Three Types of Progressive Pokies Jackpots, and how they work

What you need to know about types of progressive pokies jackpots.

A lot of pokies fans look for progressive jackpot games simply because the payout potential can be so high. We look up at the machine and see a 5-, 6- or even 7- figure payout, and the excitement builds before we ever insert our money.

However, there are actually three types of progressive pokies jackpots. The biggest difference between them is the way their jackpots increase over time, and how lucrative they become because of it. The three basic types are:

• Stand Alone Progressives
• Local Network Progressives
• Wide Area Progressives

Stand Alone Progressive Pokies Jackpots

These pokier machines carry a progressive jackpot that grows each time a player spins the reels. However, their jackpot is not linked to any other machines. Only the money inserted on this very machine will contribute to the progressive jackpot.

If the progressive meter claims 1% of the game’s overall intake, it will only rise by $0.01 for every $1 played. And since it’s a stand alone progressive, only a single player can contribute to that machine’s jackpot at a time. This translates to a very slow-growing prize, and one that isn’t likely to pay out very often.

Local Network Progressive Pokies Jackpot

A local network is exactly what it sounds like. These progressives are networked across a number of poker machines in a local area. It could be a series of the same pokies titles, or similar titles by the same manufacturer, linked across a single casino, a whole city, state or territory. Either way, the progressive network is confined to a relatively small area.

These jackpots are going to grow a bit more quickly, because there could be anywhere from 1 to perhaps 50 or more players contributing to the growth of the jackpot at any given time. At 1% progressive intake, if 25 players are spinning the reels for $0.50 per play at the same time, it might grow at an average rate of $0.15-$0.30 per minute.

Wide Area Network Progressive Pokies Jackpots

If you’ve been paying attention so far, you can probably guess how these wide area network progressive pokies jackpots work. The term “wide area” can include an entire country, continent, or even the entire globe. In the case of online casinos, the latter is more likely.

Wide area progressives can be networked across a single game title, with mass distribution (online or on land), or can encompass an entire series of poker machines. For obvious reasons, they are the fastest growing progressive pokies jackpots in the world. Not only can they award the highest progressive payouts, they tend to do so rather frequently.

A good example is Microgaming‘s Mega Moolah progressive. In the beginning, the Mega Moolah was a single game with a safari theme and a randomly triggered bonus wheel that could deliver one of four progressive jackpots; the mini, minor, major and mega. The mega seeds at an incredible $1,000,000 to start, resetting to that amount each time it is struck.

Due to immediate, mass popularity at Royal Vegas and the other 100+ Microgaming powered online casinos, the developer extended its network across a number of Mega Moolah branded games with diverse themes. They now include Mega Moolah 5 Reel Drive, Mega Moolah Isis and Mega Moolah Summertime.

These games have become so phenomenally popular among online and mobile casino players, the progressive pokies jackpot rises at a minimum of rate of $0.01 per second. In the last ten years, it’s been struck, on average, once every 73 days, paying out an average of over $5.2 million per strike.