Dive Into the Mystery Jackpots and Know How They Work

A mystery jackpot is like a progressive game and also is known as mystery progressive. It is a jackpot which is controlled by the casino or the online gaming site and will get bigger and bigger with the more games that are played. So when you enter a land casino you will see a large cash amount on display in the pokies machine area. That is a mystery jackpot amount and as cash is wagered on the pokies machines this number will grow and grow until there is a winner.

A mystery jackpot or progressive will be assigned a minimum and maximum number, and when this range is hit the win will occur. That means that you have a much greater chance of winning this particular jackpot during this time period. If you do win the mystery jackpot you will win a much greater sum of money, as these jackpots are always much bigger than the ones offered on pokies machines.

If you are playing with smartphone and get a casino app to play progressive jackpots you will not be able to  know when those jackpots will be won but the logical rule of thumb is that the larger the amount is, the closer it could be to paying out and might be worth keeping more of an eye on than a lower figure. Though that isn’t always the case, but these jackpots don’t get paid out as often as normal jackpots, therefore the sums in them will often take a while to build up to get into the pay out range.

The other beauty of the mystery jackpot is that you don’t always have to hit a winning combination to win the big prize. Just playing at the time that it pays out can be enough to win big. Mystery jackpots offer the chance to go away with bonus cash and huge prizes.

How mystery progressives work

As said above the jackpot starts at a defined minimum amount. A point at which the jackpot will hit is randomly chosen on a uniform distribution between the starting value and maximum possible jackpot. A certain percentage of money bet, known as the “meter rise,” will be directed towards the jackpot. When the meter crosses the predestined win point the player will be awarded the jackpot.

There are two good things about a large jackpot:

• The jackpot itself is larger.
• The probability of winning it is greater.

As with any progressive game, at some point the jackpot becomes large enough to sway the odds in the player’s favor.

Mystery Jackpots Games

Many gaming developers offer Mystery Jackpot games to the casinos. Like you can find some wonderful collection of pokies from Ainsworth where you can enjoy some of the popular titles like Big Chief Mystery, Big Hit Jackpot, Big Dollar Time, Colossal Cash, Fire Storm and many more.

Then there are games from WMS Gaming with two jackpots like in the Mystical Fortunes pokies where you’ll find a “Minor” jackpot with the message “Must Award by $50.00” and a “Major” jackpot with the message “Must Award by $500.00. These are mystery jackpots, separate from the main game. You still spin the video reels, collect on winning combinations and launch bonus events.

How can the Mystery Jackpot be won?

You need to know the point when the jackpots get so large that they become a positive expected value bet to win the Mystery jackpot pokies machine. The jackpot starts at a defined minimum amount. A point at which the jackpot will hit is randomly chosen on a uniform distribution between the starting value and maximum possible jackpot. A certain percentage of money bet, known as the “meter rise,” will be directed towards the jackpot. When the meter crosses the predestined win point the player will be awarded the jackpot.

The WMS jackpot games are different from the usual Mystery Jackpot games in two ways: As said above there are two jackpots and the meter rises by the amount won, not the amount bet. Note that before considering the progressives, the base return of the game is 90%. For every dollar won both progressives increase by $0.00581879. In WMS Games the minor jackpot must be hit by $50  and the major jackpot must be hit by $500. The math for the WMS games gets rather complicated because of the two jackpot and that they go up by amount won, not amount bet.

So there must be formula for the increase in expected value given the two jackpot sizes. According to wizardofodds  the general formula for the target point can be given as:

t = m × (h + r) / (h + 2r), where:

t = Target Point
m = Max jackpot
r = Rise of meter rate
h = House edge of game (taking into consideration the average value of the progressive)

An unknown piece to this equation is h, the house edge of the game. No casino is going to tell you exactly what a given pokie machine is set to. So, you may have to resort to industry averages like as an example the averages for Clark County, Nevada (where Las Vegas is) you can see for penny slots, which Mystery Progressives tend to be on, the overall house edge is 10.77%.

Many players get confused with Mystery Jackpots to ‘Mystery symbols’ appear in pokies games. Mystery symbols are single symbols or stacks of symbols which transform into any of the other icons in the game, usually creating a guaranteed win in the process. Mystery symbols often appear in the bonus rounds of pokies games, though they might be part of the main game itself.

So this is not a Mystery Jackpot but a ‘mystery symbol’ which lands on the play screen in one form, but which can transform into any other symbol. Usually these mystery symbols appear in columns which cover the whole reel, though sometimes they are single symbols. The mystery symbol will usually become a winning symbol when it appears, but not always. These mystery symbols might appear during the course of a normal spin, but it is more likely you will encounter them during bonus rounds such as free spins, or during special enhanced gameplay activated by a winning spin. Not all games have mystery symbols, but they are very popular with players and found in many different pokies games. Next time when you play pokies note that mystery jackpot is different from mystery symbols and has nothing to do with it completely.