What is a progressive jackpot?
A progressive jackpot is a jackpot that keeps on growing until one lucky player wins it. Every bet that is placed on a game adds to the progressive jackpot prize pool until one person walks away with the entire cash prize, which could be many millions!
When we talk about progressive jackpots, we are normally talking about progressive slot machines. These slots work in just the same way as other slot machines, except for the biggest jackpot keeps increasing, instead of staying the same. Progressive slots are available to play both in both land-based casinos and online casinos. The combined jackpot prize from these slots is far beyond what any one single fixed jackpot slot could pay out alone.
You are probably wondering just how the money is collected to make up such a substantial cash prize. Well, when a player makes a wager on a jackpot slot, a percentage of the wager goes into the jackpot prize pool. So, for every spin, from every player, the jackpot will grow. The amount that the jackpot increases with each individual bet by is set by the casino. The casino has to set aside an amount of its profits from that game to add to the progressive jackpot prize. For example, on a slot with a house edge of 6%, a jackpot contribution might be 1% (one sixth of the expected profit).
Consider hundreds of online casinos and millions of players playing the same game or the same series of games. You can quickly understand how the prize pool soars into the millions.