Playing progressive slots online has become immensely popular in a relatively short space of time. Online progressive slot jackpots have created a real buzz among more and more online gamblers, as the pots grow larger, faster, all because of the simultaneous effect on the bottom line as many players try to hit the jackpot.
The term progressive slots is used in reference to a slot machine (both at online casinos and land casinos) that starts out with a jackpot win value of a certain amount and increases with each coin that is played.
The amount of the jackpot is constantly determined by the total amount of coins and increases continually with each sequence of plays, sometimes reaching gigantic proportions (hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars). Progressive slot machines in general require that you play the maximum number of coins in order to qualify for the progressive jackpot win.
Progressive slot machines were brought into the market pretty much as a marketing tactic. Since they advertise the possibility of winning very large jackpots, slots lovers and gamblers in general are drawned to them like flies to honey. The casinos are working the progressive win into the expected wins for the machine.
This large potential win skews the numbers a great deal. A machine with a large payout on a progressive win can easily have a 97% return rate if you calculate the progressive payout into the expected return percentage.
The fact of the matter is though that 99% of the people who play that machine will be paid out at a very crappy percentage, and the 1 lucky guy who wins the jackpot will be paid at an astronomically high percentage, the two percentages just happen to even out to 97%.
The Stand-Alone Progressive or Local Area Networks.
The stand-alone progressive machine is not linked to any other machines.Instead of having a fi xed top jackpot it takes a percentage of the coins played and adds that to the award for the highest winning combination.It has a meter on the front of the machine that shows the jackpot as it accrues.
In most cases the payback is equal to the other machines of that denomination, but it's just distributed differently to give you a varying amount for the top prize.The progressive jackpots for stand-alone machines are much lower than the ones from machines that are linked together.Blazing 7's is such a machine.
In-House or Proprietary Progressives.
These are a group of machines linked together and owned and operated by the casino.They may be just in a single casino or linked together with several properties.The jackpots may not be the multimillion variety, but they can be quite substantial.They generally hit more often that the big wide-area progressives.
Wide-Area or Global Progressives.
These are the machines that offer life-changing jackpots.The slots are linked together from many unrelated casinos.These machines are operated by an independent single gaming company.Slot maker IGT operates Megabucks, Quartermania and others in many different states (see page 10).
The casino shares in a percentage of the winnings, but the operator owns the games.The jackpots may be large, but so are your chances of hitting the big prize. Because of the costs of linking the machine and the administrative costs to run these wide-area games, the payback percentage on these machines is lower than on other slots.
It's all right to try your hand at the big progressive machines hoping that lady luck will shine on you, but don't make it the mainstay of your slot play.Instead set aside a certain percentage of your playing bankroll and use that for a shot at the big one.
Winning one of these is pure luck and is a gamble along the lines of buying a lottery ticket.Don't spend your entire bank roll chasing a progressive jackpot dream.Most importantly remember, playing slots is entertainment.
So which progressive slot machine should you choose? That's really up to you. If you want the life-altering jackpot, like so many of us do, you best stick to the wide area huge progressives. If you want a better shot at winning, the smaller casino-specific progressive slot machines have much better odds, but the jackpots wont change your life forever, maybe just for a year or two.
