Megabucks Slot Machine Jackpot

 

The Megabucks IGT jackpot was the first WAP (wide-area progressive) jackpot game in the world. They launched this series of games in 1986, and since then, dozens of people have won enough money to change their lives.

The game’s jackpot symbol is a golden “Megabucks Eagle” which depicts the slot’s distinctive logo. The only thing is, landing even one of these crucial symbols along the payline requires the player to beat odds of 1 in 368. Knowing this, the odds against spiking all three at once come to an astronomical 1 in 49,836,032 – or (1/368) 3. The classic version of the Megabucks slot from IGT is a 3-reel slot machine with the only one payline. In order to qualify for a progressive jackpot, the player must definitely bet three dollars. Megabucks Slot Machine: Massive Jackpot All the current features on any slots just hadn’t been invented then. So there were no free spins, no scatter symbols, and certainly no video clips and wacky sound effects. It was just a simple no-frills slot machine, albeit with a massive jackpot.

  • The progressive Megabucks Jackpot is generally paid out in equal amounts over 25 years, although winners can negotiate other payoffs, Sorensen said. The system links dollar slot machines in 157.
  • That desire has made the Wheel of Fortune, Megabucks, and other high jackpot slot machines so popular. Year after year the Wheel of Fortune and Megabucks slot machines continue to be a favorite of casino goers. Even people that don’t really like to play slots will throw $20 in a machine to see if they can hit a life changing jackpot.

The Megabucks IGT jackpot resets to $10 million immediately after being won. You can view the most recent size of the jackpot by visiting their online jackpot ticker here.

Not all Megabucks slot machine games are the same game, but they all carry the “Megabucks” branding on the machine, along with the now-recognizable logo on the face of the machine.

Megabuck isn’t available online, but WildVegasCasino has 100s of slots game to choose from. You can play for free or get a 350% deposit bonus when you play for real money. WildVegasCasino.

Where Can You Play Megabucks IGT Slot Machines

Most people who want to play Megabucks IGT slot machines find them in Las Vegas, which used to be the only place offering the game. Now, the games are available throughout the state of Nevada, and that’s not all.

You can find smaller versions with the same Megabucks branding in other states and even other countries. In fact, you’ll find Megabucks machines in almost every casino in Macau.

I mentioned in the introduction that Megabucks was the first wide-area progressive jackpot in history, but I didn’t explain what that phrase meant.

The first concept to understand is that of a progressive jackpot. Such a jackpot is one that grows over time as players put money into the machine. A progressive jackpot takes a tiny percentage of each bet to “fuel” that jackpot.

The second concept to understand is how many machines share such a jackpot. Some games are standalone progressives, which means that the game only has its own jackpot. Others are local-area networked machines, which are machines within a single casino or even an area of the casino which shares the same jackpot.

A wide-area progressive jackpot has hundreds or thousands of machines sharing a jackpot across a wide geographical area.

This is the kind of jackpot Megabucks is, and it’s also why the jackpot is able to grow so large.

How to Play a Megabucks IGT Jackpot Game

Megabucks slots, as far as I know, are only available in land-based casinos. I don’t know of any online casinos offering games that participate in the jackpot. If I’m wrong about that, please correct me in the comments.

I recommend playing Megabucks in Nevada, which has the biggest jackpots.

Playing isn’t hard. You insert money into the machine, which awards you with credits. You decide how many pay-lines and how many credits to wager per line. Then you push the spin button or pull the lever on the side of the slot machine.

Most Megabucks games are just standard 3-reel slots with a single pay-line, which makes it even easier to play than that. You can find 5-reel versions, but they’re less common.

As far as I know, the big Megabucks jackpot games require you to wager 3 coins per spin, and they’re all $1 machines, so you’re looking at $3 per spin.

The main version of Megabucks is almost boring in its simplicity. Your goal is to get 3 matching symbols to line up across a single pay-line on the machine. The symbols are bars, fruit, and 7s.

The big, important symbol, though, is the Megabucks symbol.

To win the progressive jackpot, you want to line up 3 of these in a row.

There’s no skill to that, though — you’ll just have to get lucky.

Megabucks Jackpot Details

To win the jackpot, you must make the maximum wager of $3. Don’t ever play Megabucks for just 1 or 2 coins; always bet 3 coins.

The Megabucks jackpot always starts at $10 million and grows from there, so you’re always looking at a life-changing jackpot.

How big can the jackpot get?

In 2003, one player won almost $40 million playing at the Excalibur. ($39.7 million to be exact.

Jackpots of $20 million or more are relatively common throughout the history of the game.

What are the odds of winning?

The odds of winning the Megabucks jackpot are terrible by any standard — about 50 million to 1.

Apparently, the odds of getting a Megabucks symbol on each reel on the pay-line are 367 to 1, so you can do the multiplication to see how I came up with that 50 million to 1 number.

Does the Megabucks Jackpot Ever Offer a +EV Situation?

When you’re dealing with a bet where you know what the odds of winning are, you can calculate how good a bet it is.

That’s measured by the expected value of the bet, or EV.

Most casino bets, especially slots bets, are negative EV, or -EV. You expect to lose a certain amount on average over time when making that bet. This phenomenon is what makes professional roulette play impossible.

Megabucks Slot Machine Jackpot Winners 2019

But when the jackpot for a game gets high enough, the expected value for the bet becomes profitable. This is what makes card counting in blackjack profitable. It’s also what makes professional poker play possible.

Megabucks Slot Machine Jackpot

Here’s an example of how that works:

If you’re playing a game where you’re flipping a coin, and you lose a dollar every time you’re wrong, and you win $2 every time you’re right, you can see how that’s a positive expectation bet, right?

With Megabucks, when the jackpot gets over $32.2 million, you’re dealing with a +EV bet.

Should You Try to Become a Professional Megabucks Player?

If you can get an edge at Megabucks, can you just wait for a big enough jackpot and start playing and become a professional gambler?

Michael Bluejay has an excellent post about how expected value is useless when dealing with the lottery.

Megabucks isn’t exactly a lottery, but it’s the same concept.

When the odds get that long, they become essentially meaningless, even when you’re making multiple bets per hour.

Megabucks Slot Machine Jackpot

Here’s a comparison:

The odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 700,00.

The odds of being attacked by a shark are 1 in 3.7 million.

The odds of dying in an airplane crash are 1 in 5.3 million.

In other words, you’re 70 times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to win Megabucks. You’re 14 times more likely to be attacked by a shark than you are to win Megabucks. You’re 10 times more likely to die in a plane crash than you are to win Megabucks.

The only meaningful question about Megabucks is whether it’s worth $3 to play for entertainment value?

If it is, then a single spin on the game makes sense.

Is it worth $180 to try to win that big jackpot?

That’s about what it would cost to play Megabucks for an hour. Remember, you’re going to make 600 spins per hour at $3 per spin, putting $1800 per hour into action.

If you want to play for an hour, it’s probably going to cost you about $180 to play.

Other Games with these Kinds of Massive Jackpots (That Aren’t Megabucks)

You only have 2 options if you want to win over a million dollars:

  1. Progressive slots
  2. Lottery games

I think you’re better off just playing the state lottery every week if you want to try to win a million dollars. You’ll lose less money that way in the long run.

After all, if you spend $2 on a lottery ticket each week, it’s not going to change much about your lifestyle.

But if you’re putting money into a Megabucks slot machine, you’re going to lose a lot of money (probably) in the quest for that jackpot.

You’d be better off playing another slot machine game.

Or trying to parlay your winnings at a table game into a million dollars.

More about that in this next section:

Winning a Million Dollars Playing Table Games

Michael Bluejay has written the best page about trying to win a million dollars that I’ve read.

He provides an unmatched amount of detail on the odds for various games like the lottery and Megabucks.

But what’s better is the table game strategy he offers for winning a million dollars.

I don’t have the space to cover that strategy in detail here, but here’s the basic idea:

Megabucks Slot Machine Jackpot

You choose a table game where you have a reasonable probability of winning, and you let your winnings ride in an attempt to work your way up to a total win of a million dollars.

Basically, if you start with a $5 bet and double it 18 times in a row, you have a million dollars. That results in odds of 200,000 to 1, which is still 3 times the odds of being struck by lightning.

But it’s still a way better number than the odds of hitting the Megabucks IGT jackpot.

What’s the big drawback of this strategy?

Most people won’t be able to put their winnings back on the table once they get to a certain point. Bluejay suggests that most people will reach that point somewhere between $2500 and $20,000.

He’s probably right.

Megabucks Slot Machine Winners Megabucks Jackpot

In fact, if I get my winnings up to $1000, I’m taking my money and going home.

The other big problem is finding a casino that will allow you to make a $500,000 bet. Good luck with that.

Finally

That’s the best I could do at providing comprehensive coverage of the Megabucks IGT slot machine game. Hope you enjoyed reading it.

Please leave a comment and let me know if I missed anything.

The dream of instant riches, nothing is more alluring than the thought of suddenly becoming rich. That desire has made the Wheel of Fortune, Megabucks, and other high jackpot slot machines so popular. Year after year the Wheel of Fortune and Megabucks slot machines continue to be a favorite of casino goers. Even people that don’t really like to play slots will throw $20 in a machine to see if they can hit a life changing jackpot. My personal favorite is when the casino “comps” (free) a certain number of max credit plays on Megabucks, which is currently at 15 million. That allows me to play without any guilt because they’re FREE!

Most of the real high value jackpots are progressive jackpots. Progressive means the jackpot continues to increase as the machine is played; until someone hits it then it goes back to the reset value. Progressive jackpots can be several jackpots put together into one. They link together many different slot machines and as people play any of the machines that are linked, the jackpot rises. The machines can be all in the same casino, or sometimes they are in several different casinos. Those are the machines that offer the Megabucks and Wheel of Fortune jackpots for millions of dollars.

Megabucks Slot Machine Current Jackpot

As gamblers, we must ask ourselves what is the cost of playing these life altering machines. Well, let’s think this out logically. How in the world can a casino afford to payout a couple million dollars on a 25 cent or $1 denomination slot machine where the jackpot is usually a few thousand dollars?

There are two answers:

1. The first answer consists of the payback percentage. Payback percentage is the amount of money that the casino pays out to the players. For all the money that is put into the machine the percentage that the casino pays back to the customers as winnings is known as the payback percentage. In other words, if a casino takes in $100,000 on a specific slot machine, and during that same time period the machine pays out $90,000, the payback percentage would be 90%

Don’t get confused by payback percentage. It doesn’t mean if you sit down at a machine that has a 95% payback and put $100 in that you will play and get $95 back. That would be kind of pointless. What it means is over millions of spins 95% of the money will be returned to the players and the casino will profit 5%.

Jackpot

The problem with all of the high jackpot slot machines is they are set with very low payback percentages. They are usually set in the 80-88% percentile which is terrible. Again, looking at it logically the casino has to keep more money to help pay for that large progressive payout because it sure isn’t coming out of their profit.

2. The other reason the jackpot can rise so high has to do with the odds of hitting the jackpot. The odds on some high progressive slots are as bad as 1 in 35 million. You have a better chance of hitting the regular lottery. You probably have a better chance of finding the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The odds are so high it often takes years until someone hits the jackpot. In fact, the last time the $1 Megabucks was hit was in June of 2011 for 15 million dollars.

Megabucks Slot Machine Jackpots

The Wheel-of-Fortune and Megabucks slot machines are a guilty pleasure and I must confess, even as an advantage gambler, I have fallen victim to the allure of instant riches. I don’t do it often and I never put in a lot of money, but every once in a while I’ll put $20 or $40 in and play. I’ll fantasize about what I would do with the money as I hit the spin button, but my fantasy is always ruined by losing all my credits. That’s why I like free comp plays because I can tell myself it’s not my money (in reality it is but that’s for another discussion).

We can all enjoy the fantasy of winning the jackpot on the large progressive slot machines like the Wheel of Fortune and Megabucks, but don’t let this fantasy turn into an obsession because these machines will take your money FAST!

Megabucks Slot Machine Current Jackpot

What’s your favorite slot machine to play? Do you like Wheel of Fortune and Megabucks? Let me know your thoughts.