Odds Of Winning Progressive Slots

  1. Chances Of Winning Progressive Slots
  2. Odds Of Winning A Progressive Slots
  3. Best Slot Odds
  4. Odds Of Winning A Progressive Slot Machine
  5. What Slots Have Best Odds
  6. Odds On Slot Machines

Progressive jackpot slots are the most exciting casino games. A chance to win a life-changing sum of money will undoubtedly get everyone's attention (and bankroll). But progressive slot machines are far from a good investment; in most situations, they're the worst possible slots you can play, and they will suck your wallet dry faster than any other casino game.

Jackpots may often seem close but not quite there - this happens because a slot machine's wheels are weighted differently. The first reel is the lightest and the last one is the heaviest - from the first reel to the last one, the odds of getting a jackpot become worse and worse.

PLAYING TIPS TO WIN PROGRESSIVE SLOT MACHINES. When playing progressive slot machines the best pay out is always with the max bet allowed. This means, if the game says that the max bet is 3 coins, you should play 3 coins. This is because when you win slots, you only win the maximum jackpot if you bet the max bet.

Types of Jackpots

Casinos have fixed and progressive jackpot slots. With fixed jackpot slots (or 'flat-top slots'), there's usually an incentive to play with maximum coins because the jackpot is bigger relative to the bet than if you made any bets other than with maximum coins. Two examples:

Slot MachineBetsJackpots
Double Diamond Deluxe$0.25/$0.50/$0.75800/1,600/2,500
The Phantom of the Opera$0.25/$0.50/$0.751,000/2,000/5,000

Chances Of Winning Progressive Slots

So a simple yet effective rule is to always bet the maximum when playing flat-top slot machines.

Flat-top slots have a lower house edge than progressive slots and you will win more often (in other words, have a higher hit frequency) since a smaller portion of total payback comes from the jackpot (in flat-tops, this is often around 2% but in a progressive jackpot like Megabucks it's around 10%).

With progressive jackpots slots, a certain percentage of each pot is added to the jackpot and the jackpot increases until someone hits it, after which it re-starts. Because a portion of the bet goes to the jackpot (and not the casino), the house edge is often over 10%, possibly close to 20%.

In fact, in Megabucks 10% of the bet goes to the jackpot, and then the casino must make something on top of that, so the payback is well under 90%.

Progressive jackpots may be high enough to make it worthwhile to play them, however, there's no telling when this is the case since casinos aren't required to share payback information for individual slots.

If you do play them, always bet the maximum amount of coins in order to compete for the jackpot (just like with flat-top slots).

Progressive slot machines can be divided into three categories:

  1. Stand-alone slots:
    Individual progressive slots, not linked to any other machines. Instead of having a fixed jackpot, a percentage of each bet goes to the machine's own jackpot. Obviously the jackpot is smaller than with machines that are linked to each other.
  2. Local slots:
    A group of slot machines linked together in a casino or in properties of the same gaming company. For these machines, the jackpots are already big, but not necessarily in millions of dollars.
  3. Wide-area slots:
    These machines aren't just linked locally but between several casinos in several states; one example being Megabucks, in which the jackpot can become eight figures (as of right now, it's slightly over $11 million.)

There are also multi-level progressive slot machines, in which the player gets to decide which level of jackpot he or she wishes to play for. Obviously, you can win more often by playing lower level progressives and vice versa.

Popular Progressive Slots

Odds Of Winning A Progressive Slots

You can participate in real money slots with progressive prizepools at casinos like Slotland, Spin Palace and Loco Panda. By the way, I've also written about USA slots, Aussie slots and United Kingdom slots.

Following is a list of popular progressive slot machine - this is not a comprehensive list of progressive jackpot slots, just examples of some of the machines that I know of. There are many more but these are some of the biggest.

More information:

Progressive Slots

A progressive slot machine is the most likely way to change your
financial life by gambling. Progressive slots offer the same kind of big life-changing jackpots as the lottery. That's not to say that you're likely to win a progressive slot machine jackpot either. Your chances of winning the lottery are only slightly better than your chances of winning a progressive slot jackpot, but that doesn't necessarily make it the better bet.

Best Slot Odds

Progressive Slot Machines

It's important to note that these are just samples. Some lottery games offer better odds, like 1 in 125,000 on a game in Georgia with a $20 ticket. (That's the exception though, not the rule.) Nothing wrong with the lottery, but...

Progressive slots are better than the lottery because you have a chance of breaking even or winning a smaller jackpot while you're on the road to hitting the big progressive jackpot. Slot machines are designed to give back small amounts more often in order to encourage people to play.

Odds of winning a progressive slots jackpot1 in 49,000,000
Odds of winning the lottery1 in 47,000.000

Odds Of Winning A Progressive Slot Machine

Expected return on a progressive slots bet90%
Expected return on a lottery bet52%

Most other gambling games don't offer a chance at a huge prize. Bet $3 on roulette, and the most money you can expect to win is $105. Bet the same $3 on blackjack, and you might win $18 if you split and hit a blackjack on each card. Bet $3 on a roll of the dice at the craps table, and you might win $30.

But bet $3 on a Wheel of Fortune progressive slot machine and you have a chance (a small chance, but a chance) at a progressive jackpot worth over a million dollars! That's the kind of money you could win playing a progressive game right now. That kind of money can literally change your life.

Traditional Land Based Progressive Jackpots

Traditional landbased progressive jackpots are best exemplified by Megabucks progressive slot. The jackpot for that game usually ranges from between $6 million and $12 million.

Strategies for Winning a Progressive Jackpot

Odds on slot machines

What Slots Have Best Odds

No strategy is going to guarantee your chances of winning a progressive jackpot. In fact, only one strategy will increase your odds. If you don't play, you have a 0 chance of winning. You can increase your chance of winning just by playing. It's still a negative expectation game, but your odds of winning become infinitely larger just by actually giving the reels a spin.

So your strategy for winning a progressive jackpot boils down to deciding how much you're willing to spend on this type of entertainment. You could:

Odds Of Winning Progressive Slots

Odds On Slot Machines

  1. Take one spin per day on a machine that costs $3 to play. That's $1095 a year. If you make a lot of money, that's probably a small enough percentage of your income to make it worth taking a shot. But if not, you might try another strategy.
  2. Take one spin per week on a $3 progressive slot machine. That's only $156 a year. This might be a lot better strategy.
  3. Take ten spins per day on a $3 slot machine. That's $10,950 a year, but if you're a high roller, you can afford to give it a go.

Keep in mind too that you're not guaranteed a loss on these spins. In fact, even if you're playing the lottery, you can expect to get back approximately 52% of your money in payouts. So spending $1095 a year on lottery tickets will only cost you (on average) $1095 X 48%, or $525. But if you play a progressive slot machine online, with a payout percentage of 90%, you can expect to only lose $109.50 in that scenario.

Even if you go with the high roller strategy above, of spending $30 a day on your jackpot attempts, you can expect to get 90% of your money back. So you could budget for losing $1095 even though you're putting $10,950 in action a year.


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