progressive wagers. Lol. (Btw, 127/128 is a damn good batting average).
My buddy was trying to exploit a “design” flaw ... earn banked free games at a cost of 2X and hopefully collect on 7X. You see AP’s exploit this angle all the time in other bonus slot games, e.g. the slot manufacturer failed to account for earning the equity at a lower cost vs awarding the equity so you now see language of bonus awarded based on bet that triggers the bonus.
My buddy’s idea wasn’t a bad idea. The problem was the “bleed rate”. If you observed 30 independent & random bonus rounds, you would not play this game. The ploppies that win big are due to two things: (a) huge wins @ 7 x 7 x 7 or 343X (based on my understanding of the game) and (b) retriggers of more free games.
Someone will get that 7 x 7 x 7 or 343x big hit but in order for the game to give that large of a prize, the other prizes must be crap to average to the average bonus award. 343x hit is a huge outlier.
You can see a photo of the 7X • 7X • 7X here:
https://aruzegaming.com/game/the-great-tiki/