Originally Posted by jj5957 View Post
Originally Posted by mickeycrimm View Post
Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
But here's another question:

Is it legal for them to completely prevent the machine from hitting below $4990?

Or do they have to allow it to hit in the entire range, but just weight it so heavily in the $4990s that it virtually won't hit any other time?

Personally I feel either way is BS, and is very misleading to the average player. But I'd still like to know the answer.
The only thing I have to go on so far is DRich, a member of WoV, and a video game designer, said it's legal to weight the must hit progressives and if he were to design such a game he would weight it to run to the high side.

The must hit progressives are the most prevalent short term advantage slots you will find in casinos across the country. Practically every casino has them and the ploppies give them a lot of action. They play them way to low but still get their share of jackpots because of the randomness of when they hit. The River Dragons and variants are new and when the ploppies get on them at a mid-range number they think they have a chance to hit the progressive but in reality they don't unless they run it all the way to the top. And that would cost a hell of a lot more than the progressive pays.

I watched a situation not long ago at Couer D'Alene Casino in Worley, Idaho. A couple got on a River Dragon one morning at $4812. I had been watching that machine to see if it would develop a playable number. By that afternoon they had run it up to $4900 but were on their phones. A few more people showed up. Looked to me like people with money to invest on the play. I happened to come by about 3 AM as they were waiting on the hand pay, getting congratulated by the floor people, but I didn't see any smiles on their faces. They looked worn out and forlorn. These kind of people don't know anything about writing off losses against wins. They got their butts kicked and one of them had to eat a W2-G.

This is why I consider the game to be immoral. They thought they had a chance to hit it with every spin.

Did you happen to see what the jackpot amount was?

I grabbed a River Dragon minor at just over $486 yesterday with a 0.45% meter but I was wondering if that was a good idea based on this thread. I hit it at $499.14 and fortunately made money due to a couple of good bonus rounds.
It ran them all the way to the top. My playable number on the 500 is 487.