Progressive jackpots are one of the biggest pulls for any casino. They allow player to win life-changing sums of money for what is a relatively small outlay. What you will find from these types of games is that huge numbers of players will play them, increasing the jackpot even further. This article will explain how the process of the jackpots work and which games you need to look to out for.
How Progressive Jackpots Work
The majority of progressive jackpot games are played across a network and are not limited to the casino that you might be playing at. For example, Mega Moolah is one of the biggest progressive games in the industry and it’s run on the Microgaming network. This means that all casinos that utilise this software will be able to offer this game.
The jackpots rise by a parentage of each bet being pooled into that one jackpot. For example, the game might take 10% of every bet that bet that has been made on the game and set it aside into the jackpot pool. As the game is played across the network and not just the casino, it means the number of players that can access it is massively increased, in turn, increasing the jackpot amount much quicker than if they were to be played within just one casino.
Big Jackpot Winners
To get an idea of the amount of money that’s on the table, below we have listed some of the biggest winners from a number of jackpot games hosted around the world.
- Mega Fortune: €17,861,800 – In 2013 the record for the biggest jackpot win of all time was hit by a casino player in Finland. The man, in his 40’s, wager just 25c for his lucky win and went on to win a life-changing sum of money. The game that he was playing was that of Mega Fortune, renowned for handing out massive jackpot wins.
- Mega Moolah: £13.2 Million – A UK player managed to trigger this insane jackpot win on the Mega Moolah slot back in 2015. The 26 year old was a former British Solider and again played for just 25p per spin when tumbling this behemoth of a win fall.
- Mega Fortune: €11,736,375 – Another Scandinavian winner from Norway managed to take home over €11 million playing the Mega Fortune slot on Betsson.com. In 2011 the jackpot was the largest that had ever been recorded and at the time went down as a Guinness World Record.
- Mega Moolah: €8,577,204 – Sweden seems to have all the luck with the fourth highest winner in jackpot history. This time the jackpot was triggered on the Mega Moolah slot and is the second highest to be paid out on that slot. The game is based on the Net Ent software and at the time the companies Chief Product Officer, Simon Hammon, commentated that they had paid out over €13 million in just two weeks.
- Mega Moolah: €7.9 million – In 2016 the biggest ever jackpot paid out on a mobile device occurred when a lucky punter going simply by the initials of D. P. claimed the jackpot on the Mega Moolah slot. The game was played on their iPad whilst commuting to work via the Zodiac Casino…. We can’t imagine he made it into work that day or again for that matter!
Best Progressive Jackpots
Below we have listed the top 5 progressive jackpots in the industry. We taken data from JackpotGraphs.com and cumulated results from the average win amount and average payout frequency to determine our best.
- Mega Moolah – It probably comes as little surprise to hear that Mega Moolah are on of the best in the business. The slot averages a jackpot payout every 57 days and the average win fall for that payout is a massive £5,083530. The game is based on the Microgaming network and its largest payout is that of £13.2 million.
- Hall of Gods – The second on the list comes in the form of the Hall of Gods slot, which actually has a higher average win amount of £5,278,852 than that of Mega Moolah. The reason why it came second is that the payout frequency is 3 times that of the top spot, with 162 days between each jackpot win. Hall of Gods can be played on Net Ent software and its biggest win came about in April 2015 when a whopping £7.7million was won. What this shows though is how consistent the payouts are, with the 3 of the last 4 payouts at the time of writing all being in excess of £7million.
- Mega Fortune Dreams – This slot has a whopping average payout of £3.6 million, but it also has a really steady payout frequency of just 56 days. The game can be found on the Net Ent network, which also includes some of the other titles in our list.
- Mega Fortune – Mega Fortune is the original to Mega Fortune Dreams as stated above. The slot has very much the same Characteristics with slightly lower average jackpot amount and frequency at £3.1 million and 59 days. Again, this is another Net Ent offering and one of the most consistent games over the last 5 years in the world of progressive slots.,
- Beach Life – This slot is the first game to feature from network providers, PlayTech, and is without doubt the best that they have to offer. It comes with an average payout of £2.4million and a frequency of 181, which is the longest on our list. The increased frequency is largely down to the amount of traffic this slot will get due to PlayTech as a network not getting as much exposure as either Net Ent or Microgaming.
Jackpots in the News
Online Casino Player Refuses to Collect “Unlucky” Jackpot
For most people, winning an online slot jackpot would leave them jumping around the room in excitement. But for one player, winning £4,444 was seen as an unlucky omen, and one he didn’t want to accept.
The Chinese player, known as Mr. C, won the £4,444 jackpot playing the WowPot slot at Jackpot City Casino. His refusal to accept the winnings comes from a well known Chinese superstition regarding the number 4.
In Chinese, Korean and Japanese the word for “Four” is pronounced in a very similar way to the word for “Death”. The superstition is so commonly held that manufacturers such as Nokia and Canon often omit the number 4 from model numbers in their product lines.
Not wanting to bring misfortune on himself or his family, Mr. C refused to accept a cheque for the winnings. Staff at the casino are currently working with Mr. C to come up with a solution that allows him to receive his bounty, whilst remaining respectful of his beliefs.