The odds of you winning a life-changing progressive jackpot are never very high. That much is probably obvious. The very nature of progressive slots is that they promise huge payouts, but only when you’re really lucky. In a way, progressives are the most volatile type of casino game out there due to the very small chance to win a very big reward.
The frequency of progressive jackpot hits varies from game to game depending on its math
model and the mechanics of the jackpot. Unfortunately, though, the companies that make online slots rarely share such details with the public. While we know a game’s RTP, the pot’s seed amount, and the actual payout someone eventually wins, we can’t really know how often the jackpot was designed to hit.
However, we can examine stats and historical data to figure out how often jackpot hits actually win. In this article, we’ll take a look back at some of the biggest jackpot networks currently available and how often they win in practice.
When Do Progressive Jackpots Hit?
In progressive online slots, the winner of the jackpot is determined the same way as any other payout. Typically, a jackpot is the prize for an extremely unlikely outcome.
That’s why most progressives award jackpot wins using specific bonus features. Some slots do allow you to take a shot at the pot using just the base game paylines, but those are very rare in this day and age. That’s because even the rarest regular symbols have a relatively decent shot at hitting even the most unlikely of outcomes.
However, large pots are usually intended to hit only once in hundreds of thousands of spins – sometimes millions. As such, winning a jackpot usually involves triggering some sort of bonus and then getting the luckiest possible result.
If this sounds discouraging, you should remember that these are indeed often life-changing
amounts of money. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that becoming a millionaire through online gambling is not something that happens often.
Statistically, you’re more likely to become a professional football star or a successful Hollywood actor than win a big jackpot like Mega Moolah. That should put things into perspective.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t smaller, “safer” jackpots you can chase after. However, this usually means you’ll have to accept a smaller reward.
Jackpot Networks
Before we dive into the jackopots themselves, we should note a few things about how
progressive jackpots work in online casinos.
Progressive games are typically a part of a network connected to a single shared pot. Every game in a given jackpot network has access to the same pot, usually through the same mechanics as well.
In other words, you can play any of the slots in a given network and win the jackpot. Usually, every game is given the exact same chance to win the biggest prize so it doesn’t matter which one you play as far as the progressive features are concerned.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the games themselves aren’t different from one another. Each of them can still offer its own unique gameplay, features payouts, and even RTP rate. That’s why it’s important to look up all of the games in a single network and find the one that fits your taste best.
The easiest example of this practice is Playtech’s Age of the Gods series. All games marked as Age of the Gods are connected to the same jackpot, and all of them can win it. However, there are quite a few entries, including:
- Age of the Gods
- Age of the Gods – God of Storms
- Age of the Gods – Ruler of the Sky
- Age of the Gods – Mighty Midas
Even a quick look at our reviews of these games will tell you that they are quite different in many important ways – such as average RTP. With that in mind, your choice of which Age of the Gods game to play matters even if you only care about the jackpot.
Jackpot Seeds
Another important concept to understand is that of a “seed’.
In progressive online slots, the “seed” is actually a jackpot’s initial reward. All progressive pots grow as players contribute to them, but they all have a starting point. That starting point is known as a “seed”.
Typically, jackpot seeds are a pre-determined amount of cash. They’re essentially the lowest sum you could potentially win. Every time someone wins a jackpot, the pot reverts back to this seed amount.
Payout Policies
One of the most important things to look out for when playing progressive games is the casino's payout policy. There are many casinos that limit the amount that they will pay out to winners in a calendar month.
For example, the casino's terms may say something like “the maximum a player may withdraw in one month is $9,999 or equivalent currency”. Some of these casinos will follow that up with “This limit does not apply to progressive jackpot winnings” and that is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, many do not.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the site will deny you the jackpot. However, they could end up drip-feeding you the win for months, years, and decades. The casino might even go out of business in the meantime, which has happened in the past.
That’s why it’s exceedingly important to carefully check a casino’s terms and conditions and pay attention to the maximum payout policy. You can rely on our casino reviews to point these details out.
Popular Jackpots – When Do They Win?
We will now go through some of the biggest and most popular jackpot networks in the industry. We’ll look at historical data to see how often their slot jackpot wins hit.
Mega Moolah
Mega Moolah is Microgaming's flagship progressive jackpot, which was now inherited by Games Global. It features the network's largest jackpot pool, free spins, wild and scatter symbols. The jackpot is actually four progressive jackpots in one – Mega Moolah Mega, Major, Minor, and Mini in descending order of size.
Initially released on a single cartoon Safari-themed slot, Mega Moolah can now be played on several different slots including Mega Moolah Isis, Mega Moolah Summertime, and Mega Moolah 5 Reel Drive. While the graphics and reel symbols may change, your chances of winning the jackpot does not vary – no matter which Mega Moolah slot you play.
In order to win the jackpot, you must gain entry to the progressive bonus round where you spin a jackpot wheel reminiscent of the Wheel of Fortune game show. If the wheel stops on the one white-coloured segment, you're a millionaire.
Mega Moolah has provided a couple of the world's biggest online casino jackpot winners, which is why it’s often called the “millionaire-maker slot.” On the other hand, snagging the pot is quite difficult, and Mega Moolah games tend to suffer from a very low house edge.
Mega Moolah Mega Jackpot Stats
- Jackpot seed: $1,000,000
- Total wins recorded: 92
- Biggest win: $20,057,734
- Average payout: $6,092,537
- Average time between wins: 8 weeks, 5 days
In other words, the Mega Molah pot is a very, very rare jackpot. However, it’s also one of the biggest in the industry, being responsible for some of the biggest jackpot wins of all time.
Age of the Gods
The Age of the Gods is a progressive jackpot that can be randomly won while playing any one of the ancient Greek-inspired slots in the Age of the Gods series available at Playtech casinos.
This pot is divided into four tiers – Power Jackpot, Extra Power Jackpot, Super Power Jackpot, and the Ultimate Power Jackpot. The last one is by far the biggest, and its the one we’ll be talking about here because it’s the one most players are hoping to hit.
You can play any game in the massive series to get the universal bonus round through which you can win the Ultimate Power Jackpot.
The bonus game has you choose between the 20 tiles displayed on the screen. After picking out three matching tiles, you win the credits tied to the jackpot you have drawn. You are guaranteed to win at least one of the four jackpot tiers when you reach the bonus round, so you cannot go home empty-handed.
here is no combination of wins or spins in any of the above games that gives you access to the game. However, you do increase your chances of getting to the bonus game by wagering higher amounts.
Age of the Gods Ultimate Power Jackpot Stats
- Jackpot seed: $100,000
- Total wins recorded: 116
- Biggest win: $984,763
- Average payout: $553,608
- Average time between wins: 6 weeks
The Age of the Gods Ultimate jackpot is quite sizable, but it’s nowhere near the biggest in the industry. On the flip side, the size of the payouts is a lot more consistent, and games in the series tend to have decent RTP even before accounting for the pot. That’s because a relatively small amount of every bet contributes to the progressive pot.
WowPot Mega
The WowPot is another four-tier progressive jackpot initially created by Microgaming but now handled by Games Global.
The new WowPot jackpot consists of four tiers, starting from the bottom with the Mini, then the Minor, and the Major. The Mega WowPot is the biggest one, which is why we’ll look at its stats here.
Despite Mega Moolah’s fame and acclaim, the WowPot is actually the biggest progressive jackpot in the industry. It seeds at an incredible $2 million and is also responsible for several record-breaking payouts.
Unlike many other games in this list, slots on the WoWPot network aren’t necessarily branded as such. The mechanics of activating the progressive bonus vary from hame to game. Some of those on the network include:
- Wheel of Wishes
- Sherlock and Moriarty
- Queen of Alexandria
- African Legends
- 9 Blazing Diamonds
There are others, of course, but these are by far the most popular.
WowPot Mega Jackpot Stats
- Jackpot seed: $2,000,000
- Total wins recorded: 10
- Biggest win: $42,149,180
- Average payout: $8,569,394
- Average time between wins: 25 weeks
Unsurprisingly, the biggest pot is also the hardest to hit. However, winning $42 million is no small matter, especially given the decent average RTP of most WoWPot slots.
Cash Splash
The Cash Splash jackpot is one of the least volatile progressive slot games online. It many ways it’s completely opposite of the WowPot. The top prizes are generally up to a few tens of thousands of dollars, but they hit almost every day.
Much like Mega Moolah and WowPot, it was initially launched by Microgaming, which now places it in the Games Global portfolio.
While playing the 3-reel Cash Splash slot, you must bet the maximum 3 coins and spin 3 Cash Splash symbols to win the jackpot. The coin size is fixed at $1 so you must wager $3 a spin to be eligible for the jackpot.
The 15-line video slot version requires you to bet on all 15 lines and spin 5 Cash Splash symbols on the 15th line only to win the jackpot. The coin size is fixed at 20c so 15 lines at 20c each equals a $3 spin – the same as the 3-reel version.
The chance of winning the progressive jackpot is the same regardless of which Cash Splash slot machine you play.
Cash Spash Jackpot Stats
- Jackpot seed: $5,000
- Total wins recorded: 3,160
- Biggest win: $134,929
- Average payout: $21,667
- Average time between wins:1 day, 17 hours
These stats indicate that this is one of the progressive jackpots that hit the most often. While the seed amount is much smaller than for many of its competitors, the Cash Splash jackpot still reaches hundreds of thousands – a nice chunk of change.
Joker Millions
Joker Millions is a 5 reel, 25 payline video slot released by the software provider Yggdrasil. It’s the only jackpot by this acclaimed game-maker, but it’s a fairly good one offering fun features and a solid RTP rate.
As far as we can tell, the Joker Millions jackpot is not connected to a network. It can only be secured through the single Joker Millions game from 2015. In typical Yggdrasil fashion, The game is very fun to play, mainly due to its “freeze and re-spin” feature. Any winning payline symbols are held and the non-winning symbols are re-spun for free, giving you the chance to win more on every spin.
The jackpot may be won when a player hits 5 joker symbols to move to the Jackpot Spins bonus round. In this feature, the game spins the reels and holds any joker symbols that are landed, which also happen to pay you a mystery win of up to 1000 coins. Every time at least one more Joker symbol appears on a spin, you get another spin. If you manage to fill all 15 positions on the reels with joker symbols, you win the game's considerable progressive jackpot.
Joker Millions Jackpot Stats
- Jackpot seed: $100,000
- Total wins recorded: 17
- Biggest win: €7,831,370
- Average payout: €2,985,974
- Average time between wins: 28 weeks, 2 days
Joker Millions presents a nice middle ground between very high wins and a decent hit frequency. Although 28 weeks looks like a lot, it’s important to note that not nearly as many players are attempting to win the jackpot because it’s not a multi-game network. As a result, your chances of hitting the Joker illions jackpot are bigger than they seem.
Mega Fortune
NetEnt’s Mega Fortune is a highly acclaimed progressive slot game that combines the best of both worlds – a huge progressive pot and a strong RTP rate of 96.4%. It almost sounds too good to be true, but we need to note a few things.
The high RTP is a direct result of a very small jackpot contribution from every bet. Theoretically, that means that it’s slow to grow. However, thanks to the massive popularity of NetEnt slots, this is not as big of an issue as one might think, which you’ll see with the stats.
To win this jackpot you must first make it to the bonus game and then hope that a series of wheel spins land on the Mega Fortune Mega jackpot symbol. To reach the bonus game, you must have three or more bonus wheel symbols come up on a pay line that has been activated.
The Mega level jackpot is pooled amongst all the casinos that offer the game, so it is the same amount no matter where you play. However, the lower-level Major and Rapid jackpots are specific to the casino you are playing at.
Mega Fortune Jackpot Stats
- Jackpot seed: $250,000
- Total wins recorded: 61
- Biggest win: €7,831,370
- Average payout: €17,860,868
- Average time between wins: 13 weeks
The Mega Fortune Jackpot offers frequent progressive jackpot wins relative to their size. The fact that the slot itself has such high base RTP means that this is probably the best progressive slot for beginners and players who want solid returns even without winning any jackpots.
Conclusion
To answer the original question of this article, the most frequent progressive jackpot is Cash Splash by Games Global. However, that also means it’s by far the smallest compared to most of its competition.
If we’re talking about the ratio of payout size vs. win frequency, the Mega Fortune slot game is probably the best progressive option on the market. It can make you a millionaire but still provides decent returns during base gameplay.
However, most players should probably keep in mind that frequent progressive jackpot wins clash with the very goal of such games. They’re intended to be life-changing wins, which means that no worthwhile pot is actually “frequent.”
If you want to find top progressive slots to play, check out this page for a collection of reviews of jackpot slots and the best casinos to play them on.
