Progressive Jackpot Online Casino Slots

Progressive jackpot online slot games are those in which the jackpot amount keeps on increasing with every wager.  This happens until the jackpot is hit.  Then the jackpot is reset to a base level and starts growing again.  Progressive jackpot online slot games are very popular because they offer much higher payouts than normal slot games.  However, there are different kinds of progressive jackpot online slots and new players should be aware of the different characteristics of each kind.

The most common kind of progressive jackpot online slot games are those in which five like symbols have to appear on an active payline in order for the jackpot to be hit.  Usually the symbol that triggers the jackpot is the wild symbol on another thematically prominent symbol.  In most progressive jackpots of this kind there are certain additional conditions to be met.  The symbols must appear in the last payline, which means that the player has to wager with all paylines activated.  Also the player has to wager the maximum number of coins per payline.  If the player is trying to win a large payout he must make a commensurately large investment. An example of a progressive jackpot online slot of this kind is Beach Life from Playtech.

In some progressive jackpots of this kind players are given partial benefits for wagering less than the maximum number of coins per payline. The three reel progressive jackpot online slots from Vegas Technology, like Red White and Win, are examples. The maximum number of coins that can be wagered per payline is three, and in this case the player gets 100% of the jackpot amount when the jackpot is hit. However players who wager one or two coins per payline get much smaller percentages of the jackpot amount.

A different kind of progressive jackpot is the randomly triggered progressive jackpot. This does not require any set of symbols to appear in any payline on the reels. It can be hit after any spin and that is the reason it is called a random jackpot. Players also do not have to wager the maximum possible amount for the jackpot to be hit. It can be hit with the minimum amount wagered as well. However the chances of the random progressive jackpot being hit increase with the amount wagered per spin. The Real Series slot games from Realtime Gaming and Marvel Comics super hero slots from Cryptologic have randomly hit progressive jackpots.

The current trend in randomly triggered progressive jackpots is to offer multilevel jackpots. There are more than one independent jackpots in the slot game that offer payouts of different amounts. Mega Moolah from Microgaming has a four level progressive jackpot. The Mini jackpot pays about $10 and hits several times an hour. The Minor Jackpot pays about $100 and hits every few hours. The Major Jackpot pays about $10,000 and hits every few days. The Mega Jackpot pays over $1 million and hits every six months on an average. The jackpot level that is hit is immediately reset to its base level whereas the other levels continue to grow from their present values.

New players also need to understand the concept of progressive jackpot networks. Different slot games are connected to the same progressive jackpot. Wagers placed in any of the slot games increase the jackpot amount. When the required conditions are met in any of the slot games the jackpot is hit and is reset to the base value for all the slot games. The MegaJackpots network of WagerWorks featuring the slot games Monopoly, Cluedo and Cleopatra is an example.

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