Understand the Odds of Hitting Progressive Jackpot and Becoming a Winner

You obviously love to play progressive jackpot games as they are most popular pokies games available to enjoy both at online and land casinos. They are bit different from regular pokies games as you are given a chance to walk away with a major win from a ‘pot’ (jackpot) of funds that builds up over time. This fund or pot is created  as a small portion, usually around 1- 2%, of all the money staked on the game is set aside for one winner to scoop. Earlier such pokies machines were linked together only at land casinos, but now you can enjoy these machine at online casinos too.

When playing online you will find that there are thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people playing the same progressive games, and these jackpots can climb very quickly, to massive amounts. Many online sites in their games lobby give details about the progressive jackpot pokies like which games are available, their current jackpot levels, the game play and all the details as how to claim exclusive bonus deals from the casinos that feature these exciting games.

Understanding the odds of hitting the jackpot

One thing that player always looks forward to is to know the odds of hitting a jackpot on a pokie machines. As you know that the biggest online jackpots come from pokies machineslike Mega Fortune, Mega Moolah and The Dark Knight Rises that have made people millionaires in just a few seconds of play, and there are many others that carry jackpots worth more than enough to offer you all the luxuries of the world. Here are some of the ways to work out the actual odds of hitting the progressive jackpot prize:

First you need to look at how many reels the machine in question has, and how many symbols are on that reel. You also need to consider how the jackpot payout is triggered, as all of these variables will be different across the many progressive games online Like suppose a pokies has 5 reels, and each reel has 20 symbols across it, with one being a jackpot symbol. If the progressive prize is won by lining up the jackpot symbols across a payline, the actual odds of winning progressive jackpot on it are 20 X 20 X 20 X 20 X 20 which equals a 1 in 3,200,000 chance of the symbols lining up in your favour. However, you are just one of many players, and it could be that your next spin is the one that triggers that huge prize payout. This is just an imaginary game however, and in reality the chances of winning progressive jackpot prize can be higher or lower.

Also note that the games pay out a percentage to the players, usually between 90 – 97% of the amount paid in, so the progressive jackpot odds are actually slightly lower than this. Known as the Return To Player, or RTP, the remaining percentage is the House Edge, or what the casino earns. Although games can be carried across many casinos, the pot is held by, and paid by, the developer, as it would be unfair for the casino whose customer hit the jackpot to have to pay out all of the prize.

Pokies machines that have massive jackpots, like The Dark Knight Rises will have lots of people playing them at any one time, across multiple online casinos. This means that although just a tiny bit of each wager is going towards the jackpot prize, it still grows very quickly, and the jackpot is frequently hit. The game developers make sure that even if you don’t win the jackpot, there is still plenty to entertain you, so many of these games have bonus rounds, free spins, multiplier prizes and so on.

Besides pokies casino games like Bingo and Video Poker can often be found with progressive jackpots. For Bingo games, you typically win the major prize if you get a Full House within a certain number of calls.

Video Poker progressive jackpots tend to be hit with a Royal Flush, where the cards are the 10, J, Q, K and A from one suit, which occurs on average once every 650,000 hands. Because this is more frequent, the prizes can be somewhat lower, but still life-changing, and again the actual odds can vary from machine to machine.

Though you choose Pokies, Bingo, Video Poker or all games, you need to read the games review and know  the biggest and best ones that offer Progressive Jackpots, where current jackpot values, have biggest wins. Then find the game where to play and know the rules of the game as well as claiming you rewards.

To sum up the odds of winning a progressive jackpot depends on

• Number of reels in the pokies machine
• Number of symbols on each reel
• The way the jackpot payout gets triggered
• These factors will be different on different pokies machines
• The payout percentage
• The house edge (you can have a 0.5 million to 1 or 1 million to 1 chance; and can be lower in some of the larger jackpots)
• Play in bigger online casinos (As they tend to provide higher payout percentages because they have larger number of players)

Thus, you will have slightly better odds of winning taking the above things into consideration when playing progressive pokies. Do not forget that online casinos offer many bonuses which can add more value to your game play.