History of Progressive Slots

The idea of progressive jackpots was introduced in the early 1980s. When slot makers started adding advanced microprocessors to the games they came up with the concept of progressive jackpots. The point of a progressive jackpot is that a percentage of each bet placed is added to the jackpot prize.

The biggest advance of progressive slots came in 1986 when slot manufacturer IGT introduced the first multi-site linked progressive slot called Megabucks. The introduction of linked jackpots meant the accumulation of huge prizes as players from around the country contributed to the jackpot fund. If you are in the game for winning a huge jackpot, then you must play progressive slots. They are the only ones to offer million dollar jackpot and win a progressive slots jackpot.

Thus in a progressive jackpot, each spin of a button enables to add a percentage of your bet to the jackpot. You can win millions, but the essential thing about playing progressive slots is to play maximum amount of coins. Mostly all progressive jackpots pay huge jackpots if you bet maximum.

However, this tends to give these games a lower payout percentage as opposed to that of standard slots. For example if a progressive automatically takes 5% of you bet to add towards the jackpot then the payout has to be less than 95%. Take off a few extra percentage points for the casinos and you end up with less than a 90% payout. These numbers however vary widely.

Since progressive slots are known to have lower payout ratios, it is advisable to play only a portion of your bankroll on this type of game. If you are lucky, you may win a jackpot, but in the likely event that you are not, at least you will have some money left to play on other games or slots that offer higher percentage payouts.