Whatever the gamblers might be claiming about their wish of mere having good time in casino and about skirmish of wits in the name of the game, still absolute majority is attracted by the opportunity to win plenty of money putting up a little. There is unlikely a gambler who does not dream of winning thousands or even millions, betting a few coins. Progressive jackpots are created just for such category of gamblers.
Initially the term “jackpot” referred to poker, according to one of its rules – the parlays to the pot increased, if none of the players collected at least a couple of jacks (the word originated from English words jack and pot). Now the word “jackpot” is often accompanied by the word “progressive” which means accumulation of a prize in the game until certain terms of this jackpot are fulfilled. A certain share of all the bets forms the jackpot, as a rule the share is not that big – basis points, but the probability to win the jackpot is very small, approximately 1 to 10000 and perhaps even 1 to several millions and as a result quite a considerable sum of money is accumulated.
Generally the sum of jackpot is thousand times more than the stakes. If we are dealing with online jackpots, then we should note that jackpots are accumulated not in one casino but in all the casinos of a common software provider. It contributes to tenfold increase in jackpots.
Which games are the best for making so much money? – Various games. Jackpots are mostly used, of course, in slot machines. It is a classical version – jackpot is used instead of high fixed gain for the rarest combination. If we speak about classical slots, then jackpot is paid for the gain in the last line. In video slot machines there are quite many more opportunities – in some games, it is enough to have the same symbols on one of the lines; in others, on the contrary, you should win a special game. The sum of jackpot usually starts from thousands of bets, but in some slots it starts from hundreds of thousands. There are not very big jackpots ($10-$30 thousands) which are broken virtually every week. But there are also monsters that are accumulated for months and then offer jackpots of millions.
The slots with such jackpots have relevant names:
“Major Million”(slot and video slot in microgaming casino, maximum gain is about $1,8 mln.).
“Golden Rally”(slot in Casino Playtech maximum gain is about $2 mln.).
“Rags to Riches” (slot in Cryptologic casino maximum gain is about $0,5 mln.).
But slot machine “Millionaires Club” in Cryptologic casino has become the main newsmaker at jackpot front lately. The amount of jackpot of this slot machine (there are two versions – classical three line and video slot – nine line) with a special game exceeded the previous record $2 mln. by the beginning of spring. At its best this sum grew daily by $30-$40 thousand, the jackpot reached $3 mln., than – 4 mln, 5 mln. and so on. By 15th of May the sum almost reached 8 million US Dollars.
