What Are Progressive Jackpot Slots?
Progressive jackpot slots are games that offer the chance to land a special jackpot prize. These jackpots are usually big prizes that come on top of the standard awards you can win from spinning in the base game or via a slot’s bonus rounds.
A small proportion of each wager you make on progressive jackpot slots goes towards the prize pool. Some jackpot pools are fed via multiple games or even multiple online casinos. With thousands and even millions of small bets joining together, you can see why the jackpots can get so large.
The way a jackpot is triggered varies. Usually, you can hit a jackpot at random, but in other games, you need to land a certain combination of symbols, play a pick-me game, or take your chances in a bonus round.
Once a lucky player hits the jackpot, it resets to its initial amount, know as the seed.
Different Types of Jackpots
There are a few different types of jackpots online. The size of the jackpots on offer can vary widely depending on what sort of casino progressive jackpot games you’re playing. Let’s take a closer look:
Standalone Jackpots
These jackpots are tied to a single game. The players’ bets on it feed the jackpot pool, which is not dependent on any other games. Consequently, the jackpot prizes are smaller than in some other types.
The most famous standalones come from Novomatic.
Local Jackpots
In-house or local jackpots feed from the games of a single casino. The prizes are, therefore, higher than those in standalone jackpots.
Network Jackpots
Network jackpots are tied to either a solitary slot or a series of linked slots that share the same jackpot prize pool that are played across a wide network of casino sites.
The jackpot prize pool for these slots increases each time a player makes a non-winning bet on any one of these slots across the network. With players adding to the prize pool each time they spin at multiple online casinos, the size of the jackpots can quickly build. If they don’t hit for a while, they can reach stratospheric proportions.
These are the most popular types of progressive jackpot slots as they offer the biggest payouts. The best jackpot slots are Microgaming’s Mega Moolah or NetEnt’s Mega Fortune.
In some slots, the amount you can win from a jackpot is fixed. There’s no progressive or pooled element. Take, for example, the Aztec Gems Deluxe slot from Pragmatic Play. This game gives players a chance to land Mini, Minor, Major or Grand Jackpots, which are worth 100, 250, 500 or 1,000 times your total stake, respectively.
How to Win a Progressive Jackpot
The chances of winning a massive jackpot prize are very slim, usually one in 75 million. However, here are some tips to help you make the most of your progressive jackpot slot of choice:
- Look for jackpots that are overdue to hit. They are usually the ones that have a much bigger prize waiting to drop than the other jackpot slots available. Of course, no one knows when a jackpot is going to hit. It’s best to simply go for a game when its jackpot is at a high. The prize is always awarded randomly, thanks to the random number generators.
- Pay attention to the jackpot rules. For example, some games require you to place a maximum bet to be eligible for the jackpot prize. Make sure you check before you get your hopes up.
- Set a fixed budget. Always play responsibly. Your chances of hitting a jackpot are even slimmer than winning the lottery, so take care not to get carried away and set a budget amount you’re comfortable with spending.
Best Progressive Jackpot Slots
There are loads of jackpot slots to choose from. They come from various slot providers, including NetEnt, Games Global, IGT, Playtech, Blueprint Gaming, Yggdrasil Gaming, and Red Tiger Gaming. Here is our pick of the punch:
Mega Moolah
The granddaddy of them all comes from Games Global. With 5 reels and 25 paylines, Mega Moolah is an African safari-themed game that’s not the flashiest as far as design goes.
It’s all about the Jackpot Bonus Game feature, where you spin the jackpot wheel. With 4 progressive jackpots to be won, you want the Mega Jackpot, which begins at £1 million.
Mega Fortune
Celebrating all things luxury, Mega Fortune is powered by NetEnt and comes with 5 reels and 25 paylines.
Focusing on the Bonus Game feature, you will see a big wheel with 2 more inner wheels. With cash prizes up for grabs, landing on an arrow will move you to the next inner wheel. With bigger prizes up for grabs, the aim is to land on the diamond-encrusted arrow. This will result in the Mega Jackpot being won, beginning at £150,000.
Hall of Gods
Powered by NetEnt, Hall of Gods is a Norse mythology-themed game. With 5 reels and 20 paylines, you can play from 20p per spin on all devices.
Hall of Gods is all about the Pick Win feature, where 3 progressive jackpots are up for grabs. You use Thor’s Hammer to smash shields to give you cash prizes or uncover jackpots. If you pocket the Mega Jackpot, you will walk away a minimum of £500,000.
Arabian Nights
Aladdin’s lamp can deliver some magical rewards in Arabian Nights. Powered by NetEnt, it has 5 reels, 3 rows and 10 paylines.
Arabian Nights has a Jackpot feature, which is won by landing 5 wild symbols on a payline. With 1 jackpot to be won, the biggest ever jackpot was €3.3 million in March 2014. It offers an average jackpot of €1.2 million won every 150 days. It’s another relative veteran, but the big jackpots mean it’s still a popular pick.
Jackpot Giant
Powered by Playtech, you go back to the Stone Age and hope for a volcanic eruption of coins in Jackpot Giant. With 5 reels and 50 paylines, you can spin away from 50p a spin on all devices.
To trigger the Giant Jackpot feature, you need to play at £4 per spin. Landing 5 wilds on payline 1 will see you win the progressive jackpot.
Age of the Gods Series
The myth and legend-themed slots by Playtech have become some of the most popular jackpot slots in the online casino world. Superbly designed and packed full of extras, they’d be massively playable even if they didn’t have any jackpots on offer.
With a wide range of Age of the Gods jackpot slots, each of them is based on mythological characters such as Zeus, Midas, Hercules, Medusa, Apollo, Poseidon and Pegasus, among others. Each offering superb graphics, great animations and a whole host of bonus features, they also offer you the chance to win 4 progressive jackpots.
In all games, there’s an Age of the Gods Jackpot feature, which is triggered randomly.
The best of the series is Age of the Gods which has 5 reels and 20 paylines.
Megapays Slots
Due to the overwhelming success of Megaways, Big Time Gaming has created a progressive jackpot version of the flagship slot, Bonanza, with the release of Bonanza Megapays. With the same gameplay as the original, it offers 4 progressive jackpots. The Mega Jackpot is the biggest and begins at £300,000.
Dream Drop Slots
Created by Relax Gaming, the Dream Drop jackpot slots were launched in May 2022. Relax has added plenty of popular games to the Dream Drop jackpot network, including Temple Tumble 2 Dream Drop, Banana Town Dream Drop, Santa’s Stack Dream Drop and Wild Chapo Dream Drop, amongst others.
With 5 jackpots on offer, the Dream Drop Mega Jackpot levels up after every 2 wins. The Mega Jackpot can pay up to €10 million.
Relax Gaming has since allowed other slot providers to offer Dream Drop jackpots, with the likes of Print Studios and 4ThePlayer creating Dream Drop slots.
WowPot Slots
Powered by Games Global, various slots like Sherlock and Moriarty WowPot, Book of Atem WowPot, and Queen of Alexandria WowPot are part of the WowPot jackpot network. Launched in February 2020, the WowPot is worth at least £2 million.
Paying out over €65 million by the end of 2023, WowPot jackpots have surpassed Mega Moolah jackpots substantially, making them the biggest online progressive jackpots available anywhere. Furthermore, a world-record €38,461,200.95 (€38.4 million) was won on the 20th of December 2023.
Jackpot King Network slots
Jackpot King slots are a series of linked games from Blueprint Gaming that share a jackpot prize. Trigger the jackpot round by landing 5 Jackpot King symbols on the same spin, then play the mini-game to try and land the big ones. The Jackpot King slots include Deal or No Deal, Slots O’ Gold, Ted, Fishin’ Frenzy and many more.
Red Tiger Gaming Daily Drop Jackpot slots
These are a series of slots from developer Red Tiger Gaming where the jackpot must hit by a specific time each day. The prizes don’t get as astronomical as the big progressive, given the daily limits, but they can still deliver some bumper payouts. There are Hourly Drops, Super Drops and Mega Drops with jackpots rising accordingly. There’s a meter next to the jackpot slot you’re playing which shows the current state of the jackpots. There are more than 30 Daily Drop Jackpot Slots to choose from, including Dragon’s Fire, Dynamite Riches, and Pirates’ Plenty, among others.
MegaJackpots Series slots
This series of linked jackpot slots by provider IGT contains a number of classic titles, including Star Lanterns, Isle of Plenty, Siberian Storm, Cleopatra and Wolf Run. They’re not the flashiest looking slots but they can deliver some enormous rewards.
Why Play Free Jackpot Slots
Like most standard slots, there are free jackpot slots here at Online-Slot.co.uk. We recommend giving jackpot slots a spin in demo mode first to get accustomed to the game mechanics and the bonuses and features they offer.
Of course, you can’t win anything on a free jackpot slot in play mode. However, that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying our extensive range of free online slots, as there are more than 5,000 to play, and they are often highly entertaining even without any money involved. Also, checking out a demo first will help you get accustomed to the mechanics before you invest your hard-earned money in a progressive game.
Jackpot Slots FAQs
Progressive jackpot slots are slots that offer the chance to land enormous prizes from a single spin. The jackpot feature/element is normally triggered randomly, which can award a variety of prizes, including 7 or 8-figure jackpots.
When it comes to jackpot slots, a small proportion of each wager you make goes towards a pooled prize fund. There are different types of jackpot slots, though, so make sure you know which type you’re playing first.
The biggest payout ever made from a progressive jackpot slot was a mind-blowing €38.4 million in December 2023 on Games Global’s WowPot game Wheel of Wishes.
The most popular progressive jackpot slots come from Games Global and NetEnt mainly. There’s also some from Playtech, Blueprint Gaming and IGT. Check out the $1which offer the biggest jackpots.
You play jackpot slots exactly the same way as you play standard slots. Progressive jackpots slots usually come with a similar array of bonus rounds and features that are found in normal slots. Expect free spins, pick me rounds, cash trails and the like. The Brucie Bonus is the chance to win a progressive jackpot payout that could be worth millions.
Progressive jackpot bonus features are triggered randomly. In some cases, you’ll then have to spin a prize wheel or take part in a click and pick bonus to determine which jackpot you’ve won if multiple prizes are on offer.
Yes, progressive jackpots are won randomly on any spin. The longer the jackpot isn’t hit, the bigger the jackpot will get. Once in a jackpot bonus feature, you are normally guaranteed to a win a jackpot even though it’s most likely the smallest one.