How We Made Millions Playing Progressive Jackpot Slots. Part 1
We hit 799 jackpots because we knew exactly when a slot’s RTP goes over 100%
When Does a Jackpot Become Profitable?
Jerry and Marge, from the film of the same name, won the lottery because they knew when the expected return exceeded the cost of a ticket. Economist Stefan Mandel took it even further. He bought every possible combination in cases where the total cost was lower than the jackpot. This allowed him to guarantee the top prize and walk away with a profit.
If this is possible in lotteries, then why shouldn’t it be possible in casinos? Logic suggests that there must be a point where the jackpot reaches a value that makes the game mathematically profitable.
Take a look at the chart below. It shows the growth of the jackpot in the slot game Mega Joker on the Betsafe website over the past two years.
The chart shows that once the jackpot reaches a certain threshold, it begins to grow rapidly and is quickly won. After that, the jackpot starts rising again at a normal pace. Is this due to the mechanics of the game or simply the daily activity of players? Or what if someone is deliberately waiting for the right value before entering the game with favorable odds?
That is exactly what happens. I know this because it is what I have been doing for the past several years. We tracked and played jackpots across the globe — from the United States to the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe. In total, we hit 799 jackpots worth over 10 million euros.
It all started with a slot I couldn’t afford to play.
In 2017, Netent released the hugely popular slot Divine Fortune. In this slot, jackpots reached half a million euros. They had clear payout mathematics, and winning them was at least possible. But to minimize the risk of ruin, you needed 1 million for the game. I could only dream about that.
The Mega Joker slot appeared back in 2011, but I only learned about it thanks to Divine Fortune.
I started advantage play in December 2016, when, being a poker player, I received my first casino offer. Since then, I have successfully used bonuses, cashbacks, tournaments and other promotional actions to accumulate enough money and play big. I even won a 20,000 euro jackpot playing with bonus money. This win gave me hope that someday I would hit a 200,000 euro jackpot and higher.
First attempt
In 2021, after overwhelming success in tournaments, playing jackpots no longer seemed like something unattainable.
On May 21, 2021, we decided to play Divine Fortune, having previously agreed to share possible losses or potential winnings. I registered at the casino, made a deposit of 10,000 euros, turned on screen recording and started playing.
I played at max bet of 100 euros per spin. The balance dissolved at the speed of light. I continued making deposits of 10 thousand each. When the total deposits reached 40,000 euros, I won a jackpot of 224,000 euros.
It really was divine fortune. On average, that jackpot required more than I had spent. But luck or math was finally on my side.
Global jackpot hunt
Right after the win, I became passionate about the idea of playing all available jackpots in the world. The same jackpot can be available on dozens of different sites, and the amounts on them differ. Somewhere the jackpot is 30 thousand, and somewhere it's already 290 thousand.
There are more than 6,000 online casino sites operating in 30 different jurisdictions. You just need to monitor them in real time so as not to miss opportunities and enter the game on time.
We had barely started putting our plan into action. Then the casino confiscated the first jackpot we won, using a vague and questionable justification.
It has come to our attention that we have identified suspicions of malicious activity carried out from your end. We have therefore taken the decision to confiscate any winnings earned during the period of play and pay back all deposits carried out from your end.
How do you like this formulation? Fortunately, we resolved that issue through ADR, an alternative dispute resolution service. The process took six months. In January 2022, the money was returned in full. An excellent business model for the operator: confiscate money and wait, in the worst case just return it back.
Building a Network of Players
During these six months, we won several Mega Joker jackpots and prepared a basic version of the jackpot tracker. Some values were obtained via API where the program automatically collected data, some were collected manually where a researcher would visit sites daily and update the values
Everything was ready for launch: money, team, software and confidence that the money would be paid out even if they tried to confiscate it. Unfortunately, you cannot play everywhere you want. For example, on UK licensed sites, only residents of that country can play. Therefore, we had to look for players in those countries where we did not have access.
The search for players around the world began. We looked for acquaintances, acquaintances of acquaintances, people who could be trusted with hundreds of thousands of euros. You cannot just post an advertisement "person needed to win jackpot." But we found them. More on what happened next in part two.