Jackpot Party Slot Machine

Jackpot Party Casino Community. 3,195,585 likes 8,595 talking about this. Play for fun on your favorite WMS GAMING® casino slot machines like ZEUS™ II and Jungle Wild® for free! Jackpot Party Casino Slots is an entertaining casino-style slot game that you can play on your own or with friends via Facebook. Logging in through Facebook brings a greater variety to gameplay. Super fun social play and competition, plus the incredible and newest slot games, Jackpot Crush is your choice, where you can get the advanced online casino slot machine and luckiest online casino.

Slot Machine to Online Slot

Now with WMS’ online version of Super Jackpot Party, you can bring the party home with you—you decide when the party is over. There are a few changes in the game, a result of translating the real life slot game to the online environment, but Super Jackpot Party fans will hardly notice. The company even named their Jackpot Party online casino, which opened in 2011, after the flagship game. That casino carries many of WMS’ most popular titles, including Bruce Lee, Kiss slot, and Star Trek Red Alert. Currently, you can play Super Jackpot Party online through various casinos but to be able to play on your mobile device, you must look for the Jackpot Party app, which gives you access to a whole entourage of WMS games.

On the Reels

The reels in Super Jackpot Party all about the party theme, so the symbols feature party cups, party punch, balloons, presents and disco balls. It’s a total house party and the whole neighborhood is invited! The layout of Super Jackpot Party is pretty much standard, with 20 payline over 5 reels on 3 rows. The number 7 features throughout the reels and the big wins come in when you the jackpot 7s land across the payline on a single row.

Super Jackpot Party includes the randomly or symbol triggered party bonus, where players pick presents for credit awards and the chance at additional bonus rounds, including the Dance Party mini-bonus, Whack-A-Pooper mini-bonus and more. Join the party, pick a present and win up to 20x! Super Jackpot Party Slot Machine. Whenever I head to Las Vegas, I am always pleasantly surprised to see so many people playing Jackpot Party slots and especially, Jackpot Party progressives.

Pick’em Party Bonus

The bonus round in Super Jackpot Party is activated when you get scatters on reels 1, 3 and 5. Keep an eye out for two symbols: the man with the party popper and the party blower. Any combination of the two will activate the “pick ’em” style bonus round where you must pick boxes to reveal cash prizes. Watch out for the party pooper though because he’s the guy who will bring your big bonus party to a crashing end. The only thing that can save you from the pooper is a party favor that will help keep the party rocking. You’ll be happy to know that bonuses come fast and often—enough that you should several during a good session of Super Jackpot Party. The rarified air is where you end up getting anything near the 100x your stake during the bonus round. Now, that would be too sweet.

  • Appendices
  • Slots Analysis
  • Miscellaneous

Introduction

Historically, slot machines have been one of the few casino games that were nearly impossible to analyze without inside information about how an individual game was programmed. Every other casino game is open about its rules so the odds are quantifiable. However, with slots, the player is at the mercy of unknown reel strips. The casino doesn't tell the player the distribution of symbols on the strips, nor how they are weighted for single-line slots. While that doesn't seem to bother most players, it bothers me.

In an effort to break this wall of secrecy, I recorded 212 spins of the game Jackpot Party on my cell phone. Then I went home and hand entered every outcome into a spreadsheet. Finally, I did the math to determine what I was up against. This page shows what I found.

Step One - Data Collection

I decided to study the game Jackpot Party because it is a simple design and typical of the way video slot machines work. The game is somewhat outdated as I write this, but I managed to find a 'classic' penny version at the Wynn on January 24, 2012. Armed with a cell phone camera, I played as fast as possible for eight minutes. I broke for lunch then returned to record another 10 minutes of play. The videos of my play can be found on YouTube:

Jackpot Party part 1
Jackpot Party part 2

When I returned home, I hired my brother in law to record, by hand, the three visible symbols on each reel for all 212 bets in the first video. It turned out that video was enough, and I didn't need the second one.

Step Two - The Reel Strips

To make a long story short, I found that there were only so many different combinations of three symbols on each reel, just as I suspected. To be specific, from the first video I noticed the following number of patterns for reach reel:
  • Reel 1: 26
  • Reel 2: 28 (one of these patterns occurs twice, so 29 total positions on the reel strip)
  • Reel 3: 26
  • Reel 4: 29
  • Reel 5: 26

The 212 spins in the first video were enough to ensure I saw every combination at least once. If I found there was a missing segment in the reel strips, I still had the second video to fall back on, but I never needed it.

The next step was like a jigsaw puzzle. I had to find how the different sequences of three symbols overlapped to form a complete reel. It took a few hours, but I eventually figured it out. A tricky part was that in reel 2 one sequence (blue 7-plum-orange) appears in two separate places.

The following table shows the result of many hours of labor, the complete reel stripping for Jackpot Party.

Jackpot Party Reel Strips

PositionReel 1Reel 2Reel 3Reel 4Reel 5
1CherryOrangeBellBellWatermelon
2Wild FruitBellCherryOrangeCherry
3Green 7PlumJackpot 7Jackpot 7Orange
4PlumGreen 7WatermelonWild FruitBell
5CherryWatermelonPlumOrangeCherry
6Blue 7OrangeCherryWatermelonPlum
7PlumBlue 7Green 7CherryBlue 7
8PartyPlumOrangeBlue 7Orange
9Green 7OrangeBellOrangeBell
10OrangeWatermelonPlumWatermelonPlum
11CherryJackpot 7WatermelonPlumParty
12Blue 7Wild FruitBellGreen 7Green 7
13BellPlumOrangeCherryCherry
14PartyOrangeCherryBellOrange
15PlumBlue 7PartyGreen 7Blue 7
16WatermelonCherryBellPlumParty
17Jackpot 7OrangeBlue 7BellWatermelon
18OrangeBellCherryOrangeCherry
19CherryJackpot 7Wild FruitPlumBlue 7
20Wild FruitCherryOrangeBlue 7Watermelon
21WatermelonBellWatermelonCherryOrange
22OrangePlumBellWatermelonBell
23PlumCherryCherryJackpot 7Green 7
24CherryGreen 7PartyPlumPlum
25BellOrangeWatermelonWatermelonWild Fruit
26Green 7BellOrangeBellJackpot 7
27WatermelonBlue 7
28Blue 7Plum
29PlumCherry

Slot The way multi-line video slots work is they draw random numbers, one for each reel, to determine where on the reel strips to stop. In this case, the game would choose three random integers from 1 to 26 for reels 1, 3 and 5, and two random integers from 1 to 29 for reels 2 and 4. It would then map these random numbers to a position on on the reels.

For example, if the game chose the numbers 10,7,7,3,21 for reels 1 to 5 respectively, and mapped them to the position on the reels on the top row on the screen, then the screen would look like this:

The next table shows the total number of each symbol on each reel.

Jackpot Party Symbol Distribution

SymbolReel 1Reel 2Reel 3Reel 4Reel 5
Jackpot 712121
Green 732122
Blue 723133
Bell24543
Wild Fruit21111
Watermelon23443
Plum45253
Orange36444
Cherry53544
Party20202
Total2629262926

Step Three - The Pay Table

The pay table is easily seen from the rule screens. That is why the first video shows me running through it. There are three types of symbols: the 7s, the fruits, and the bonus. Three to five of the the same colored 7 symbol is a win. In addition, three to five mixed 7 symbols is a lesser win. There are also wins for three to five fruits, but no win for mixed fruits. However, there is a 'wild fruit' symbol, which can substitute for any fruit. The player is also paid for 1 to 5 wild fruit symbols. All sevens and fruit wins are left aligned, meaning that all wins start with the left-most reel. The player is paid the highest award per line.

Following is the complete pay table.

Jackpot Party Slot Machine

Jackpot Party Pay Table

Symbol5 pays4 pays3 pays2 pays1 pays
Jackpot 7500010040
Green 72505025
Blue 72005020
Mixed 7100405
Bell2005020
Wild Fruit2000501052
Watermelon1502510
Plum1502510
Orange50105
Cherry50105

Step Four - Line Pay Math

Jackpot Party Slot Machine

Jackpot Party Slot Machine

The next table shows the number of combinations for each possible win. If you tried to replicate this table it may not come out the same, because some wins can be scored equally two different ways. For example, wild fruit-wild fruit-cherry-blue 7-watermelon wins 5 for either two wild fruit or three cherries. Cells are left blank if they don't produce a win.

The wild symbol and mixed seven wins make a mathematical analysis of line pay wins tedious, complicated, and error prone. In my strong opinion, the safest and easiest way to analyze the line pay wins is to score every possible outcome with five nested loops.

The lower right cell shows the total winning combinations is 1,516,294. There are 26×29×26×29×26 = 14,781,416 total possible combinations in Jackpot Party. That makes the hit frequency per line 1,516,294/14,781,416 = 10.258%. In other words, the probability the player will win something on any given line is 10.3%.

Jackpot Party Line Pay Combinations

Symbol54321Total
Jackpot 74801,1441,228
Green 7242403,4323,696
Blue 7543603,4323,846
Bell4803,68026,00030,160
Wild Fruit22257215,080980,200995,876
Watermelon1,5988,75648,67259,026
Plum2,59014,21263,38880,190
Orange4,37318,333107,952130,658
Cherry4,19817,598103,584125,380
Mixed 75,21016,96064,06486,234
Total18,53380,241422,24015,080980,2001,516,294

The next table shows the probability of each possible win. This is simply the number of combinations in each cell above divided by the total number of combinations of 14,781,416.

Jackpot Party Line Pay Probabilities

Symbol54321Total
Jackpot 70.000000270.000005410.000077390.00008308
Green 70.000001620.000016240.000232180.00025004
Blue 70.000003650.000024350.000232180.00026019
Bell0.000032470.000248960.001758970.00204040
Wild Fruit0.000000140.000001490.000038700.001020200.066313000.06737352
Watermelon0.000108110.000592370.003292780.00399326
Plum0.000175220.000961480.004288360.00542506
Orange0.000295840.001240270.007303220.00883934
Cherry0.000284010.001190550.007007720.00848227
Mixed 70.000352470.001147390.004334090.00583395
Total0.001253800.005428510.028565600.001020200.066313000.10258111

The next table shows the product of each winning probability and what it pays. The lower right cell shows that the player can expect to win 59.60% of his bet per spin from line pays.

Jackpot Party Line Pay Returns

Symbol54321Total
Jackpot 70.001353050.000541220.003095780.00499005
Green 70.000405920.000811830.005804590.00702233
Blue 70.000730650.001217750.004643670.00659206
Bell0.006494640.012448060.035179310.05412201
Wild Fruit0.000270610.000074420.000386970.005101000.132625990.13845899
Watermelon0.016216310.014809140.032927830.06395328
Plum0.026283000.024036940.042883580.09320352
Orange0.014792220.012402740.036516120.06371108
Cherry0.014200260.011905490.035038590.06114435
Mixed 70.035246960.045895470.021670450.10281288
Total0.115993620.124143050.218146890.005101000.132625990.59601056

Step Five - The Bonus

There are two 'party' symbols on reels 1, 3, and 5. If the player gets one on all three reels, then he will play the bonus. Note that the party symbols don't need to be on the same line. It is scored as a 'scatter' symbol, meaning it can be anywhere to get credit for it.

You can see an example of a bonus round at the 3:20 point in the first video.

In the bonus round there are 30 gifts. The player will keep picking gifts and accumulating the money inside them until he selects a 'Party Pooper.' There are six Party Poopers. Even the Party Poopers have a minimum win of 1. The following table shows how all the prizes are distributed. All prizes are relative to the total amount bet on the initiating spin.

Jackpot Party Prizes

PrizeNumber
12
25
31
41
59
103
152
201
Party Pooper + 16
Total30

The next table shows the probability of 0 to 25 picks in the bonus round, including the bonus ending Party Pooper pick. The probability of exactly n picks is permut(24,n-1)×6/permut(30,n), which is the number of ways to pick n-1 successful picks out of 24, times the 6 ways to pick the Party Pooper, divided by the number of ways to pick n items out of 30.

The right column shows the product of the probability and number of picks. The lower right cell is sum of the expected number of picks, which shows the average number of picks is 4.428571.

Number Picks in Bonus

PicksProbabilityExpected
10.2000000.200000
20.1655170.331034
30.1359610.407882
40.1107830.443131
50.0894780.447392
60.0715830.429496
70.0566700.396687
80.0443500.354801
90.0342710.308435
100.0261110.261109
110.0195830.215415
120.0144300.173156
130.0104210.135479
140.0073560.102989
150.0050570.075862
160.0033720.053946
170.0021670.036847
180.0013340.024009
190.0007780.014783
200.0004240.008488
210.0002120.004456
220.0000940.002075
230.0000350.000813
240.0000100.000243
250.0000020.000042
Total1.0000004.428571

By the way, a handy formula for the expected number of picks for the general case of n total icons and p Party Poopers is (n+1)/(p+1). In this case it would be (30+1)/(6+1) = 4.428571.

The total prize money in the bonus is 150. Of that 150, 6 is accompanied with Party Poopers, so 144 of it is what I would call safe money. There are 30-6=24 safe picks. So the average safe pick award is 144/24=6.

As shown above, the average number of total picks is 4.428571. However, one of those is the Party Pooper, so there would be 3.428571 safe picks, on average.

So, the average win before the Party Pooper would be (average win)*(number safe picks) = 6 × 3.428571 = 20.571429. Then add 1 for the Party Pooper consolation prize and the average bonus win is 21.571429.

The bonus is triggered if the player gets the Party symbol anywhere on reels 1, 3, and 5. There are 26 symbols on each of those reels. There are two Party symbols on each odd-numbered reel and three positions visible on each reel. So the probability of a Party symbol on any odd-numbered reel is 2×3/26 = 23.08%. The probability of getting the Party symbol on all three reels is (6/26)3 = 0.0122895, or 1 in 81.4.

The bonus return is (bonus probability)×(average bonus win) = 0.0122895 × 21.571429 = 0.265102.

Step Six — Summary

I've shown that the player can expect to win 59.601% of his bet from line pays and 26.510% from the bonus. Taking the sum, the total return for the game is 86.111%. In other words, the house edge is 13.889%.

An 86% return is pretty low for a slot machine. However, it doesn't come as a surprise to me. This is a penny game in a luxury casino, which both work against a high return. This does not mean that Jackpot Party is always set to 86%. The slot maker, WMS, would have other versions available, letting the slot director choose which program chip, known as an EPROM, to put into the machine.

The purpose of this page was not to embarrass anybody but to show an actual example of how a slot machine works.

More Deconstructions


I have deconstructed lots of slot machines. Here is a list of them:

Jackpot Party Slot Machine Online

  • Deconstructing Jackpot Party analysis of the video slot machine.
  • Deconstructing Lion's Share analysis of the classic MGM progressive game.
  • Deconstructing Cleopatra analysis of the popular IGT game.
  • Deconstructing Lionfish analysis of the slot game found on many Game Maker machines.
  • Deconstructing Megabucks.
  • Deconstructing the Atkins Diet slot machine.
  • Deconstructing Lucky Larry's Lobstermania.
  • Deconstructing Hexbreaker.
  • Deconstructing Blazing Sevens.
  • Deconstructing Hot Roll.

Written by: Michael Shackleford

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