Progressive Slots Online
Have you seen the advertisements for slot machines with jackpots worth hundreds of thousands, or even millions? Possibly you’ve seen web sites or programs that track the top progressive slots amounts.
Many slot machines have set jackpot amounts, but the ones that generate the highest top prizes are progressive slots. Progressive jackpots grow until someone is lucky enough to win. The higher the jackpot climbs, the more attention it brings to the game and it often make it climb faster.
This is similar to what happens when a big lottery climbs into the hundreds of millions. As the top prize goes up, more people are willing to wager a little for the chance to win a life changing amount.
How Progressive Slot Machines Work
Progressive slot machines start with a top jackpot amount that resets to the same level after a player wins the top prize. This is sometimes called a floor. The floor amount varies from progressive machine to machine.
The basic way a progressive jackpot works is that a small part of each bet made on the slot machine goes toward the top prize. The exact amount of each wager varies, and not every company discloses the exact amount.
Here’s an example:
A progressive slot machine starts with the top award amount of $100,000. 10% of everything that gets wagered on the machine goes toward the jackpot. This means that if players make bets totaling $100,000, $10,000 of it is added to the progressive.
In this case the progressive amount climbs to $110,000. The more money that gets wagered on the game before someone hits the jackpot the higher the jackpot climbs.
If players make bets totaling $1,000,000, $100,000 is added to the jackpot.
The basic way that progressive slots work is the same whether you’re playing one in a land based casino or online. But a few things are different.
When you play a progressive slot machine online the software platform of the machine usually runs the progressive part of the game. This means that it doesn’t matter which online casino you’re playing at, as long as it uses the same software provider as another casino where someone else is playing.
A portion of every bet on the same machine at different online casinos using the same software goes toward the progressive. This is similar to the way a wide area progressive works on land based machines.
A wide area progressive is a term used in land based casinos when the same slot machine operating in many different casinos shares the same progressive jackpot. You can also find local area progressives where just a group of machines in a particular casino share a progressive.
You can find a few stand alone machines that have their own progressive, but these are rare, and the top prize grows at a slow rate in comparison to local and wide area networked machines.
It’s also possible to find a group of different slot machines online that share a progressive across a single software platform or online casino. This isn’t widely used in the industry.
It can be somewhat confusing to follow the many different ways progressive slots works, but the good news is you don’t need to understand any more than how much you can win and what combination of symbols are required to take home the top prize.
Where to Find Progressive Slot Games
You can find progressive slot games at most online casinos and in most land based casinos. The most popular casinos tend to have more progressive slots than many of the smaller ones.
We’ve reviewed the top online progressive slot machines. You can read through our reviews to find games with big jackpots or you can visit any of the casinos we recommend to find their progressive games.
Not every progressive machine is equal. This goes beyond the current jackpot amount. Different games have different features, different minimum bets, and different chances to win.
You can learn more about what to look for when searching for a progressive slot machine in the next section. But the important thing to know is that you have a wide range of options. Check out many different machines to find the ones that fit your gambling budget and have the features that you enjoy.
Warnings about Progressives
The most important thing to know about progressive slots is that most machines require you to have all of the pay lines activated and that you bet the maximum amount per spin. If you don’t do both of these things you can’t win the progressive jackpot.
This often creates a base bet per spin that’s larger than the ones available on other slot machines. You can find progressive machines with bet ranges of $1 or less, but most of them have total bets of $2 or more per spin.
Your budget and how long you want to play dictates how much you should play per spin, but make sure you consider the amount you need to bet to be eligible for the jackpot before you start playing. You can play most lotteries around the world for a couple bucks, but when you’re betting $2 or more per spin you can quickly burn through hundreds chasing the jackpot.
Progressive Slots Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ
Can a Progressive Jackpot be Due?
Progressive jackpots are never due. The chances of hitting the jackpot are statistically the same on every spin you take. It doesn’t matter if the jackpot hasn’t been hit for months, or even years.
Won’t it be a Long Time before another Jackpot is Hit after a Player Wins One?
Just like the answer to the last question, your chance of hitting the jackpot is the same the spin before it gets hit as it is on the spin after it gets hit. The only difference is the amount you can win.
Can a Jackpot Get So Big that a Slot Machine has Positive Expectation?
Most slot machine players understand that the casino makes money from their slot machines. This means that most slots players lose money in the long run.
Slot machines are designed so they pay back a certain percentage of the money wagered on them and keep a certain percentage for the casino. The pay back percentage ranges from as low as a couple percent to over 10%.
As progressive jackpots climb it’s possible that the payout can reach a point where the expectation for a machine is positive for the player. The problem is that many software providers don’t publish the payback percentage so it’s impossible to calculate the amount the jackpot needs to reach for this to happen.
It also doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to make money when it happens. In the long run, the only way most players have a real chance to make a profit playing slots is by hitting a big jackpot.
Most of us dream of hitting a huge jackpot and how the money could change our lives. It’s a long shot to win the top prize on a progressive slot machine, but it’s worth taking a shot from time to time, just like buying a lottery ticket.
