Jackpots are one of the most popular game categories among our casinos. This may not come as a big surprise, as the dream for most of us is to take home the biggest win when we play. The word jackpot itself comes from a poker game called ‘Jacks or better, which was played in the 1870s. The Jackpot was then the actual pot that was filled during the course of the game, as the players had jacks Jacks or better, on hand. At that time, this was synonymous with the expression “sit-in”.
During the 1920s, the meaning of the word changed again, as slot machines became increasingly popular. To take home the jackpot or ‘Hit the jackpot’ then came to mean the same as it means today that is, to take home a big win. Today, there are several different variants of games with a chance of big wins, for example, there are casino games with both fixed and variable, so-called progressive, jackpots. There are also ways that more casinos offer daily casino games with mega winnings, where the highest winnings can appear every day!
How does a fixed jackpot work?
Just as we mentioned in the introduction, there are slots with both fixed and variable jackpots. The fixed ones will always be the same amount, whether it is two people, or one million people playing on the slot machine. The fixed jackpot is therefore always constant, and will not be affected by any external circumstances.
How does a progressive jackpot grow?
The variable jackpots, on the other hand, are those that are a progressive increase in step with the number of bets made on the current casino game. The amount of progressive slots increases with each bet varies depending on the game you are playing. Usually, between 1-4% of each bet made goes to the game’s jackpot. The larger part of the bet that goes to the pot, the faster it will grow.
You can always see somewhere on the board usually in a box at the top how big the possible winnings are all the time. This means that you can see how it grows before your eyes. Which we ourselves like very much! When an online slot consists of more than one progressive big win, the percentage distribution of that part of the bet will be split, the largest going to the mega win. While the rest of the effort goes to the two smaller ones.
Pooled or local casino games
The slots that have progressive mega wins can either grow on their own, ie only the bets made in the current game, at the particular casino you are currently playing, contribute to the pot. These are called local jackpots. They can also grow in so-called pooled jackpots. This means that several slots, or several casinos, are linked to one and the same mega win. This means that the pot grows large, and faster, but also that there are more of you competing for the same pot.
A pooled pot works in such a way that, for example, there are several different games from the same game manufacturer, which are linked to the same pot. When the mega win is finally won and paid out, it restarts. However, the larger ones never restart completely at zero but have a fixed minimum amount that they restart on and which they then continue to grow from, again. Something that has made the games with progressive jackpots so incredibly popular is the fact that there is no upper limit to how big a progressive jackpot can be before it has to be paid out. It can thus in theory be any size before it falls on a lucky player.