Record jackpot awaits the right $3 bet

Tuesday, July 28, 1998 | 2:03 a.m.

When it comes to the record yearlong buildup of the Megabucks jackpot without a winner, just about everyone has a theory.

One is circulating through northern Nevada casinos to explain why nobody has won the progressive payoff since July 13, 1997, when a Megabucks slot machine coughed up $8.3 million.

Experts who watched Monday as the world-record jackpot reached $18.7 million are convinced one or possibly more gamblers have pulled handles on Megabucks slots this year and seen the reels line up in grand-prize winning position.

But they hadn't bet the full $3.

"I think it probably hit somewhere without maximum coin," said Rick Martinez, slot boss at Verdi's Boomtown Hotel Casino. "You usually hear rumors."

If someone hit Megabucks with less than three coins, IGT wouldn't know it, the casino wouldn't publicize it and the gambler probably wouldn't talk about it.

"I wouldn't announce it," Martinez said.

At IGT, the Megabucks computer signals only a full jackpot payoff. The computer reads anything else as routine.

"I've heard stories. I heard it was hit in Las Vegas. I've heard it's been short-coined," said Dexter Phelps, slot chief at the Reno Hilton.

Megabucks slots are three-coin machines. That's how much you need to bet for the big payoff. If you hit Megabucks but put only one or two coins in the machine, you'll win.

However, the payoff will be a lot less than $18.7 million - usually from $5,000 to $10,000, depending on the machine.

The record payoff is $12.5 million, won April 14, 1997 at New York New York Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. Megabucks hit three months later at the Tahoe Biltmore.

Since then, there's been nothing.

"I have no doubt it's hit since July 13th last year," said Nadine Crawford of Reno-based International Game Technology, which created Megabucks in 1987.

Crawford said Megabucks usually hits two or three times a year. But this isn't the first time the system has run dry for a long period.

The initial Megabucks jackpot was hit Feb. 1, 1987, and the next one didn't come for more than a year, Feb. 14, 1988.

But Steve McCauley, slot boss at downtown Reno's Silver Legacy Resort Casino, supports Crawford's coin theory.

It's happened before, said McCauley, who recalled a Megabucks hit in 1995 when he was working at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas by a customer who bet less than $3. Recently, McCauley watched a gambler making $1 bets on Megabucks.

"It just confirmed my suspicion," McCauley said.