Tuesday, March 25, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Throughout Nevada, silver dollars are rapidly being fed into hundreds of progressive slot machines and the jackpot climbs. Megabucks was at $10.4 million Tuesday morning and gaining rapidly on the third-place record jackpot of $10.9 million.
"History would tell you that it's getting close," said Ed Rogich, spokesman for International Game Technology, which manufactures Megabucks. "We're seeing a lot more play, but it's not frenzied yet."
The record was set last January when a Honolulu postal worker, John Tippin, lined up four Megabucks symbols on the machine's bottom pay line and won the world's largest slot jackpot - $11.9 million - at the Las Vegas Hilton.
After each jackpot, the slot machines are reset to $5 million and the dollar feeding begins anew. No one knows when the next big jackpot will pay out because of the random setting of the slot machines.
Historically, Megabucks pays out about four times a year, and that has slot players doing some strange things in hopes of getting lucky.
Some will bless the slot machine with the sign of the cross, Rogich said. Others will tap it in four different places or vow only to use the machine's old-fashioned handle instead of the electronic button, he said.
"Everybody's got their quirks, just like pro athletes who want to wear their lucky socks every time they play," Rogich said.
Megabucks is one of nine progressive slot systems in Nevada operated by IGT. Other systems include Dollars Deluxe, Quartermania and Nevada Nickels.
Megabucks links more than 740 slot machines in 133 casinos throughout the state. Jackpots are paid in annual installments over 20 years. If the winner should die, the money goes to his or her heirs.
Each time Megabucks reaches the $10 million mark, activity jumps, and at least once created such excitement that people waited in line to play.
Although the lines have yet to form this time around, the slot machines are once again among the most popular. At McCarran International Airport, the 28 Megabucks machines have seen double the normal activity, said slot General Manager Patricia Ross.
Separate Megabucks systems also operate in Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Atlantic City and Macao, near Hong Kong. Another Megabucks system connects Indian casinos throughout the United States.
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