Progressive Jackpots New Rule

The press recently reported that casinos in Atlantic City revised their rule concerning progressive jackpots. It permits casinos to terminate it and to keep all cash accrued. Before this change, players who wagered at land-based casinos thought a portion of a progressive jackpots belonged to them. A proportion of their wagering counted toward building the jackpot.

The new rules state’s that casinos will from henceforth give the public 30 days’ notice and should there be no winner of the progressive jackpots, it’s within the casino’s right to cancel the jackpot. Previous rules compelled casinos to transfer the jackpots to other progressives.

Because of this new rule, casinos will from now on be allowed to rid themselves of underperforming slot brands and also increase the odds of winning progressive jackpots from 50 million to 100 million to 1. In addition to this, a casino is not required to pay for a slot jackpot that has been cancelled. As of Tuesday this week, Atlantic City casinos can keep the cash that players would have received in case they won those jackpots. These new changes are only applicable to progressive slots within a casino, this has opened a can of worms and many patrons have voiced their concerns.

Josh Lichtblau, Director of New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement said, the new rule is structured in such a manner that it enables casinos to change the themes of their slot machines as they please and this is not conducive to players. The last few years neighbouring casinos to Atlantic City snatched up a third of its casinos’ profits.

These new rules instigated by the Division, aid casino operators who say that the old rules are outdated, expensive and had many limitations. He goes further and stated that casinos are not allowed to play “bait-and-switch” with slot machines; therefore they are not allowed to accrue jackpots and then cancel it. The moment a progressive jackpot’s theme has been cancelled it’s over.

In 1992, New Jersey permitted casinos to cancel progressive jackpots for the first time. A staggering $16.6 million have been cancelled by casino operators for the first three months alone, in effect keeping every single sent. It wasn’t long before this rule got scrapped and casinos were forced to transfer progressive jackpots to other progressive games.

Chief financial officer of Trump Entertainment Resorts, David Hughes said he doubts if casinos would utilise the cancelation rule, since jackpots make it more alluring to players and casinos would rather see that players are content and happy. He said, “It’s not done for the money only. Players won’t complain and the moment you have unsatisfied customers, they leave your casino’s premises not to return again costing the casino in revenue in the long run.”