I feel that rigging the must-hit number to the very end of the range should be illegal.

It isn't, but it should be. Highly unethical, to be honest.

It's not even necessary to do. They could easily give the ploppies a chance by making it completely random where it hits from its starting point of $4000 to its ending point of $5000. Then they could adjust the odds of the rest of the machine accordingly, to where they still get the desired house hold.

I'm guessing it's severely weighted to hit in the final $10, probably weighted even more to hit in the final $3. There are probably very rare fluke hits before $4850, but for the most part, I'm guessing it almost never happens.

I was watching ploppies running the other machines with meters at $4630 and $335, and I just felt so bad for them. They were chasing something which had almost no chance to hit (even the small one), yet their reward for a fluke early hit wasn't even that large.

The problem is that there's no regulation for this sort of thing, because jackpots don't have to hit at any particular frequency. Remember that machine at MGM which took over 20 years to hit? So offering a "must hit" jackpot supposedly at least gives that guarantee to the player, and appears player-friendly. In reality, it's anything but.