What first comes to your mind when someone says “slot”? Is it a Vegas casino with a slot the size of a small room? We’re gonna take a wild guess and say yes.
Movies and TV shows often portray a hero who’s just about to give up when suddenly he hits the jackpot with the last quarter he had in his pocket. This is how we are introduced to slots before we’re old enough to bet, but things are different in reality.
As someone who’s been to Vegas, I can confirm these slots exist and they are big in size and rewards. Casinos don’t let you forget that as they display the amounting jackpot in big shiny digits. However, a single spin would hardly give you this jackpot, and we’re also here to talk about online slots.
Online slots have come a long way. They’re no longer an online version of a physical slot; they come up with high-definition graphics and awesome animations. Their mechanics have also improved immensely. You can find slots with thousands of paylines, fun bonus rounds, even ones that are interactive.
Still, one thing hasn’t changed – the jackpot. Every online casino has at least a few slots with a progressive jackpot. Our mission today is to explore whether it’s worth it to play jackpot slots as opposed to ones with no jackpot but more bonus features.
Online Progressive Jackpot – How Does it Work
The mechanics of a jackpot slot are pretty simple. The displayed jackpot increases as more people play the slot. To explain it in more detail, whenever a player places a wager, a small percentage of the wager goes towards the jackpot, which exponentially increases until someone wins it.
Once that happens, the slot is reset and an arbitrary jackpot is put in place and the aforementioned process repeats.
Advantages to Playing a Jackpot Slot
It’s pretty obvious what the biggest advantage to playing a jackpot slot is – the jackpot. The exponentially increasing jackpot, to be precise. Who hasn’t dreamt of hitting a slot jackpot? I certainly have.
There’s also a little bit of truth to the film depiction of the hero winning a jackpot with a quarter. A British soldier won £13.2 million at an online casino in 2013 after spending exactly a quarter on the game. Life imitates art, huh?
Although it’s unlikely for you to win the jackpot straight away or even after a few attempts, the point is that you can win it with a considerably low bet. The highest slot jackpot ever, amounting to $39.7 million, was won by an American woman in 2003 on a $3 spin. She reportedly spent $100 on the game before she won.
Most of the biggest jackpots were won at physical casinos, but times are changing and more and more players bet online. Remember how we said that the progressive jackpot is a percentage of each wager placed in the game? Now imagine thousands of players from all around the world pumping the same slot. The jackpot can grow immensely.
Now a bit about the less shiny aspects of playing a jackpot slot. You can still make a decent amount of money without hitting the jackpot, whether it’s in the base game or during free spins. There are also jackpot slots offering mini-jackpots to the players such as Age of the Gods.
Disadvantages to Playing a Progressive Jackpot Slot
The most striking disadvantage to playing a jackpot slot is that the chance of you winning the said jackpot is 1 to 50 million. Yes, you can win money even without winning the jackpot, but if you have infinite online slots to choose from, why pick that one?
To make up for the progressive jackpot, software providers add fewer bonus features to a jackpot slot. Usually, interactive slots with multiple bonus rounds don’t have a jackpot; some don’t even have a high maximum prize, but they’re really fun to play and they can offer stable wins.
Of course, there are outliers such as the Fairest of Them All slot, which has both a progressive jackpot and cool bonus rounds. Still, this game’s RTP rate of 90% is incredibly low for the industry, but unfortunately very common for jackpot slots.
Moreover, if you decide to play a jackpot slot, make sure you know the requirements for hitting the jackpot. Usually, all the paylines have to be active for that to happen. There might be other conditions that could be implicit rather than explicit, which makes the whole deal a bit convoluted.
There’s also the possibility of the casino paying you the jackpot in a few installments, which can be annoying. Check the terms and conditions of the casino of your choice before you play.
Conclusion
Overall, if you want to play slots with a high RTP rate and innovative mechanics that also provide frequent wins, the jackpot slot might not be for you. On the other hand, you can still win a great deal of money and you have the potential to win the jackpot with a quarter, so do what feels right to you.