Every so often you hear of some lucky person winning a life-changing amount of money playing online slots. While you can win a reasonable sum playing slots, it’s the slots with progressive jackpots that offer the huge cash prizes, which can be six, seven or even eight figures.
Of course, the chances of winning such huge, life-changing amounts of money are extremely low, but landing such a win isn’t impossible. So just what are progressive jackpots?
How progressive jackpots work
Most slots have a jackpot whose cash prize is a fixed amount of money. No matter how much you play or wager, this amount of money won’t change. If a slot has a progressive jackpot, the cash prize grows every time a player makes a wager.
A small amount of money from the wager, usually 1% of its total amount, goes towards the progressive jackpot. The remaining 99% of the wager is used as normal. If several people are playing the same progressive jackpot at the same time, all of their wagers will contribute to the jackpot.
The jackpot keeps on growing until a player wins it. The more players have placed wagers, the higher the jackpot will get. The requirements needed to win the jackpot will vary depending on the game you’re playing. No matter what progressive jackpot you’re playing, if you win, the cash prize is awarded to you and the pool of money is reset to zero.
Sometimes, however, the jackpot is reset to a certain low amount of money (for example, $10). This is to encourage other players to make wagers.
Different types of progressive jackpots
In traditional land-based casinos, there are three main types of progressive jackpots. There are single-machine jackpots that can be played by only one person at a time; the cash prizes at these machines are therefore quite low.
Then there are jackpots with more than one machine in the same casino linked in; the cash prizes are generally bigger, as there are more players making wagers, but the chances of winning are lower.
Finally, there are some progressive jackpots that are linked to many machines in different casinos; these can offer the biggest cash prizes as there can be hundreds of people wagering on them at any given time.
As for online slots, there are games that have their own progressive jackpot and games that share a progressive jackpot with numerous other games at the same casino or even across numerous casinos.
There are no restrictions on how many people can play an online game at the same time. You should therefore find that cash prizes at online progressive jackpots rise much more quickly than the cash prizes at traditional, land-based casinos.
Finding slots with progressive jackpots
There are countless online slots available to play online, but it’s important to mention that not every one of them offers progressive jackpots. A lot of casinos have so many slots that they organise them by type to help players find the ones they want more easily.
If a casino does have progressive jackpots, you should be able to find them easily enough as they’ll be listed under the ‘jackpots’ or ‘progressive jackpots’ tab. It’s also not uncommon for a casino to advertise its progressive jackpots, along with the current cash prize total, on its homepage.
Your chances of winning
Generally speaking, your chances of winning a progressive jackpot are incredibly slim. The chances of landing a big win do vary depending on the slot, of course, but it’s safe to say if you’re going to win such a large amount of money, you have to be very lucky indeed.
In fact, you stand a better chance of winning the lottery! A general tip for playing these games is that you should place the highest bet possible, otherwise you might not be eligible for the top prize.
Most popular games
There are hundreds of progressive jackpots waiting to be played (and maybe even won). One of the most popular ones is the African-themed MegaMoolah, which at the time of writing had a total jackpot of just over £1 million.
This particular slot, developed by MicroGaming, has made several multi-millionaires in its time. This is no surprise really, since the jackpot is nearly always six or seven figures. Another popular one to try is Gladiator by Playtech Casinos, which you can find at William Hill.
Based on the film of the same name, this slot features scenes from the film. It also showcases some of the film’s shooting locations during the bonus rounds. Another Playtech Casinos slot available at William Hill is Funky Fruits. This is a farm-themed slot that pays out some really .huge cash prizes. In fact, it pays out prizes of seven figures once every three months or so!
Conclusion
These are just a few of the most popular – and biggest – progressive jackpots available to play today. These games are loads of fun thanks to their great theming and high-quality graphics and sounds effects. Remember to always keep track of how much you’re spending when playing them. After all, you don’t want to end up spending money you don’t have. Having said all that, you never know, the next big winner could well be you.