With more options than you can
shake a $100 bill at,
progressive slot machines are
all about choice nowadays.
Choice, and jackpots, of
course. Always jackpots. Big,
lifestyle-changing jackpots,
like the ones you’ll find on
IGT’s Megabucks and other
MegaJackpots games. Small,
rapid-hit jackpots that give
you a fair chance at a nice
win in any sessions, like
Bally’s Blazing 7s line.
Multi-tiered progressives like
Aristocrat’s Hyperlink games,
IGT’s Fort Knox or WMS
Gaming’s Jackpot Party
Progressives, where a bonus
round could bring you a
jackpot of five bucks, or
thousands of dollars.
Traditional, symbol-driven
jackpots, where you win by
lining up the winning symbols
across the reels. Mystery
jackpots, where maybe you
don’t know how you got there,
but the cash is yours
nonetheless. Single-machine
jackpots, where a percentage
of every bet on that
individual game is added to
the pot until someone wins.
In-house linked progressives,
where a number of machines in
the same casino are linked to
the same jackpot. Wide-area
progressives, where the
electronic link reaches games
in multiple casinos.
Each progressive system has
its own personality and its
own little quirks. Still,
there are a few things you
could remember about
progressives each time you sit
down to play.
Progressive jackpots are built
by adding a percentage of all
wagers to the pot until
someone wins it. After the
payoff, the jackpot reverts to
a base level and starts
building again. The more the
jackpot stands above the base
level, the more play there has
been since the jackpot last
hit.
A lighted meter on top of the
machine, or a lighted display
above a bank of machines
linked electronically, shows
the jackpot. You can watch the
dollars and cents on the meter
rise as you play.
Be sure your bet makes you
eligible for the top jackpot.
The fun of progressives is the
thrill of chasing the big
bucks. On most, you’ll have to
bet maximum coins if you’re
going to have a chance at the
big payday. On some video
slots, such as Aristocrat’s
Double Standalone series, you
can wager as little as one
coin per payline, and a
separate wager makes you
eligible for the progressive.
Whatever you do, don’t skimp
on the wager if you’re going
to play progressives.
One of the saddest sights I
ever saw in a casino, came in
Las Vegas, a few years before
gaming came to the Midwest.
There was a big bank of
four-reel quarter
progressives, with a top
jackpot that had climbed to
over $250,000. As I got off
the elevator and walked onto
the casino floor, a host I
knew pulled me aside. “See
that guy over there?” There
was no doubt as to who the
host was talking about. It was
the middle-aged gentleman
sitting at one of the
progressives, not playing,
just staring at the reels. He
lined up the four blue 7s, but
he only bet one quarter. I
groaned. The poor fellow
hadn’t won the quarter of a
million. I wondered what he
had won. The host shrugged.
“Oh, a few hundred quarters.”
Outside the top jackpot,
progressive machines usually
pay less than non-progressive
machines of the same type.
That’s not always the case,
but ALMOST always. The game is
giving you more money on the
top jackpot, and the tradeoff
is that it gives you fewer
smaller payoffs. A progressive
may pay as much as a
non-progressive in the long
run, but in between jackpots,
the non-progressive is the
bigger payer.
Bottom line: If you’re not
going to bet enough credits to
be eligible for the top
jackpot, stick to the
non-progressives. The
progressives are for jackpot
hunters.
Which type of progressive is
for you? Let’s look at the
options:
SINGLE-MACHINE PROGRESSIVE
This is where progressive
slot machines started: one
machine, one jackpot. If you
see a bank of machines, and
each has a different amount
showing on a progressive
meter, you’re looking at
single-game progressives. One
game often used as a
single-game progressive is a
classic: Bally’s Blazing 7s.
Developed in the 1970s during
the days when Bally designed
and built its slot machines in
Chicago, Blazing 7s was
designed as a rapid-hit game,
with frequent, attainable top
jackpots. One consideration in
the design: On a dollar game,
usually with a base level
jackpot of $1,000, a
progressive most often will
hit before it reaches $1,200,
the level at which players
must sign a tax form before
being paid.
The formula has survived and
thrived for more than 30
years, from electro-mechanical
machines to three-reel
machines with microprocessors,
to video versions. Progressive
fun is in the jackpots, and
Blazing 7s has long awarded
its jackpots as rapidly as any
game on the market, but be
careful. Blazing 7s has a
“buy-a-pay” feature, in which
you unlock symbols with
increased wagers. If you play
with short coins, lining up
the Blazing 7s might not get
you any payoff at all.
A more recent addition to the
single-machine progressive
family is Aristocrat’s Double
Standalone line. Double
Standalones are just what the
name implies, they have
two-level progressive
jackpots, and they stand
alone, without linking their
progressives to other
machines. They’re multi-line
video games, but the player
doesn’t have to bet maximum
coins to qualify for the
progressives. Instead, there’s
a separate 10-coin progressive
wager. On a game with 25
paylines taking up to 20
coins, you could bet 500 coins
per spin on the base game. But
to be eligible for the full
progressive jackpot, you need
wager only 35 coins, one for
each payline, plus the 10-coin
progressive bet.
Aristocrat has carved out a
niche for the games with
George Lopez and Zorro, and
has high hopes for the new
adventure-themed Outback Jack
double standalone, which is a
bonus feature-laden game, with
free spins, second screen
bonus games within a game, and
the progressive jackpots on
your video trek through
Australia’s Outback.
IN-HOUSE PROGRESSIVE LINKS
You see a bank of IGT’s
Double Diamond machines, or
A.C. Coin’s Bankroll, or
pretty much any game you can
imagine, and you see a lighted
sign overhead. On the sign is
a meter, adding up the dollars
and cents as people play.
Lining up the jackpot symbols
at any machine in the bank
wins the amount displayed.
What you have is a linked
progressive, with all machines
in the link contributing to a
common jackpot. Sometimes the
link extends to multiple
casinos. Then you have a
wide-area progressive, and
we’ll get to those in a
moment. But the most common
linked progressives are those
confined to one casino, the
in-house progressive links.
In-house progressive links
retain all the play
characteristics of the base
game. Double Diamonds, long a
favorite among three-reel
players, is every bit as
popular in in-house
progressive links. The Double
Diamond symbols that double
payoffs are the archetype for
IGT games that use multiplier
symbols: 5 Times Pay, 10 Times
Pay and others. Often, you’ll
even find several of these IGT
games in the same
mix-and-match bank, linked to
a common progressive. As with
any three-reel progressive
slot, be sure to bet max coins
to be eligible for the
jackpot.
A.C. Coin, famous for its
creative use of top boxes to
bring fun bonuses to
three-reel play, gives casino
operators the option of using
its games for in-house links.
Many of the A.C. Coin games
are configurable for
progressive play, including
player favorites such as
Bankroll, It’s Raining Cash
and Big Game Show. Chances are
you’ve seen Bankroll, with
sheets of stylized currency
rolling through what looks
like a printing press. It was
the first of A.C. Coin’s “Big
Roller” series, and proved
popular enough that the
company followed up with Super
Bankroll Bonus with a giant
roller atop a bank of four
machines for communal gaming
fun.
It’s Raining Cash is a Slotto-style
games, with Slotto balls in
the top box raining down over
an umbrella to the music of
It’s Raining Cash, adapted
from the Weather Girls It’s
Raining Men.
Big Game Show Bonus features a
five-reel mechanical base
game, IGT’s five-reel Double
Diamonds, as it happens, along
with a flashing game board and
the classic Slotto globe. When
configured for an in-house
progressive link, the A.C.
Coin games bring yet another
link, the entertainment and
fun of a bonus game linked
with the thrill of chasing a
jackpot.
WIDE-AREA PROGRESSIVES
Are you looking for a
super jackpot, the kind that
can change your life forever?
Millions of dollars on one
spin of the reels? Wide-area
progressives are the games
that offer that experience,
although those multi-million
dollar jackpots don’t come
anywhere near as frequently as
a tidy little thousand-dollar
hit on Blazing 7s, or even as
often as lightning striking.
John Robison, my fellow
Midwest Gaming & Travel
columnist and author of “The
Slot Expert’s Guide to Playing
Slots,” calculated that the
top jackpot on Megabucks hits
once per 49,836,032 spins.
Still, the lightning has to
strike somewhere, and if you
find the thrill is in chasing
the big jackpots, wide-areas
might be for you. Just be sure
to set your limits and stay
within your bankroll.
Megabucks, by the way, is the
original wide-area
progressive, introduced by IGT
in 1986. The world-record slot
jackpot of $39.7- million was
hit on a Megabucks machine in
Nevada in 2003. Today, IGT has
a whole family of big-money
wide-area progressives called
MegaJackpots. There’s
something for everyone here.
You can pick your play
experience, from $5 Wheel of
Fortune, a three-reel slot
with the famous bonus wheel on
top, to Megabucks for dollar
players, to the Beverly
Hillbillies and Star Wars
video slots for
low-denomination players
looking for animation and
bonus play to go with their
jackpot chasing. Not all those
MegaJackpots games will bring
millions. Some of the
low-denomination games are
worth “only” hundreds of
thousands for a big hit, and
exact amounts vary by market.
With dozens of MegaJackpots
links, IGT is the king of the
wide-area progressive, but
other manufacturers are in on
the act, too. Bally did some
pioneering with its Thrillions
link, field tested in 1998 and
fully licensed and released in
1999. With Betty Boop as the
initial release, Thrillions
was the first system to enable
players wagering different
coin denominations to compete
for the same jackpot. Thanks
to Thrillions, a nickel video
slot player could be eligible
for the same jackpot as a
dollar three-reel player. The
math of the games based the
chances of winning the jackpot
on bet size, so that someone
betting a dollar was four
times as likely to win as
someone betting a quarter, and
the quarter player was five
times as likely to win as a
nickel player.
Among Bally’s fun links today
are its Cartoon Jackpots, with
a rollover jackpot of $100,000
and denominations down to a
penny. Have a little cartoon
fun with everyone’s favorite
moose and squirrel, and take a
shot at turning your pennies
into a hundred grand-plus with
the Rocky and Bullwinkle Lucky
Wheel.
WMS Gaming didn’t enter the
wide-area progressive fray
until 2004, with the
introduction of Monopoly
Money. The current hot
wide-area game from WMS is
Powerball. The lottery-themed
Powerball is one of the new
breed of multi-tiered
progressive jackpots, nine
levels in all. In the
progressive bonus round, you
select powerballs to move up
on a jackpot grid to go for
Red, White or Blue jackpots at
the Grand, Super or Mega
levels. That’s nine different
jackpots, and you can win all
nine at once. In the wide-area
format, the top jackpot can
get very large, with a record
payout of more than $2 million
— powerful indeed.
You’ll not find wide-area
progressives just anywhere,
though. You’ll find wide-area
links in most states and at
Native American casinos, but
not in Illinois or Indiana.
There, state regulations
prohibit competing casinos
from offering a common
jackpot.
MULTI-TIERED JACKPOTS
Without a doubt, these are
the fastest-growing, hottest
progressives in today’s casino
world. It all started with
Aristocrat’s HyperLink, which
made its U.S. debut with the
railroad themed Cash Express.
Just when you pull into the
station for the multi-tiered
bonus round is a mystery.
While the base games are
traditional Aristocrat video
games and symbols across
paylines to determine wins,
the games are accompanied by a
mystery bonus. There’s no
symbol to tell you you’ve
arrived, you just have.
Once you’re in the bonus
round, you’re playing to see
whether you’ll win the Mini,
Minor, Major or Grand jackpot.
Your progressive could be five
bucks and change, or it could
be thousands of dollars.
That’s a winning formula
Aristocrat has ridden to huge
success around the world, and
which Aristocrat has extended
into other HyperLink games,
such as the Millioni$er, with
its million-dollar- plus
jackpots, and the HyperLink
version of Zorro. All
progressives are triggered
when the coin-in on a bank of
machines reaches a given
level, just when is a mystery.
IGT has its own version of the
multi-tier mystery jackpot,
with Fort Knox being one of
the most successful systems
throughout the United States.
Just as HyperLink can use any
of a number of Aristocrat
games, Fort Knox layers a
multi-tiered mystery jackpot
onto a mix-and- match
assortment of IGT video slots.
The operating casino can
choose to make them all the
same game, or put a variety
under the Fort Knox display.
In the progressive bonus
round, players choose among
safes on a game grid that
could earn them a jackpot, or
unlock the next level for a
chance at a bigger jackpot. In
keeping with the Fort Knox
theme, the bonus levels are
valuable metals, progressing
from Copper to Silver to Gold
to Platinum.
WMS uses multi-level
progressive fun in a
symbol-driven way in its
four-level Jackpot Party
Progressives. Here, whenever a
Jackpot Party symbol appears
on the fifth reel, a bonus
screen appears where the
player can collect credits
while the disco music plays,
just as in regular Jackpot
Party, with the added feature
of a star that’ll take you up
the progressive ladder for a
new screen and a chance at a
bigger jackpot.
The multi-tiered progressive
format is so hot, that new
themes are being added all the
time. That makes playing the
progressives a brave new world
of options.
Do you want to chase $1,000,
or millions? Try to work your
way up the tiers from a few
bucks to thousands, or take a
chance on a single big payoff.
Play video or reels? It’s all
about choice. And jackpots, of
course. Always jackpots.
— John Grochowski is the
author of The Casino Answer
Book, The Slot Machine Answer
Book, The Video Poker Answer
Book and the Craps Answer
Book, available through Bonus
Books, Inc. at (800) 225-3775.
