You are not the only one who thinks that 0.5 usd is a lot of money, but seeing that slots are so exclusive, when you make that bet you forget a little what you have, because what is different about slots is that at any moment those 0.5USD can be converted quickly up to 120USD or even more, from a good selection of slots at least for me the favorites are those of practmatic Play, I don't know what the most veterans think, but it seems to me that that is where there are the greatest chances of gain.
Pragmatic is pretty much popular because of its buy-in feature with a selection of medium volatility slots, most of streamer loves slots from this provider, especially Madam Destiny. I've seen lots of youtubers maxing bonus multiplier with this Madam Destiny slots, hacksaw and No-limit is quite good too but most of their slots are at extreme volatility.
With the 0.5 USD bet to crash, I can say it is quite high for a minimum bet requirement for a small-time player like me but who knows, the host maybe have a good plan for that but I think it shouldn't be the concern since it all depends on the bankroll funds, we can always skip this contest if our bankroll can't support our target number of bets with the given bet requirement and find another contest that we think our budget is enough to give us ample chance to hit high multipliers.