Page 19 - Southern California Gaming Guide • May 2020

Wheel of Fortune®, Elvis®, Jeopardy®, and many more. Nationwide, MegaJackpotsTM have produced hundreds of millionaires, and have awarded more than $3 billion in major jackpots and in the past have produced million-dollar jackpots on the same day on numerous occasions.
Three Types of Progressive Slots
There are three types of progressive slots: an individual slot machine progressive, a casino-linked progressive, and a wide area progressive.
An individual slot machine progressive starts at a base amount and accrues progressively to a large payout. Examples include the classic still popular Bally Scientific Games $1 slots including Blazing SevensTM and the famously favorite Quick Hit games
including Quick Hit Platinum and a variety of titles. But, as in all progressives, you must play the maximum bet ($3 if it is a $1 slot game)
to win any of the progressive jackpots.
Casino-linked progressives feature large jackpots for one or several banks of slot machines. Examples include Aristocrat Technologies’ award- winning Lightning LinkTM and Dragon LinkTM. These casino progressives can
add up to a tidy jackpot. Lucky local winners played maximum bets on these penny slots and went home with grand jackpots of well over $20,000.
Many wide area progressives are TV show, movie, music or film star and pop music icon-themed slots, usually with lots of fun variations. Wide area progressive jackpots can start from $100,000 to up to $1 million.
So, could you be a winner? Playing progressives is not for everyone. If you have dreams of winning “The Big One,” be certain you always play the maximum bet on a progressive and look at the slot machine payouts carefully.
The odds of hitting a progressive jackpot are in direct proportion to the amount of the jackpot. Small progressives hit often, whereas large, giant progressive hits can be calculated in months. You have to decide how much of your playing cash you want to
spend on progressives.
It’s true that many wide-
area progressive winners put no more than a $20 bill in a machine before hitting. A recent tale purports that a sweet grandmother put her last few
dollars into her favorite wide area progressive, and ended up glassy-eyed, weak-kneed, staring at three Wheels of Fortune® symbols and a payout of over
$200,000! So, it’s all about being in the right place at the right time. When the casinos reopen, you
could be the next big Southern California slot progressive winner.
MAY 2020
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
PAGE 19