So you wake up and find you're in hell. You know it's a mistake because your mother has told you you're a good person. Over the hill comes the Devil, with a devilish grin on his face. He says "I'm afraid a mistake has been made you shouldn't be here. We can fix that, though. You just have to complete this task I'm going to give you and when you're finished, you can leave".

You're feeling much relieved, when the Devil takes you to the only video poker machine in Hell. It's an old one, doesn't play very fast. "Your task" he says "is to hit a royal flush on this machine". You feel pretty confident, as you have hit several royal flushes just in the past year. As he walks away, he decides to amend his challenge a bit. "Make that in Hearts" he says. He walks a bit further and over his shoulder mumbles "in Sequence". As he disappears over the hill, he whispers a final condition; you can bearly hear him, but you're sure he says "on the Redraw".

You were pretty confident you would be back home, playing video poker in your favorite casino in a day or two. If it's a fair machine, how long will it really take? By the way, on this old, slow machine, you'll be able to play about 200 hands an hour .

Condensed and rephrased from "The Secret World of Video Poker Progressives", by Frank Kneeland, 2010.

It's a much better story in the book, and takes about a page to tell.

I have never given much thought to slot progressives in the years I've played. This book tells all, both about progressives, and about the teams that used to be common in Nevada to find and take advantage of aging progressives. If you play VP, you should probably read this book!