I'm sure lots of opinions and comments have been made about these interestingly different machines. I've sat and played at the 25c SDBP ($1650 RF) version for 45 minutes as a test (quitting with a meaningless profit when four J's were hit), I've gone over all the numbers, and I have my own view of what these new machines mean to the casino and the player.
As has been said, anyone who plays the lousy paytables when the royals are small is at a serious disadvantage, and some WILL play them at low royal levels. But since every credit bet on SDBP (or whatever game) contributes the exact same .5% to all 8 royals, the theory is the "experts" will only play the >100% games when they go that high, and in doing so, in conjunction with the unskilled players going at the lesser valued royals, they'll raise the royals on the other 7 or so games to "playable levels", thereby always having something positive to go after.
BTW the signs around the casino aren't true. "Up to 102.5%", if the machines are fair, is wrong. If the royals aren't hit by the time the games reach a theoretical 102.5%, obviously it goes higher. Unless I'm missing something. Am I?
It is very clear these machines will be just another money-maker for the casino and are a bad deal for the player. The optimal royal flush strategies for progressives of this type are a constantly moving target, and no expert, including yours truly, is capable of learning and then applying absolute expert strategy on so many different games on an as-required basis. As a result, even the best of players will continue to play at a sub 100% level no matter how high the royals go.
At the end of the day these machines simply become nothing more than a pot shot for players seeking the thrill of hitting large 25c/50c/$1 royals. I was surprised that when I was playing them last Saturday night around 9pm, there was only one other person playing. You can tell the meters run much faster than anything we've seen in years. But when people stopped by to look the games over they didn't really care what the royals were. All they commented on were the poor pay tables.
