Wide Area Progressives offer some of the biggest potential prizes in the casino. These prizes, funded by the manufacturers of the slots and carried across an array of casinos in a particular area (such as a state or group of states), offers life-changing prizes to those who win them.
But what happens when you actually win one? Today’s question is an extrapolation of one received from a player who won a Wide Area Progressive on an Everi slot machine. But she was confused because the one-time payout option offered an amount that was less than the prize listed on the machine. So we reached out to our friends at Everi for confirmation on the options.
Many slot machine makers have or had sister companies that worked in the lottery provider space. Lottery players are familiar with games such as Powerball or Mega Millions, both of which also offer life changing jackpots and advertise massive potential top prizes. But look closely at their websites and you’ll see reference to a “Cash Prize” or “Cash Option,” which is often 50% or less of the advertised top prize.
The reason for this is the full prize is awarded when you accept payments in installments. Usually these take somewhere between 20 and 30 years to resolve, and you receive payments on a schedule. Part of the reason a game maker can offer these prizes is they are able to invest a portion of the money, generate interest over time, and fully fund the prize in that fashion.
When a one-time payment, also known as a lump sum, is selected by a player, no such investing and interest is able to be completed, so the money they would have otherwise invested is awarded instead, and of course it’s going to be a fraction of the amount that the installment approach could offer.
Wide Area Progressives have largely adopted this format as well, which Everi confirmed in our outreach to them. The options for claiming a prize are often spelled out in the pay table, and sometimes manufacturers will be even more transparent and place a sticker on the machine outlining how the top prize is awarded.
While not required, it can be a friendly reminder that a wide area progressive isn’t bankrolled by the casino, and is instead handled differently through the manufacturers. (Casinos bankroll most progressive prizes, particularly standalone and linked progressives within the casino’s walls, and pay them out instantly when won by a player.)
The specifics can sometimes differ depending on the wide area progressive on offer – most manufacturers have multiple progressives active at any given time, and the specific rules can differ among them, even within a manufacturer. So like other aspects of a slot, it can be helpful to give those rules a skim, so in case you are one of the lucky winners of one, you know what to expect.
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