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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Table-Games-Dealer on 2025-05-01 02:58:56+00:00.
A few casinos ago, we had a progressive on all of our games. Put $5 on and you were playing for the jackpot. We installed an ultra-high limit room, and the big wigs wanted a $25 version to match the expected clientele. They had built the pay table themselves.
One of our dealers was brilliant. He did the math in his head and felt funny. He did the numbers and realized that it was EV positive. It was a game that could not be lost if you had enough money and time. You didn’t have to hit high on the pay table, the value was low enough in the pay table that the risk of ruin was absurdly low.
He brought it up to management and they dismissed him. So he got his wife and mother to come to high limit and play for months. They were not blackjack players, he didn’t care. The math worked out to a $50/hour job. Comps galore. High roller service. They never hit the jackpot, but were well within the money.
Many months later they realized their mistake. His family well entertained and much richer.
Clarification:
A progressive is a lottery style jackpot where a flat bet enters you for a chance to win an increasing total. These games have an escalating list of prizes on a pay table. The lesser prizes pay a fixed amount, and they had over paid the lesser prizes to an extent where the game paid more than it took. This means that the lottery pays you to play, regardless if you hit the jackpot or not.
Casinos always win on progressives where normally 2/5 of the bet goes to the house, 2/5 goes to increase the progressive, 1/5 goes to the operator of the game. The math should work such that the lesser prizes are afforded by the game. This was not the case due to the faulty math.
Mathematicians can calculate an EV (expected value) to determine the RTP (return to player) which is normally ~~>~~ < 100%. This game had a RTP of +100%, meaning if you played long enough you should not lose.
You can lose, but the risk of ruin (the statistical probability that you will go bankrupt playing the game) was low as the prizes most frequent on the pay table had over paid the player to an extent where my coworker could bankroll his family with 1000 bets and have a near certainty that they would win. He had a gamblers mentality backed by math. He could have lost.
Fun fact:
There is a tipping point where the progressive is high enough that the game becomes EV positive, but the jackpot is so hard to hit that most players meet their risk of ruin before hitting it. There are teams of gamblers that track progressives and will hog the game till they collect the winning jackpot, spending weeks with rotating shifts. This is common on specific slot and keno machines.
Gamble bad.