1. What Does A Progressive Slot Machine Look Like Now
2. What Does A Progressive Slot Machine Look Like
3. What Does A Progressive Slot Machine Look Like Anything

A standalone progressive slot machine has a jackpot ticker on the game, but only bets placed on that specific machine feed the jackpot. This was, at one time, the only kind of progressive slot machine game available, but most progressives feature multiple machines that are linked together. Slot machines work like this, you place your bet, spin the reels, and win an amount based on what the paytable shows. Progressive slot machines are different. They do have the paytable, but there is an additional jackpot that grows until a winner is chosen.

Progressive jackpot slots are the most exciting casino games. A chance to win a life-changing sum of money will undoubtedly get everyone's attention (and bankroll). But progressive slot machines are far from a good investment; in most situations, they're the worst possible slots you can play, and they will suck your wallet dry faster than any other casino game.

1. Progressive machines are a group of many slot machines linked together by a network. The big progressive jackpot is made by taking a percentage of all the money played into the machine. This means that the jackpot continues to grow as more people play the machine until somebody hits the winning symbols for the top award.
2. A progressive slot machine pays out more each time that a player spins, but does not win the jackpot. For example, if a machine has a $1,000.50 progressive meter, and you play one losing spin, the jackpot would then rise to $1,000.51, or another close figure.

Jackpots may often seem close but not quite there - this happens because a slot machine's wheels are weighted differently. The first reel is the lightest and the last one is the heaviest - from the first reel to the last one, the odds of getting a jackpot become worse and worse.

Types of Jackpots

Casinos have fixed and progressive jackpot slots. With fixed jackpot slots (or 'flat-top slots'), there's usually an incentive to play with maximum coins because the jackpot is bigger relative to the bet than if you made any bets other than with maximum coins. Two examples:

So a simple yet effective rule is to always bet the maximum when playing flat-top slot machines.

Flat-top slots have a lower house edge than progressive slots and you will win more often (in other words, have a higher hit frequency) since a smaller portion of total payback comes from the jackpot (in flat-tops, this is often around 2% but in a progressive jackpot like Megabucks it's around 10%).

With progressive jackpots slots, a certain percentage of each pot is added to the jackpot and the jackpot increases until someone hits it, after which it re-starts. Because a portion of the bet goes to the jackpot (and not the casino), the house edge is often over 10%, possibly close to 20%.

In fact, in Megabucks 10% of the bet goes to the jackpot, and then the casino must make something on top of that, so the payback is well under 90%.

Progressive jackpots may be high enough to make it worthwhile to play them, however, there's no telling when this is the case since casinos aren't required to share payback information for individual slots.

If you do play them, always bet the maximum amount of coins in order to compete for the jackpot (just like with flat-top slots).

Progressive slot machines can be divided into three categories:

1. Stand-alone slots:
   Individual progressive slots, not linked to any other machines. Instead of having a fixed jackpot, a percentage of each bet goes to the machine's own jackpot. Obviously the jackpot is smaller than with machines that are linked to each other.
2. Local slots:
   A group of slot machines linked together in a casino or in properties of the same gaming company. For these machines, the jackpots are already big, but not necessarily in millions of dollars.
3. Wide-area slots:
   These machines aren't just linked locally but between several casinos in several states; one example being Megabucks, in which the jackpot can become eight figures (as of right now, it's slightly over $11 million.)

There are also multi-level progressive slot machines, in which the player gets to decide which level of jackpot he or she wishes to play for. Obviously, you can win more often by playing lower level progressives and vice versa.

Popular Progressive Slots

You can participate in real money slots with progressive prizepools at casinos like Slotland, Spin Palace and Loco Panda. By the way, I've also written about USA slots, Aussie slots and United Kingdom slots.

Following is a list of popular progressive slot machine - this is not a comprehensive list of progressive jackpot slots, just examples of some of the machines that I know of. There are many more but these are some of the biggest.

More information:

There are many different types of slot machines, but one of the easiest way to breakdown categories of games is by determining whether or not it is a progressive. A progressive slot machine pays out more each time that a player spins, but does not win the jackpot. For example, if a machine has a $1,000.50 progressive meter, and you play one losing spin, the jackpot would then rise to $1,000.51, or another close figure. This is a very simple example of how progressive slots function.

Many slot machines, especially the most modern games, have multiple progressive jackpots in one. Games like Quick Hits, for example, have several tiers of jackpots. The lowest jackpot will be the easiest to hit, the highest will be the toughest to hit. You may need X amount of symbols to hit the lower progressive jackpot, and x+4 more symbols to win the highest progressive. Some games are more complex than others, however, and jackpots may be earned in different ways.

What Does A Progressive Slot Machine Look Like Now

How Progressive Jackpots are Created

A progressive jackpot may seem confusing because of the large dollar amounts at hand. It doesn’t make much sense that a $2.50 Wheel of Fortune Slot would have a progressive payoff of $200,000 or more, but they frequently do. The common misconception is that this machine alone has collected over $200,000 in losing wagers that are now up for the taking, but this is not true. Instead, popular games like this are part of “linked” machines, usually across many casinos. If you are in Las Vegas, for example, all of the WOF spins may be pouring into the same pool of money. This is how the total jackpot size can be so large, even when the spin denominations are very small.

The actual amount that a progressive increases with each spin will be very small. The total increase will be as a percentage of your bet, combined with the house edge for the casino. If the expected win for the house on a $5 progressive slot spin is 7%, that would mean a 35 cent gain on every spin. Since it is a progressive, perhaps 2% is taken from this and contributed to the progressive jackpot total, in this case, 10 cents per spin. 10 cents per spin may not seem like a lot, but when there are millions of spins taking place across the US day in and day out, the total prize pool can rise quite rapidly.

How to Be Eligible for a Progressive Jackpot Win

What Does A Progressive Slot Machine Look Like

The biggest caveat to being able to win a progressive slot machine jackpot is playing the max bet allowed. Almost every progressive slot requires that the player complete a max wager in order to potentially win the listed jackpot. Yes, this means that you will need to have a larger bankroll to play, but you will be sacrificing a lot of value by not betting.

While betting the maximum possible, you will be giving yourself the best chance at a positive return, regardless of how many actual dollars you are putting at risk. If you can not reasonably afford to place max bets on a progressive slot, we suggest to instead play an entirely different machine. You are chasing a low ceiling if you are placing wagers that do not have any way of potentially cashing in on the progressive jackpot. Progressives are available at virtually every wager limit though, so you can bump down in stakes and still enjoy the rush of a progressive machine, even if you can’t play at high stakes.

Fixed Jackpots vs. Progressive Jackpots

When you see a slot, you may notice a big potential win advertised at the top of the machine. For lower limit games, this might be $5,000, while for $25/spin games, it may be $100,000. Whatever the total may be, you shouldn’t confuse these slots with progressive machines. The total looks the same as it does on a running progress, but these numbers do not adjust; they are simply the max win possible on that particular machine, represented as dollars instead of credits.

What Does A Progressive Slot Machine Look Like Anything