How Do Progressive Jackpots Work?

The concept

Progressive slots are the most played slot games these days, and you will find progressive jackpots in almost all the casinos. They provide a win-win situation for the house and the players as they are profitable to both.

The best thing about an online progressive slot is that each time a player plays these slots from any part of the world, the prize pool grows! Once someone wins the jackpot, the machines will be reset automatically to a fixed minimum value. Slots can be played by anyone at any time across the world and this leads to the prize pool growing faster.

Progressive slot machines - an introduction

A progressive slot machine is a part of a network. All machines in the network are interlinked so that a percentage of the money accumulated on all the slot machines is offered as a prize to the players.

If there are 10 progressive slot machines, the prize money is raised each time a player enters the loop. A percentage of the amount a player puts in is then collected and the sum of all these amounts is offered as a pot. As the pool size increases, so does the prize to be won. This implicitly means that the owner has nothing to lose; he is just offering the money that the machines have collected from the players.

Progressive slot machine types

There are basically three types of progressive slot machines you can find - proprietary slots, wide area slots and stand-alone slots.

Proprietary progressive slots:

Also referred to as “in-house progressives”, these types of slot machines are both owned and operated by the website where you play. They are said to be the most widely played slots online. Sometimes this slot machine software is installed separately or clubbed with other software designed by the same gambling website. The slot machines are connected to a network of slots inside a single site.

Wide area progressive slots:

Wide area slots are just the opposite of proprietary slot machines. These slots are linked with other slots in a network of various gambling sites. The prize pool is as a result based on the interlinked slot machines operated by many different websites.

This obviously makes for a huge pool and a player who hits it wins big money. It is usually independent operators who run these types of slots; gaming companies are unlikely to do so.

Stand alone progressive slots:

These slots work in a slightly different way than the usual progressive slots as the machines are not linked to one another and there is no network of machines. However they still fall into the progressive category. The prize money is calculated by adding a percentage of the money invested in the game to the highest winning combo jackpot. These slots usually display the amount of your prize money with a measure meter on the panel in the front.