Winning Slots Progressive
- Odds Of Winning Progressive Slots
- Winning Slots Progressive Game
- Winning Slots Progressive Jackpots
- Winning Slots Progressive Jackpot
- Winning Slots Progressive Slots
Stand-alone and linked progressives
The Borgata/BetMGM/PartyCasino NJ online casino network runs a linked progressive jackpot on a series of nine WIN Studios slots. The casinos call it The Big One. The Big One progressive jackpot can climb to over $330,000. The Big One linked slots include. This type of progressive projects is pretty important because the gamer has even more chances to win good prizes. The first thing the player should understand about slots with progressive jackpots is that they are pretty fresh and have an exciting gaming process. Progressive slot machines are trendy at online casinos due to the life-changing cash prizes they offer. The best progressive jackpot slots are designed by NetEnt and Microgaming. Progressive slots jackpots like Mega Moolah, Hall of Gods, Mega Moolah Dreams, Arabian Nights, and Cash Splash paid out tens of millions of Euros over the years.
There are basically two types of progressive slots at land-based casinos across the US:
- Stand-alone progressives
- Linked progressives
Stand-alone progressives are single slot machines with a progressive jackpot.
A piece of every dollar put in the machine goes into a progressive jackpot that is contained on that machine. That means only money put in that specific machine goes into that jackpot and only someone playing on that machine can win that jackpot.
Linked progressives are different in that they have a jackpot linked from among multiple machines.
There are area linked progressives that feature multiple slot machines over a defined area feeding into the same single progressive jackpot. The area might include the same slots or group of slots in a single casino or group of casinos.
A piece of every dollar put into these slots goes into a single progressive jackpot that all these slots link to. That means only money put in these slots goes into that jackpot, and only someone playing one of these slots can win it.
Then, there are network-wide linked progressives that feature multiple slot machines over a wide network feeding into the same single progressive jackpot. Network-wide progressives offer the biggest progressive jackpots around.
The network will include the same slots or group of slots at a group of casinos in the same state, group of states or all across the country.
Once again, a piece of every dollar put into these slots goes into a single progressive jackpot. However, more slots over a wider network means more players, more dollars and bigger jackpots. Of course, the same basic jackpot principles apply, meaning only someone playing one of the slots in the network can win the jackpot.
Online stand alone and linked progressives
You’ll also find the stand-alone and linked progressive jackpot slots at online casinos across the US.
Stand-alone online progressives are single online slot games with a progressive jackpot. As with land-based slots, only money that goes into the online slot goes toward the jackpot, and only someone playing that slot can win it.
Linked online progressives feature multiple slots at a single online casino or group of online casinos feeding into the same progressive jackpot. Where the law allows and interstate agreements are in place, these online casinos may even be in different states all feeding into the same progressive jackpot. Once again, the same basic jackpot principles apply.
Popular online progressive jackpot slots in the US
Here’s a look at the five most popular online progressive jackpot slots and linked-progressive slot series in the country:
Divine Fortune
Divine Fortune is at more real money US casinos than any other progressive jackpot slot.
It’s a three-row and five-reel Greek mythology-themed NetEnt-designed slot. Players can win the jackpot via the Jackpot Bonus Game, triggered when you land three or more bonus symbols. Fill the screen with bonus symbols in the Jackpot Bonus Game, and the progressive jackpot is yours.
Divine Fortune is known to have paid out some of the biggest jackpots in US online casino history. In fact, Divine Fortune has awarded more than $3 million in progressive jackpot wins in New Jersey casinos in 2020 alone.
That includes the following five $200,000-plus wins at NJ online casinos:
- $278,802.58 on March 15, 2020, at SugarHouse Online Casino.
- $271,476.08 on June 9, 2020, at Golden Nugget Online Casino.
- $268,223.23 on June 20, 2020, at Hard Rock Online Casino.
- $257,594.00 on Jan. 18, 2020, at Resorts Online Casino.
- $230,552.72 on March 31, 2020, at Hard Rock Online Casino.
The Divine Fortune progressive jackpot was worth over $250,000 on the Borgata/BetMGM/PartyCasino NJ online casino network in mid-2020. Plus, it was once again over $140,000 at Golden Nugget Online Casino and over $120,000 at SugarHouse Online Casino and Betfair Online Casino in New Jersey in mid-2020.
A 40-year-old Lititz, Pennsylvania, man also hit the Divine Fortune progressive jackpot at PlaySugarHouse.com in PA in March 2020, winning $278,430.23. That marked the thirteenth Divine Fortune jackpot at PlaySugarHouse.com in Pennsylvania since its launch in the summer of 2019.
The Divine Fortune progressive jackpot at the BetRivers network in PA was up close to $75,000 in mid-2020.
Mercy of the Gods
Mercy of the Gods is NetEnt’s progressive jackpot slot follow-up to Divine Fortune and is available at a variety of online casinos across the US.
It’s also a three-row and five-reel slot, but Mercy of the Gods features an ancient Egyptian theme.
The jackpot can be won in the Gift of Wealth Bonus Game, triggered when you land three golden heart bonus symbols. Fill the screen with golden heart bonus symbols in the bonus game, and the progressive jackpot is yours.
Players have hit three six-figure jackpots on Mercy of the Gods online in New Jersey:
- $293,839.47 on Feb. 27, 2020, at BetMGM Online Casino.
- $137,351.07 on June 16, 2020, at Borgata Online Casino.
- $131,285.60 on March 27, 2020, at Borgata Online Casino.
The Mercy of the Gods progressive jackpot was also over six figures on the Borgata/BetMGM/PartyCasino NJ online casino network in mid-2020. It was over $40,000 at Golden Nugget Online Casino.
The Mercy of the Gods progressive jackpot on the PlaySugarHouse/BetRivers network in PA was close to $45,000 in mid-2020.
Cleopatra mega jackpots
Cleopatra is an IGT-designed progressive jackpot slot featuring a familiar ancient Egyptian theme. It’s a standard three-row and five-reel slot that is available at a host of online casinos across the US.
You can win the jackpot in the Cleopatra Bonus game, triggered when you land three or more sphinx symbols. The Cleopatra Bonus game includes 15 free spins to start. Land the five Cleopatra symbols during your spins, and the progressive jackpot is yours.
Cleopatra is responsible for awarding one of the largest progressive jackpot win at an online casino in the US. It was a $373,500 jackpot at BetMGM in New Jersey on Feb. 13, 2020.
The Big One
The Borgata/BetMGM/PartyCasino NJ online casino network runs a linked progressive jackpot on a series of nine WIN Studios slots. The casinos call it The Big One. The Big One progressive jackpot can climb to over $330,000.
The Big One linked slots include:
- MGM Grand Millions
- Loot’EnKhamun
- Biker Pigs
- Going Nuts
- Melon Madness
- Book of Myths
- Spin Bandit
- The Win Genie
- Luck o’ the Jackpot
Chances at The Big One jackpot are awarded randomly on these slots. You are suddenly taken to a Big One jackpot screen where there’s a list of five progressive jackpots and a color wheel.
You spin the wheel, and it changes colors until randomly stopping on one. Every color corresponds to one of the five jackpots.
888 Jackpots
888 Online Casino in NJ has a series of linked progressive jackpot slots with a progressive jackpot that can climb to more than $1 million. The exclusive-to-888 slots include:
- Aztec Realm
- Mermaid’s Millions
- Oktoberfest Spins
- Rise of the Pharaohs
- Santa’s Super Slot
- Saved by the Bells
The games award the jackpot randomly. No matching symbols are required. However, bet size matters, and different bet sizes win different size jackpots. That means the big progressive jackpot is only in play with max bets.
Return-to-player rates and progressive jackpot slots
Normally, you look at a slot’s return-to-player rate to determine its volatility and playability. A slot’s RTP is the percentage of cash it takes in that it will theoretically pay back to players. A slot with a 99% RTP will eventually pay out 99 cents of every dollar it takes in.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get back $99 out of every $100 you put in the game. However, it does mean someone eventually will. It could be you or some other player who catches the slot at the right time. In other words, a slot’s RTP is realized over the long haul, not session by session or spin by spin.
The slot’s house edge is the other side of RTP. That means a slot with a 99% RTP has a 1% house edge. That is, the casino ultimately makes a profit of one cent from every dollar put in the game. The higher the RTP and lower the house edge, the less volatile and therefore more playable a slot is.
However, you can throw all that out the window when it comes to progressive jackpot slots.
For the most part, progressive jackpot slots have low RTPs because so much of the money that players put into the game is siphoned off for the progressive jackpot slot.
That means most progressive jackpot slots are considered highly volatile. However, they’re still playable, because playing progressive jackpot slots is not about chasing more frequent, though smaller, payouts.
Instead, playing progressive jackpot slots is about taking your shot at the progressive jackpot. That means, when it comes to playing progressive jackpot slots, you can pretty much ignore the RTP and simply go for it.
Max bet is usually required to qualify for a jackpot
Slots are a game of luck, not skill. Therefore, there is no strategy players can employ to help them win a progressive jackpot. There are no guarantees you’ll ever hit the progressive jackpot, no matter how much money you put into a slot.
The odds are stacked against you in a big way. In fact, you’re going to need an astronomical amount of luck to win a progressive jackpot. That said, you also have to put yourself in position to get lucky. When it comes to progressive jackpot slots, that means making the maximum bet.
You should probably be betting the max on all online slots. This is particularly true when it comes to playing online slots with a progressive jackpot. The thing is, if you bet anything less than the maximum bet, you’re likely not even eligible to win the progressive jackpot.
If your goal isn’t to try to win the progressive jackpot, there are plenty of other slots more suitable for you. If you’re playing a slot with a progressive jackpot, it just makes sense to try and go after it. You simply have to play the maximum credits allowed to get access to the most paylines, bonus games, and the progressive jackpot.
Progressive jackpot slot strategy
Let’s face it, slots aren’t exactly strategy games. Particularly when you’re playing progressive jackpot slots, you’re trying to get lucky, and there is no strategy on earth that can help you do that.
That said, you must put yourself in a position to get lucky or you never will.
With progressive jackpot slots, that usually means making the maximum bet on every spin. In fact, to be eligible to win the jackpot on most progressive jackpot slots you must bet the maximum.
Check with the rules of each game to make sure that’s the case. If it is, and you understand playing progressive jackpot slots should be about taking your shot at the jackpot, anything else would be a waste of your time and money.
If you’re trying to book small wins instead, you should play low-volatility slots with high RTPs.
The thing is, chasing sizable progressive jackpots with life-changing money isn’t cheap. Maximum bets add up fast. Add in the fact there’s no guarantee you’ll ever win that jackpot, and you’re going to need to be careful. That means following the principles of a responsible gambling strategy.
Responsible gambling involves setting limits and sticking to them. Only play with money you can afford to lose, and when that’s gone, you have to quit. Show some discipline, don’t chase losses and you’ll survive to take a shot at that progressive jackpot again when you can play with another chunk of cash you can afford to lose.
Ultimately, this will help keep playing progressive jackpot slots a fun pursuit you do with disposable income. You’ll limit your losses and be able to take another shot at that progressive jackpot some other day.
Know your limits, stay within it
The reality is you’re more than likely going to rack up heavy losses chasing progressive jackpots online. That money in the jackpot has to come from somewhere. In fact, it’s being funded with every losing spin you and others make.
Mindlessly spinning away making maximum bets on a progressive jackpot slot can prove costly over time. Since there’s no guarantee you’re ever going to win, following responsible gambling principles and some proper bankroll management strategies can prevent you from getting in over your head.
Online gamblers should always set a limit of how much they can afford to lose in a particular session and stick to it. The key is making it a number that won’t have an effect on your life.
Applying this kind of common sense to managing your gambling bankroll can definitely help you limit your losses. Plus, that will make sure you can stay in the game long enough for you to get lucky.
If you lose the money you’ve limited yourself to, accept that today is not your day and simply walk away. Show some discipline. Do not chase your losses, and perhaps things will turn around when you return to play another day.
When it comes to slot machines, you have two broad categories. There are flat top slot machines, and there are progressive slot machines.
A flat-top slot machine is more common, and it’s a game where the top prize is a fixed amount. 1,000 coins is a common prize, but it varies by machine.
Progressive slot machines, on the other hand, have top prizes (jackpots) that grow over time until they’re hit. They can be compared to lottery games in that respect. You know how the lottery gets bigger every week if there was no winner the previous week? Hitting the progressive on jackpot on real money slot machines is just like that.
How Big Does the Jackpot Get on a Progressive Slot Machine?
The obvious first question is, how big does the jackpot on a progressive slot machine get? The answer is that it varies based on the game.
You can find progressive jackpots that rival lottery prizes in size. The Megabucks slots in Nevada have the biggest progressive slot machine jackpot in the world. The jackpot starts at $10 million and grows until someone hits it.
When I wrote this post, the jackpot was at $15 million and growing. The biggest the jackpot ever got was in 2003, when it had risen to almost $40 million before getting hit. It’s also gotten as big as $35 million before being hit, too. But that’s on the outside end of the spectrum.
Progressive jackpots can also be much smaller, depending on the casino and the specific game. You can find plenty of progressive jackpots on the other end of the spectrum, too. Online progressives can be as low as $500 or $600.
The advantage to lower-sized progressive jackpots is that you’re more likely to win one. The odds of winning something like Megabucks are astronomically small.
What Does a Progressive Jackpot Do to the Expected Return?
If you’re not familiar with the expression, the “expected return” for a slot machine is the percentage of the money you get back in the long run when playing the machine. It’s expressed as a percentage, and it’s always less than 100%.
Odds Of Winning Progressive Slots
Here’s what that means: If you have a slot machine with an expected total return of 94%, you expect to get back 94 cents for every dollar you put into the machine.
If you’re an average slot machine player, you might make 500 spins per hour. If you’re playing for a dollar per spin, you’re putting $500 through the machine per hour.
94% of $500 is $470, which means you’ll lose an average of $30 per hour on that machine.
That’s no guarantee, by the way. That’s an average you can expect in the long run, over dozens of hours. In the short term, you might see an hour or a session where you were up $30 or even $300. You might see other hours or sessions where you lost $60 or $120 or even more. That’s why it’s random.
The Size of the Jackpot Has an Effect on the Actual Return
The actual return on a machine is the actual amount you get back. This is opposed to the theoretical return on the machine, which is what most people mean when they talk about expected return.
But when you’re dealing with a jackpot that has such a low probability of being hit, its theoretical return might as well be zero. After all, if the probability is so close to zero that you might not expect to hit it in a lifetime of play, it might as well not even count.
Megabucks is a good example. The odds of winning the jackpot are about 1 in 50,000,000. How long would it take to make 50,000,000 spins on Megabucks?
At 500 spins per hour, you’re looking at 100,000 hours of play. If you played Megabucks 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year, you’d get in 2,000 hours of play. That’s 50 years of playing Megabucks as a full-time job.
No one I know would want to spend 50 years playing for that jackpot. So, you might as well subtract the expected value for the jackpot from the overall expected return for the game.
Usually, this means that the expected return for a big progressive jackpot is effectively lower than it would be if you were playing a flat top slot machine game.
What Kinds of Progressive Jackpot Slot Machines Are There?
I mentioned before that I like to categorize things, and I’ve found that categorizing progressive slot machines is easy. You have three types:
- Individual machines
- Local area-networked machines
- Wide area-networked machines
Winning Slots Progressive Game
An individual machine with a progressive jackpot has a jackpot that grows as you play it. The jackpot also grows when someone else plays it. But it doesn’t grow when it’s not being played. A percentage of each bet “fuels” that jackpot, so the jackpot ticker doesn’t move when no one is playing the game.
It’s a jackpot ticket for an individual machine. Local area-networked machines are slot machines in a single casino and sometimes in the same bank where your play on any of the networked machines that fuels the jackpot. When someone on any of the networked machines wins, the jackpot resets to its original amount.
Winning Slots Progressive Jackpots
Generally, the gambling games with the biggest jackpots are wide area machines, and the games with the smallest jackpots are the individual machines.
What Happens When You Gamble and Win a Jackpot?
First, the machines don’t pay out immediately in coins when you win a progressive jackpot. Such a payoff would be impractical.
Winning Slots Progressive Jackpot
A flashing light usually goes off on a progressive jackpot machine when it’s hit, and a slot machine attendant will visit you. The casino will set things up for you so that you get paid. If it’s a huge jackpot like Megabucks, it’s similar to winning the lottery.
You don’t just get a check handed to you. But you do get paid. Also, keep in mind that gambling winnings are taxable income. The casino will provide you with an earnings report. You should keep a diary of your gambling expenses so that if you do win big, you can defray at least some of the taxes you owe with these expenses.
Winning Slots Progressive Slots
You can’t defray expenses unless you’re a winning player, though, and you can never claim more in losses than you’ve won in a calendar year.
This is true for any United States casinos, and it applies to any winnings at the casino over a specific amount. Small wins like $50 are no big deal and don’t get reported, but once you get into progressive jackpot territory, they definitely get reported.
How Do You Win Progressive Jackpot Casino Slot Machines?
There’s no magic trick to winning at progressive slots. They’re like the lottery. No amount of superstition or astrology can help you win. You just have to get lucky.
It also doesn’t matter where the slot machine is located in the casino. For years, people have suggested that the loosest slot machines are the ones nearest the walkways in the casinos, but that’s just one of the common casino myths. It might have had some basis in truth at one time. But as far as I know, no casino or casino manager makes it that easy to spot the “loose” progressive slots.
Conclusion
Hitting the jackpot with progressive slot machines is something most of us will never achieve. If you do become a progressive jackpot winner, it will probably be on one of the games with the smaller jackpots—the individual machines.
Still, it’s fun to watch the jackpot ticker grow constantly, and it’s even more fun to daydream about what you’re going to do when you win all that money.