Odds of hitting a Pokies machine with Jackpot
To win pokie jackpot often players want to know the odds of hitting a pokie machine with a Jackpot. But the truth is none has ever come to know the real odds of winning a jackpot pokie. Only experts gather data from the player’s experience and winnings to calculate or give you an open idea of the odds to win the pokies game. No gaming manufacturer, land casino, or online casino publishes the jackpot odds of any of their pokies game.
The biggest jackpot of any progressive pokies in the world is Megabucks, often hitting at around $12 million, but hitting as high as $33 million. In general, the higher the jackpot, the harder it is to hit. The lowest odds are 1 in 32,768 for a 1000-coin jackpot Red white and blue pokies and the longest are 1 in 49,836,032, for Megabucks, which has a multi-million-dollar top prize. So the higher the jackpot, the more likely you’ll lose in the short-term. It takes a lot of play to fund those extra-big jackpots. The machines with the huge jackpots like Wheel of Fortune and Megabucks have bad odds. Not just for getting the jackpot, but for the small pays, too. Yes, they cost the same amount to play as regular machines, but they definitely suck your money away faster.
To have the best chance of winning in the short term, choose the machines with the smallest jackpots.
How long it would take for pokies to hit the jackpot?
According to pokie expert Michael Bluejay, it takes weeks to years of full-time play to hit a pokie jackpot, on average. At a brisk 800 spins per hour, that’s 6400 spins for a full day, or 32,000 spins for a full-time week, or 1,664,000 for a year (@ 40 hrs/wk). By contrast, the odds of getting a the top jackpot like royal flush on a Jacks or Better video poker machine is only 1 in 40,000.
There are really long odds on the newer video pokies games. When someone hits a big jackpot, they have to wait for casino staff to come pay them by hand. That’s downtime during which the casino isn’t making any money from that player. Also, players who hit a big jackpot are more likely to take a break and quit playing for a while. That’s why the top jackpot on the newer pokies typically take years to hit.
Also every spin on a pokies machine is random, so it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the last jackpot hit. The jackpot never gets more likely to hit. If the odds of hitting a jackpot on one spin are 1 in 250,000, then they’re always 1 in 250,000, whether the last jackpot hit last year or five minutes ago. No pokies machine is ever “due” to hit. That’s the way randomness works. Many people think that they can get an edge by playing a machine that hasn’t paid out big in a while, thinking it’s “due”, but it’s not. For the matter of the fact pokies machines are never “due”.
Odds of winning Progressive Jackpots
On most pokies the amount of the top jackpot is fixed, but some pokies have a meter that shows the jackpot amount getting progressively higher. Those are called progressive machines and the portion of the money played in those machines helps push the jackpot ever higher. This means the more players play the higher the jackpot it goes.
Also these progressive pokies are linked together so that play on any of the linked machines feeds the jackpot and any of those linked games can win the jackpot. Pokies like Megabucks and Wheel of Fortune are an example of such pokies. If you walk from one casino to another, you’ll see that the jackpot for Megabucks is the same.
A huge portion of each dollar played goes to fuel the jackpot, so a lot less is returned in the form of small pays in these machines. According to analysis by the Wizard of Odds each dollar played on Megabucks, about 10¢ goes to feed the meter, 11¢ goes to profit, and only 78¢ is returned to players in the form of non-jackpot payouts.
Most of the return on a typical pokies comes from the small pays, not from the jackpot. In fact, the jackpot usually comprises less than 1% of the total payback. The exception are the huge progressive slots like Megabucks, where the large jackpot is a part of the total return.
Also a point to remember is that multimillion-dollar jackpots, like Megabucks, are typically paid in annual installments over a number of years, rather than all the money up front. Like Megabucks is paid out over 25 years. You can find out whether your favorite machine pays up-front or in installments and if so, how many instalments by reading the fine print on the machine itself. (with inputs from various sources)
