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The optional
wager we spoke about earlier, the Progressive bet, is made by
placing $1 in the drop slot or progressive slot as it is also
known, before the cards are dealt. The goal of this bet is to
draw a flush or higher ranked hand to receive additional bonus
payouts. While flushes, full houses, and other powerful hands
would be great, what the player really would like to get is
a royal flush, a hand that will win the full progressive amount.
Near each Caribbean Stud Poker table is a Jackpot Meter that
goes up in value each time $1 is placed into the drop slot by
any table linked up to that meter within the casino. This jackpot
can be as little as $5,000 or $10,000, the general starting
point after a royal flush is hit, depending upon the casino,
or as high as hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Every time prior to dealing the cards that the dealer pushes
the button which collects the progressive bets, the jackpot
will go up its percentage in value, and get that much sweeter.
The amount each progressive bet increases the jackpot varies
from casino to casino. Some casinos put in only 49¢ of
each dollar played, while others, particularly larger more forward
thinking casinos that understand the value of larger jackpots
to draw players, may put in as much as 75¢ per dollar played
to boost the jackpots faster. Obviously, the smaller the amount
of money put back into the progressive, the slower the jackpot
will grow.
However, the actual percentage of money that gets put back into
the jackpot is not really a concern for us as players; we only
care who has the highest jackpots if we're going to play for
them. How they got that high is neither here nor there. How
high? That is the only question we need to know. It will be
no coincidence that more aggressive casinos will tend to have
the highest jackpots.
As that jackpot grows, so does player interest. It's just like
the lottery. The larger the jackpot, the greater the players'
appetites to try and win that prize. What does it take to win
the full amount of the progressive? Why, nothing less than the
big sandwich with all the dressings itself - the royal flush.
While drawing this hand would certainly be nice, a player shouldn't
hold his or her breath - it's a longshot. As we saw in the earlier
chart, the odds of hitting the royal flush is 1 in 649,739.
But playing longshots is what much of gambling is about anyway.
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