BIG-MONEY TABLES
AGS has brought progressive jackpots to the table-game pit in a big way
By Frank Legato
If one were to travel back in time 50 years and go into a casino, the vision would be dominated by table games. Before the 1980s, tables were where casinos made their profit. The pit was the center of the gaming floor, with slot machines occupying the fringe—designed for transient play, low budgets and those whose companions were busy at the tables.
That all changed in the 1980s, when the virtual-reel computer system enabled bigger jackpots on slot machines, and especially when the big-money progressives began with the launch of Megabucks in 1986. Progressives allowed slots to offer the same kinds of life-changing prizes that had popularized state lotteries—the casinos’ main competitor at the time. Slots soon usurped table games as the king of the casino floor.
In the ensuing decade, slot suppliers churned out new game styles in entertaining themes that increased their popularity even further. Casinos now crammed in as many slots as would fit, and casino floors came to be dominated by the machines.
Tables remained the domain of serious gamblers and stone-faced dealers, making most of the pit comparatively quiet back then—with the exception of craps, where a hot roll would generate camaraderie, back-slapping and cheering that could be heard across the casino floor.
Over the years, some suppliers tried to generate that kind of excitement elsewhere in the pit with big awards tied to rare hands on various table games. Games like Let It Ride poker appeared, with a bonus side bet that qualified players for big payoffs for various high hands, and a fixed amount in the tens of thousands for a royal flush.
Those big payoffs were static, so electronics were not really required, outside of a sign showing the top prize for a royal flush. The other high-hand pays were printed on the felt, and there was an extra circle on the felt for the required side bet.
Meanwhile, progressive jackpots of all sizes soared in popularity on the slot floor. Multiple progressives won, though picking bonuses, “must-hit-by” progressives that caused jackpot fever on the gaming floor, progressives won through hold-and-spin bonuses and other big-money prizes became hallmarks of the slot floor.
Gaming supplier AGS has led a charge to bring the slot-style progressive to the pit. In 2017, the company unveiled STAX—a multiple progressive system for table games. The system links up to all tables in a single game type—blackjack, baccarat or a poker derivative like Criss Cross Poker or Pai Gow Poker—to a meter that increments up to five progressive jackpots. Four are tied to various dealt hands, and one is a must-hit-by progressive.
The reset levels for the progressive prizes are decided by the casino. A blackjack game, for instance, will set progressives for poker hands formed by the dealer’s up card and the player’s first two dealt cards, with jackpots in the hundreds for a straight and three of a kind, in the thousands for a royal flush, and the tens or even hundreds of thousands for a royal flush in a single suit designated by the casino. Poker derivatives and baccarat use hard-to-land hands as the progressive triggers.
By its very nature, the system encourages players to place the required progressive bet (normally ranging from $1 to $5, depending on the size of the progressive prize pool), since no one wants to land a potential progressive winner without the side bet in place.
Also, the inclusion of a must-hit-by progressive—typically seeding at $100 and hitting by $200—requires only that the winner has made the side bet. Once the system passes a threshold close to the must-hit-by level, it triggers on a random hand and selects one of the seats as the winner.
“That fifth meter is where we said, let’s extract something from the slot side,” comments John Hemberger, AGS general manager and senior vice president, tables. “We incorporated the must-hit-by jackpot. It’s always worked on the slot side, but this was the first time it was brought over to table games.
“It’s really resonated with players; it’s quite popular, for all the reasons it succeeded in slots. You’re watching the meter go up, and it incentivizes you to participate in the progressive because you know you’re getting close to that hit zone.”
The three lower-level progressives hit very frequently—in a crowded pit, jackpots often are hitting left and right. “You have this constant small jackpot that’s getting awarded across your progressives, and it’s infusing the winning player with a little extra cash that they’re folding into their bankroll,” Hemberger says. “They’re not buying a house with that prize; they’re getting more playing time and maybe bumping their bet up a bit. From a marketing standpoint, imagine how many progressive players we’re touching on a daily basis that are winning some type of mini-jackpot.”
STAX pumped new life into the pit at casinos across the U.S., passing 1,000 installations with backlogged orders by 2019, only two years after its introduction.
To the Xtreme
Of course, by 2019, the company was ready to launch an advanced progressive table system that is destined to change the pit forever. Bonus Spin Xtreme uses a multi-level wheel—another trick borrowed from the slot side—to apply progressive jackpots that are linked between different table games, up to the entire table-game pit.
Bonus Spin Xtreme uses that larger prize pool to increment potentially life-changing jackpots formerly only possible with wide-area progressives on the slot floor. It was the first system to bring progressives to games like roulette, craps and live poker, and in some of the largest casinos, the fast-accruing jackpots have already made several millionaires.
Bonus Spin Xtreme’s wheel display includes three progressives—the must-hit-by prize, typically in the hundreds, and two prizes won by spinning the multi-level wheel. Each game has a separate table result that triggers the wheel spin.
AGS mathematicians solved the first puzzle by selecting a trigger for each game that has a similar frequency—in this case, around one in 20 hands or rolls. In poker or poker derivatives, it will be a single hand. In roulette, it’s the single or double zero. In craps, it’s a yo—an 11—on the come-out roll. On blackjack, it triggers if a player is dealt a blackjack or the dealer hits a blackjack on the deal—instantly turning a negative into a positive.
Here’s the best part: When someone triggers the wheel, everyone at the table who has made the progressive bet wins. The innermost portion of the wheel spins first, landing on a prize doled out to all qualifying players, typically ranging from $25 to $200. Then, the next concentric wheel spins to select a “Hot Seat” number representing a position at the table. If that player didn’t make the progressive bet at the beginning, that ends the sequence and normal play resumes.
If the Hot Seat player has the progressive side bet down, the outer wheel spins, landing on a prize ranging from $200 to $1,000; a double diamond spot representing the secondary progressive, often in the tens of thousands; and a triple diamond representing the top progressive. Those two top levels are at reset levels determined by the casino, but the top prize is typically in six figures, and seven figures at the largest casinos.
The must-hit-by progressive triggers the same way as with STAX, after which the Hot Seat ring of the wheel selects a winner. Again, players without that progressive side bet down forfeit the prize.
One of the main developers of the bonus wheel concept was Jamie Abrahamson, who suggested it while working with AGS on various concepts as an independent inventor before joining the company in 2019 as senior director of table game content.
Abrahamson says his idea was to focus on spreading the kind of excitement found at a crowded craps table to other games in the pit. “There’s so much energy at a craps table, and you can just feel it regardless of where you are in the casino,” he says. “You hear the roar and it’s that community outcome on each roll that creates the camaraderie. We wanted to bring that to the rest of the table games pit.”
Bonus Spin Xtreme has definitely spread that kind of excitement to other games. It has injected action into otherwise monotonous games like roulette and live poker. “In poker rooms, there are players in there who consider it like church,” says Hemberger. “They’re in there every day, playing for hours, and it can get monotonous and a bit boring. Now, suddenly, you’ve got a little side action in the form of a mini-game, and jackpots are growing.”
Abrahamson adds that Bonus Spin Xtreme is benefiting players in both large and small casinos, since casino operators are able to set not only the jackpot amounts but the frequency. “We have a lot of flexibility on the weighting of the wheel to offer unlimited configurations to suit the operator best,” he says. “Would you like a jackpot to hit every 250,000 hands, or would you like it to hit once every 2.5 million hands and offer a high six-figure or seven-figure jackpot? It’s based on how many tables are in the link and the size of the casino.”
He adds that in all cases, the operation of the progressive feature is designed so as not to interrupt the normal flow of the game. “It was important to pick a trigger that wouldn’t disrupt the game flow,” he says. “For example, you couldn’t have a trigger in the middle of a point in craps where you had to stop the flow of a hot shooter to spin the wheel. We did it on the come-out roll because all action is normally stopped for a new shooter and a new point.”
The AGS table progressives can be found across the industry, and both the STAX and Bonus Spin Xtreme systems are still growing in popularity. Large properties like Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, MGM National Harbor in Maryland and the Borgata in Atlantic City have progressives on hundreds of tables.
Borgata has awarded more than $3 million in Bonus Spin Xtreme progressives in just the past year, the latest—as of press time—a $1.2 million prize in early May.
AGS continues to pump research into improving both of their table-game progressive systems. That means even more surprises down the road for table players—and a new day in the pit.
