A few weeks back I had a letter from someone who thought the Dancing Drums grand should hit more often than we see it hit. But I realize I didn’t cover one aspect of it – not all Grand Jackpots are created equal.
For one, yes, I know some slot makers put different words beside their top progressives, but whether we’re talking the $10,000 Mega on Ultimate Fire Link or the Grand jackpots on the Lightning Link family or the Lock it Link family, one thing all those games have in common is a much higher max bet.
Dancing Drums doesn’t have a multi-denominational structure like those other games, and something all these games have in common is the odds get better as your bet goes up, and tends to do so proportionally to the bet.
If you’re able to get up to a $25 bet, that jackpot starts at 400x your bet – not necessarily out of reach when it comes to slot hits. Meanwhile, the 88 Fortunes/Dancing Drums/Double Blessings/5 Treasures/Tree of Wealth style games tend to cap out at $8.88 (or $10 on some of the sequels) and have a Grand at $10,000 and up, which is over 1,000x the win. Even the Major is just under 100x at its starting point.
So I think this has something to do with the relative infrequency of those grands as well – I think structurally it’s just harder to win because the game layout is more restrictive.
But it can happen, and of course we’ve shared Slot Queen’s Grand jackpot on Dancing Drums as well as Windy City Frenzy’s Grand on Double Blessings. Here’s a couple of more on games in that family of structure.
Here’s Dejavu Slots with a Grand jackpot on 88 Fortunes for more than $18,000, for instance.
Slot Traveler caught one on camera on Dancing Drums, at almost $15,000.
Here’s a $38,000 grand jackpot on 5 Treasures from The Slot Source.
As you can see, they happen, but they’re rare – at least compared to the Lightning Link grand jackpots that seem to pop up with enough frequency nowadays. But these videos show the potential of these games to actually deliver those grands and not just always the mini or minor.
The Slot Moments series selects videos that can show the real potential of a slot machine game. Do you have a moment that stands out for you? Share in the comments and it may be featured in a future edition!
I know that, theoretically, if you were to place some huge number of bets on one of those games you would find that you were hitting the jackpots more often at the max bets, but in real life experience it doesn’t seem to make much difference (except where max bet is an absolute requirement to win certain prizes); I seem to hit bonuses and jackpots at about the same frequency whether I bet lower or higher (including grands), and when I place a bunch of larger bets I’m more likely to just run out of money before getting a bonus or jackpot.
Although, there was one time I placed a single $100 bet (using freeplay) on $1 Mustang Money 2, triggered the bonus feature, and won about $6,000. That was cool.
And then there was the time I placed a whole bunch of $200 bets on the $2 version of the same game and got no bonuses. That was NOT cool.
In practice it’s not going to be a huge difference for sure. Let’s say it’s a 1 in a million shot at 88 cents and a 1 in 100,000 shot at $8.80 on Dancing Drums – the odds are still quite long regardless. The odds are probably even longer, and it’s sort of how buying one Powerball ticket or 10 isn’t going to make a huge difference.
That $6,000 bonus is a 60x win at a $100 bet, which if it was a $1 bet would be $60. Always helps to keep the proportions in mind!