The meter that never stops moving

A running meter is the most persuasive wins display on a page, because it is always rising and never exactly still. It is also the clearest case of a numerator presented without its denominator.

Open the partner account Read a feed in six minutes

Feed stub

Meter reads: 2,400,000.00
Rises: 1,180.00 an hour
Chance: 1 in 1,000,000 spins
Pooled hit: every 31.6 minutes

the barThe multiple a win must reach to be eligible for the display - on the sample, 250 times the stake

the poolThe players and spins the rows were drawn from - on the sample, 4,750 players placing 1,900,000 spins in the hour

the intervalThe hours between one player's own qualifying wins - on the sample, 10.4 hours at 400 spins an hour

Direct answerA jackpot meter shows the size of a pool that grows on every stake and is won on a rare round. On the sample, a pool of 2,400,000.00 rising at 1,180.00 an hour is won once in 1,000,000 spins, so across 1,900,000 spins an hour it falls about every 31.6 minutes somewhere - while one player at 400 spins an hour would wait 2,500 hours, or 24.0 years of two-hour weeks.

What the number on the meter is

The meter is a pool, and a pool is not a prize in the sense a reader usually means. It is funded by the rounds being placed against it, shared when it falls, and occasionally split by the rules of the game rather than by its size.

It grows because you play

A contribution from every qualifying stake is added to the pool, which is why the meter rises while a reader watches. The rise is a transfer from the rounds in progress rather than a growing prize in the sky.

It falls on a rate

One in a million spins, on the sample, regardless of the pool’s size. The meter makes the event look imminent; the rate is what decides when it comes, and the two are unrelated.

It is shared when it falls

A networked pool can be divided between the rounds that hit it, and a larger pool draws more players. The number on the meter is the total to be divided, not a sum a single reader is playing for.

The pace of a pool against the pace of a player

The same rate, counted for the network and for one account, is the clearest single illustration on this desk of what pooling does to a rare event.

A 1-in-1,000,000 event, two waysfor the network
  spins an hour                             1,900,000
  hits an hour                1,900,000 / 1,000,000 = 1.9
  interval between hits      60 / 1.9 = 31.6 minutes

for one player
  spins an hour                                   400
  hours per hit              1,000,000 / 400 = 2,500
  in two-hour weeks          2,500 / 104 = 24.0 years
  minutes of play           2,500 x 60 = 150,000

The meter reads as though the event happens constantly, and for the network it does - twice an hour on 1,900,000 spins. For the reader it is a twenty-four-year wait at an hour a week, and both statements come from the same rate.

The meter’s own arithmetic. A pool of 2,400,000.00 rising at 1,180.00 an hour adds 28,320.00 in a day. None of that is a signal that the pool is due: the rate that makes it fall is fixed in the game’s rules and is independent of how long it has been rising.

Reading a meter in three questions

What is the rate, in spins, of the round that takes the pool? Without it the meter is a number with no clock attached, which is exactly how it is displayed.
Is the pool networked or local? A networked pool is won far more often and divided far more widely, so its pace says nothing about one player’s chance.
What contribution leaves your stake for the pool? That is the price of the chance, and it is stated in the game’s rules rather than on the meter.