It’s not unusual for multiple casinos nearby each other to have some overlap in their selection of slot machines. How often is there an overlap when it comes to progressive jackpots?
If I play a progressive at the Plaza and then say I go to a different casino (say, MGM) and I’m playing for instance Mystery of the Lamp at both places. Does the Grand Major Minor and Mini progressives stay the same? Or is the progressive for each casino different?
Susan
Almost universally the progressives mentioned, and definitely for Mystery of the Lamp in your example, the progressives are probably not just limited to the casino, but limited to the bank of slots you’ll find them on. If the game appears in multiple banks in the casino, as popular games like Dragon Link often are, you’ll likely find each bank has its own set of progressives.
Most progressives are in some shape or form contained to the four walls of a casino, in part because the casino is liable to pay them out, and so the easiest way to know their liability is to have that limitation.
When progressives do break out of a single casino’s walls, it’s in the form of a wide area progressive that is paid for by the slot manufacturers, and as such work under different rules. Those are usually spotted by being significantly larger than most of the rest, and tend to be moving more quickly and steadily than any other progressives in the casino.
But most slots with progressives will tend to have some stack of prizes, some of which being progressives and some of which being flat jackpots. Using Mystery of the Lamp as our example, there’s only actually two progressives, as the other three prizes are flat jackpots.
In games of this format, which are known as multi-level progressives, the top progressive tends to be linked among all the machines in the bank. Depending on the design of a certain game, that will determine if the second progressive is linked or individual to a machine. Regular Dragon Link players know only the Grand is linked across all machines. But Quick Hit players are used to seeing the whole stack of five progressives on classic machines often linked together, and sometimes set to be individual to a machine.
But that’s still within the walls of the same casino. So for the most part, progressives are limited to one casino. When they’re not, it’s generally pretty clear that it’s one of those bigger progressives that are linked across machines across a geographic area, like Megabucks.
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