Progressive slots, also known as jackpot slots or progressive jackpots, are different to regular slot games because their prize grows rather than being fixed. Every time a player makes a bet into a progressive slot, the jackpot increases in size until a player finally wins. Sometimes they can even run into the billions of Indian rupees.
When this mega prize is won, the jackpot slot returns to its original level and builds up again as more players wager on the new version until that is won.
There are different types of jackpots – standalone progressive, local progressive and wide area network progressive – which we will explain in this guide as well as bring you the top five jackpot slots for Indian players and a history of big jackpot winners.
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Top jackpot slots
When choosing a progressive jackpot slot game, it will pay to pick a casino that accepts Indian rupees. This will ensure you don’t lose any money converting currencies and removes one step of hassle from the process of signing up.
Plenty of casino sites such as Leo Vegas, Royal Panda and Betway accept Indian rupees and process payments swiftly. Once you’ve found which casino to play at, these are the games you should consider:
Arabian Nights
One of the few slots offered by NetEnt with a progressive jackpot, when you get a combination of five wild symbols you land a massive windfall. The graphics are great too, with the wild symbol a turbaned sultan with a funky moustache holding up a sparkling red jewel. A golden genie lamp represents the scatter symbol that activates 15 free spins and triples your wins when it appears in a cluster of three anywhere.
Mega Moolah
This global progressive giant is known for being in the Guinness book of world records for biggest payout, so there’s no surprise we’ve included it here. That was a stunning €18,915,873 (over ₹1.4billion) which we’ll go into more detail later. Play across four different themes – African safari, Egyptian and two summer versions – for your chance of landing a huge cheque. This Microgaming offering has four jackpots in total – Mini, Minor, Major and Mega.
Unfortunately, Mega Moolah casinos do not yet offer Indian rupees as a currency play, with most Indian players choosing to convert their money into Dollars or Euros. At least any winnings are paid out in a single lump sum. If you land three scatters on the reels that activates 15 free spins, which sees a 3x multiplier applied to all wins. This title really is mega with the minimum jackpot amount set at $2m.
Age of the Gods: God of Storms
Playtech is behind the super-popular Age of Gods series, with their God of Storms title offering a fun Greek mythology theme based on Aeolus – the divine keeper of the winds. This one is all about the Argo wild symbol which appears stacked and when it does, players trigger the Wild Wind Respins features where Aeolus blows the stacked wild one reel to the left.
Each spin aims at one of four ever-increasing jackpots, which is awarded randomly and sees players collect gold coins. There are 20 in total, with each coin referring to one of the four levels of the jackpot. When a player opens three identical coins they will receive the corresponding jackpot.
Kingdoms Rise: Reign of Ice
Another from the Playtech stable, this progressive jackpot delivers on graphics with large icicles covering everything but the reel and offers a new angle on bonuses – with players accumulating tokens as they play to spend on bonuses they choose rather than triggering them automatically.
The game has three progressive jackpots – one that pays before reaching a certain amount, another time-sensitive progressive and a standard one with the biggest prize. Reign of Ice is the fourth installment in the Kingdoms Rise series, with this one featuring five reels, 25 active lines and modes such as unlimited respins where multipliers boost wins to wilds and locked symbols. The volatility is ranked at medium.
Mega Fortune
The largest progressive jackpot slot in the NetEnt library that has delivered some of their biggest casino payouts, this game features scatters, wild symbols, a free spin bonus and a wheel of fortune jackpot bonus that works with multiple levels. To have a shot at the jackpots you must activate the bonus game by landing three or more bonus symbols in succession on an active bet line, then spin the wheels and hope for the best.
This 25-payline slot looks great too, set against the backdrop of luxury boats with champagne, cash and limos among the symbols.
History of big jackpot winners
While plenty of progressive jackpot winners prefer to stay anonymous after landing their big win, there are some that have been happy to shout from the rooftops about their success. Unfortunately, it appears so far that there has not been a player from India to go public with a jackpot victory, although perhaps one of the anonymous jackpot winners in US Dollars, Euros, British pounds or another currency did in fact hail from India given the popularity of progressive jackpots in the country.
Anyway, the biggest winner on record came in 2018 when one lucky punter landed €18,915,873 (₹1,464,693,878) on Microgaming’s Mega Moolah jackpot. This person wished to prefer anonymous after collecting the life-changing amount following a 75 cent bet on their Android mobile phone.
This payout exceeded the previous record – also set on Mega Moolah – €17,879,645 (₹1,384,456,672) which went to war veteran Jon Heywood, who won with just a 25 pence bet on the Betway website from Cardiff, Wales.
Before that a man in his 40s from Finland won an amazing €17,861,800 (₹1,387,579,994) playing on Mega Fortune from just a 25 cent bet. A mega fortune indeed.
Perhaps the happiest and most aptly-named jackpot winner was Marcus Goodwin, who landed $11,633,898 (₹836,820,466) playing Mega Moolah in 2016.
How progressive jackpots work
Progressive jackpots start with an initial value set by the developer, large enough to attract plenty of players. As more players join the game to spin the reels and wager on the slots, part of their bets go towards the jackpot pool. When a player lands the required combination, they win a huge payout. The jackpot then returns to its default setting and builds up again as players wager.
There are three types of progressive jackpots:
Standalone progressive – Has a jackpot ticker and works like a standard progressive jackpot with the only difference being that the jackpot size is only increased by bets placed on that specific machine.
Local progressive – The first linked progressive jackpot, where machines are connected together inside a casino site producing bigger prizes.
Wide area network progressive – This links several different machines and casinos together over a wide area creating huge jackpot sizes. Mega Moolah is of this type and is connected not only with Indian online casinos but others globally, with the more players and casinos joining, the bigger the jackpot!
