Slots Progressive Jackpots

One of the most popular features in online slots is the progressive jackpot. For players who have one goal in mind – winning the biggest prize possible – the progressive jackpot is the best way to land a big score. In fact, almost all of the largest prizes offered by casinos (both online and offline) are awarded through progressive slots jackpots.

What is a Progressive Jackpot?

A progressive jackpot is any casino jackpot that progressively grows in size as players continue to play a game, but fail to win that jackpot. While these jackpots are most often associated with slot machines, they can also be connected to video poker machines, table games, or other casino games. For instance, one of the most popular progressive jackpots in most casinos is attached to the side bet on Caribbean Stud Poker.

However, slots are definitely the most popular avenue for pursuing progressive jackpots. In a progressive slot, each time a player plays that machine, a portion of their bet goes towards funding the progressive jackpot. This means that each time any player plays the machine, the jackpot grows. If you watch a progressive jackpot slot, you’ll see the jackpot size prominently displayed; on a popular machine, the jackpot amount will consistently rise until a player hits it.

When a player does win a progressive jackpot, the jackpot amount resets to a seed amount – the basic amount that the casino puts in to start the jackpot. This amount, combined with the difficulty of hitting the jackpot, is what ultimately determines the typical size of jackpots won on a progressive slot.

This is why progressive jackpots can range in size from very small to very large. A casino can decide to have a jackpot that’s relatively easy to hit (as jackpots go) and start it with a small seed, resulting in a jackpot that may be hit fairly often for a few thousand dollars at a time. On the other end, you have jackpots that start with seeds of hundreds of thousands of dollars and are likely to go years on average before being hit; these produce jackpots that can be worth several million dollars.

How to Win a Progressive Jackpot

There are several different ways to win a progressive jackpot. The traditional method is by hitting a specific set of symbols on the reels to trigger the game’s largest prize. However, to win the full progressive jackpot, you’ll normally need to bet the maximum amount of money allowed on that particular machine (though we’ve outlined a couple of the exceptions to that rule below). In many cases, betting fewer than the maximum coins means that you can only win a much smaller fixed prize if you hit the “winning” symbols; in others, betting fewer coins only makes you eligible to win a small percentage of the jackpot amount.

In addition, many multiline slots require players to hit the winning symbols on a particular payline (usually either the first or last line) in order to qualify for the jackpot, with other paylines offering smaller rewards. For instance, a 20-line progressive slot may stipulate that the jackpot can only be won on the 20th line – thus insuring that you must play all 20 lines in order to win the jackpot.

Random Progressive Jackpots

Another type of progressive jackpot that has been gaining in popularity is the random jackpot. In a random jackpot, there are no symbols you need to look for in order to win the progressive jackpot; in fact, even an otherwise losing spin can trigger it. Every spin has a chance of ending in a jackpot, with your odds of winning a jackpot typically increasing with the size of your bet. One of the most popular aspects of these jackpots is the fact that even betting a single coin on a single payline gives you a chance – albeit a small chance – to win a huge prize.

Often, random progressive jackpots actually have several different prizes available to win. A typical game might offer three or four different jackpots, each with a different name: for instance, a machine might have a Mini Jackpot, a Minor Jackpot, and a Major Jackpot. Of course, the smaller jackpots are triggered far more often than the largest one.

Bonus Round Progressive Jackpots

Many games offering multiple jackpots feature an additional bonus round that must be played when the progressive jackpot is triggered (whether randomly or through a combination of symbols). Heading into these bonus games, the player will only know that they’ve won a jackpot; which jackpot will be determined through playing the game.

These bonus rounds come in many forms, but the basic structure usually follows one of two paths. In some cases, the player is prompted to pick between various hidden choices, revealing which jackpot they will win. In others, the game will follow a tiered format, in which players must clear various stages in order to win progressively larger jackpots. In these games, only players making it to the final stage will have a chance to win the main jackpot.